Podcasts about so friday

So Random, So Strange The World Keeps on Not Spinning.... The Strangeness Never Sleeps  DOT.CONNECTOR.PODCAST by BMC In case you didn't get a chance to check out the live show on Friday night, your boy Booges got ya covered. Now you can reference this wrap up report,  listen to the podcast or even watch it in HD. You're welcome world! I'm sure that was enough for a Mic Drop but I'll continue like it wasn't. Another Mind-Blowing, Mind-Melting Exhibit of Excellence and that's just what I think of myself, I can't wait to talk about the show....HHHHEEEYYYYOOOOOO!! Here you can hit play, sit back and put your feet up. So what the hell are you waiting for? Hit play already and put your damn feet up! Boogie Down Friday! Randomness and Strangeness - Anything Goes... Friday was an insanely fun night, or at least I thought so. The live show on YouTube was really just the beginning to a night that never ended. Because after the live show we took the party to Discord Chat and did whatever the hell we wanted until the next day and so.....we did! I can't get enough of the After Parties we host in Discord Chat, they just keep getting better and better. It's gotten to the point where I believe some folks are ONLY going to Boogie Down Fridays just so they can meet us all in the Discord Chat Server afterwards. I really can't say that I blame them. I know that's the ONLY reason I go to the live shows. I hope you all know that for 2-3 hours during these live events I'm really doing what I have to do and saying what I have to say to waste time until it's time to start the afterparty. That's how much I love them. Of course I'm just joking but could you imagine? During Friday's live show we rocked the house when we presented one of the coolest and most intense strangeness compilations I've ever designed for a live show. It was a amazing mix of comets, shooting stars, green fireballs, tornados, storm clouds, anomalies in the sky, catastrophic events and extreme weather along with tons of other badass things our Earth loves to throw at us. I know we should be scared about these sorts of things but once your tainted by these anomalies and catastrophic events there's no turning back or even taking the events seriously. Maybe I shouldn't have said those things out loud but what are you gonna do? I'm a VJ host on YouTube and podcast publisher on over 50 different online platforms, a vlogger, blogger, content creator, publisher and all around badass (not really but let me dream); I don't know how to do internal dialog anymore. It seems like everytime I get a thought in my head it's coming out of my mouth far before my brain tells me I should shut up and not say those things out loud. Oh well! This week was quite a busy week for me as I've taken on a new client frankly because I needed the money. The money was amazing so who am I to say no? My point is that I didn't have a lot of time to prepare for the live shows this past weekend but somehow they still came out amazing. I really think everything was perfect and I wouldn't change it for the world although I'm nodding out and falling asleep while typing this. You all know how much I love paranormal videos and photos, hell I love paranormal audio as well. I love everything paranormal. So Friday night was packed with paranormal videos and discussions as well. We reviewed some amazing videos from around the web when we took a look at a few more insane videos with spirits, orbs, shadow figures and of course demons. We love demons. Not like we love dating, sleeping with or even worshipping them but we love watching them do their thing. I chose a few paranormal gems that allow us to study their ways, their practices and other information we can use against them if the time ever comes when we're confronted by them. I really don't watch ghost videos and paranormal content in order to get scared, I don't watch this stuff for anything but research purposes believe it or not.

Michael Levitt is the founder & Chief Burnout Officer of The Breakfast Leadership Network, a San Diego and Toronto-based burnout media firm. In this week's episode, Michael and Alyssa talk about the silent killer: Burnout. Michael shares his story of how he almost lost his life from toxic stress and burnout. He now spends his time trying to educate others on how they can recognize the signs of burnout and seek the help that they need before it is too late.  Support the Podcast More info can be found at https://BreakfastLeadership.com/media Blog is at https://BreakfastLeadership.com/blog Books:  Burnout Proof:  How To Establish Boundaries To Avoid The Negativity Of Stress https://amzn.to/2JkbKxQ 369 Days:  How To Survive A Year of Worst-Case Scenarios:  https://amzn.to/38Zd807   Transcript:   Alyssa Scolari [00:23]: Hello friends, good afternoon, good morning, good evening, good night wherever you are, whatever time it is. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Light After Trauma Podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari. Today we are here to talk about another juicy topic. I love this topic. Again, I know I say that all the time, but this topic I am very passionate about. We are here to talk about B-U-R-N-O-U-T. So no I can't sing, but yes I'm going to anyway on this podcast. For those of you who struggle with spelling, that spells burnout. I'm really, really excited. Our guest today, who really has made his entire career and his biggest passion about burnout prevention, his name is Michael Levitt. Michael is the founder and Chief Burnout Officer of The Breakfast Leadership Network, a San Diego and Toronto based burnout media firm. He is an in-person and certified virtual speaker, a certified NLP and CBT therapist, and is one of the world's leading authorities in burnout recovery and prevention. He is a Fortune 500 consultant, a number one bestselling author, and host of The Breakfast Leadership Show, a top 200 podcast on iTunes. That's so exciting! He is a former healthcare executive, CIO and CFO overseeing $2 billion budgets, so he has truly seen and done it all. Hello Michael, welcome to the Light After Trauma Podcast. How's it going? Michael Levitt [02:14]: I am awesome. I'm looking forward to our chat today. Alyssa Scolari [02:17]: Me, too. I have to ask you from reading your bio, you're on the West Coast? Michael Levitt [02:23]: I split my time between San Diego and Toronto, and actually at the time of this recording I'm in Toronto. With the U.S. Canadian border closure they've closed it to non-essential travel, and apparently I'm not essential. So I get to stay here, which is fine. Alyssa Scolari [02:23]: Lovely. Michael Levitt [02:40]: I'm a dual citizen so I get to vote and screw up two countries, and I'm comfortable either place. Plus the weather now in Toronto is nice, so it's not bad. You should talk with me in the winter, I'm like oh, why am I here. Alyssa Scolari [02:40]: I'm sure. Michael Levitt [02:53]: But things are opening up. I anticipate by the fall of this year that it'll be easier to travel and all of that, and I'm looking forward to it. Alyssa Scolari [03:06]: Yeah. So Toronto to San Diego? Michael Levitt [03:10]: Yeah, it's a five hour flight one way, anyway. If you've got stops, then of course it gets much longer. But it's about a five hour flight, and obviously a little bit different temperature during the year. Right now we're about the same because I have the weather out on my phone for both locations, and I always look at them like oh wow, we're actually warmer than San Diego today, interesting. But that doesn't happen a lot. But in the summertime it does, but not so much when that crinkly white stuff's falling from the sky. It's like you don't tend to see that too much in San Diego. In the mountains yes, but not by Gaslamp or anything like that. Alyssa Scolari [03:52]: No, not when you're hanging out at the San Diego Zoo. Michael Levitt [03:55]: Exactly, yeah. The polar bears might be happy, it's like finally we've got the weather right. Alyssa Scolari [04:00]: Right, at last. Michael Levitt [04:03]: Exactly. Alyssa Scolari [04:04]: Well, that's actually really cool. Obviously I'm sure it comes with its frustrations, undoubtedly. But I don't know, that's kind of neat to essentially have lives in two different countries. We're here today to talk about burnout which as I stated earlier is one of my favorite topics, definitely getting more attention as we were talking about, but there's not a lot of action. First it's like acknowledging that this is a problem and then it's like okay, maybe we should start thinking about taking action. I'm going to turn it over to you, the burnout expert. What is burnout? What does that mean? Michael Levitt [04:45]: Burnout is when you have prolonged stress basically, to really narrow it down. It's basically when you are completely fatigued, exhausted, you're mentally and physically drained. You have no motivation to do anything, and it's been over an extended period of time. Now for each person, that could be a different period of time. Some people can burn out pretty quickly, and others it could take several years for it to build up depending on what's going on. But that's the thing I see with everybody that is actually at that burned out state is they're just done. They don't have any motivation, they're fatigued, they're living life in a fog, they really can't see things clearly and quite frankly they're almost numb to life, which is no way to exist. Alyssa Scolari [05:37]: Absolutely. I relate to that so well. I think that's a really, really good description because it's just like that sense of almost like you're just going through the motions I think, and nothing really means much to you good or bad. It's just kind of like, oh. Or on the other sense, I feel like sometimes it can also be like you're the Energizer bunny where it's like I can't stop, I can't stop, I can't take a day off, I have to do this, people need me. People need me, I can't take a day off, I can't afford to, that type of mentality as well. I think it could maybe go either way. Michael Levitt [06:12]: It does, and a lot of people that I see that are burned out are what we like to call people pleasers, and they don't want to let anybody down so they just continue working. Maybe they're Type A personalities, very driven, very successful and have always put in those 12, 14, 16 hour days kind of thing, and they wear it like it's a badge of honor. And it's like no, actually you'll end up having a different type of badge and it'll be whatever they put around your wrist when you're in the hospital, or a toe tag if you don't take care of yourself. I definitely flirted with that with my burnout journey. Alyssa Scolari [06:52]: Yeah. It's funny. As you're speaking I'm like oh, I feel personally attacked right here because that honestly, it truly was me. It was chronic people pleasing, just working 12, 14 hour days. I think for me, I watched my mom get very, very sick and she almost died. We were told she was going to die. I think it was a result of her chronic people pleasing and her burnout that is the reason why she almost died, and to this day continues to have health issues. So I think that was a really big turning point for me. But I know you have an entire journey of your own with burnout. Would you mind talking a little bit about that? Michael Levitt [07:38]: Sure, I'd love to. Back in 2007, I was hired as a healthcare executive for a startup healthcare organization just outside of Windsor Ontario, Canada. I'm a dual citizen born in the U.S., immigrated to Canada in 2004 with my former wife and became a citizen in 2011, hence the vote and screw up two countries joke that I made earlier. But in this role, and anybody that's ever worked in a startup, you know there's a lot of work involved, there's a lot of things to set up. I had to recruit physicians, hire staff, educate the community on why our clinic was better than the other clinics that had been in town for several years, and had a very proactive board of directors. Even though I was an employee, as a people pleaser or I identify myself now asa a reformed people pleaser, but as a- Alyssa Scolari [08:37]: I love that. Michael Levitt [08:37]: ... former people pleaser I took it on my own and said, "Well, I'm going to act as if this is my company." Which it isn't, but I acted as if it was, and was driven and was basically working 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. seven days a week for a solid two years. During that time, when you're working that many hours and you're in an office type of role, you're not getting any level of exercise to speak of, and I certainly wasn't. Of course when you're an executive and we all know this, who gets the real close parking spot to the door? The executive. So I wasn't even getting 10,000 steps just because my parking spot was so good. I'd be lucky if I probably got 2,000 steps a day, because our clinic size was rather small at that point. So I wasn't doing that. My nutrition plan quite frankly was breakfast, lunch and dinner, ordering in a microphone, drive around the corner, paying for it and getting a brown bag handed to me. I just ... Of course working those long hours, you tend to eat differently. So you're eating later than you normally do so that of course, your body doesn't have an opportunity to break that down before you crash into bed, which then your body's got to break that down while you're sleeping. And sleep is so critical in prevention of burnout, and people that don't get good sleep it's really problematic, and I'll talk about that in a moment. But this went on for two years. Then finally in May of 2009 I had what I refer to as my year of worst-case scenarios. I was mowing my front lawn on a Monday night, actually it was ... The anniversary is this week, ironically. But I was mowing my front lawn, and we had a small lawn and gas prices were expensive back then as they are now at the time of this recording. I had an electric mower and this thing was really bulky to turn, it wasn't light at all, it was really hard to turn. I mow the first row, and then I turned the lawn mower to mow the next row. I felt this incredible pain in the center of my chest. It really felt like I had pulled a muscle, and it hurt so bad that I couldn't continue mowing the lawn. Then I went inside, I took some pain medication. The pain went away unless I lifted anything with my right arm. I'm left-handed so I don't tend to lift a lot with my right arm, but occasionally I do. And anytime I lifted anything, that pain would be there. It was dull, it didn't hurt badly, but it did have some discomfort. So that went on for a few days. Then Thursday night of that week I went out to a local restaurant that had an all you could eat special, and I took them up on that offer. I had all kinds of fried sea ... really tasty not good for you food and washed it down with a few adult beverages, and life was good. Went to bed, and then about an hour and a half after going to sleep I woke up again with that pain that I had on Monday night, but it was at least 10 times worse. It literally felt like an elephant was stepping on my chest. At that point I thought okay, this is what you get for eating all of that food. It's just ... You're getting acid reflux or indigestion or whatever. So I got out of bed after I caught my breath, went into the bathroom, took some Tums, was able to fall asleep. So Friday morning comes. That pain that I'd been feeling every time I lifted anything with my right arm was persistent, it wasn't going away. So after working about 45 minutes and reminder, I'm working in a medical clinic, I decide to approach one of our physicians and asked him if he could take a look. Because I explained to him what had happened that week and he listened. He was going, "It's probably nothing but we got the EKG equipment here, why don't we run a test just to make sure there's nothing going on because it sounds different, something's weird. So I just want to check things out." I'm like, "Okay." I go back into the procedure room, so our physician is in there, one of our nurses and one of our admin/medical assistants were in the room. And all of a sudden they just start laughing hysterically, they can't control themselves they're laughing so hard. The reason being is because their boss is taking his clothes off at work in front of them, so they're making all kinds of sexual harassment jokes. Now of course this is before Me Too and all of that, it wasn't appropriate then, certainly isn't appropriate now, but they were doing that. I'm as red as a tomato, I'm embarrassed. I'm not thinking anything else. So after they had a couple minutes of conversations they said, "Okay, well let's go ahead and get the test going." So they hook up all the electrodes and they run the test and they look at the results, and they're perplexed. They're like, "This looks weird. You know what, let's disconnect everything and we're going to put new leads on and we're going to run the test again." So they did and they put the little electrodes which are basically little tape things with wires, and they tape them all over your legs and your chest and arms and all that stuff. They did it again and they placed it in different spots, and they got the same results. So they took the results and they faxed them off to Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor and Dr. [Gena 00:14:02] who was a cardiologist there at the time. Got the paperwork, and then about 10 minutes later called the clinic and said, "Tell Michael to get his butt in the hospital right now, and he can't drive." I had a pretty significant heart attack that Thursday night. I had two blockages in my left interior descending artery, which is known as the widowmaker because if people have heart attacks with blockages in that artery they tend to die. Statistically speaking, most people do. I didn't, thankfully. But that set off what I call my year of worst-case scenarios. So 17 weeks after that, I was let go from that job because they wanted to go in a different direction. Mind you, this is 2009. Remember the Great Recession? Alyssa Scolari [14:46]: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Michael Levitt [14:48]: I'm in Windsor across the border from Detroit Michigan where GM, Ford and Chrysler were drowning, and GM and Chrysler had filed bankruptcy and got government assistance to stay afloat. Ford wasn't doing much better, but they were able to navigate without getting a lot of government assistance. Needless to say there wasn't a lot of jobs around, and anybody that did have jobs certainly weren't going to be leaving them. So it took me several months to find a new job. Ended up relocating to Toronto where I could find some work, and about two weeks into my new job, and this was in April of 2010, I get a phone call from my oldest daughter, who today is her birthday. Happy birthday, [Sarah 00:15:30]. Alyssa Scolari [15:30]: Oh, happy birthday. Michael Levitt [15:32]: There you go. But she was little at the time. And she called me at work and crying, I couldn't understand a thing she was saying, and then finally I was able to get from her that the bank had come and repossessed our family vehicle. Because when you're on unemployment and anybody that has ever been through that, they know the income is less so you're getting less money coming in. Obviously I wasn't working because I was recovering from my cardiac event, and I was also taking heart medication that was $1,000 a month because I had no drug coverage. So food and drugs, not the fun ones but the ones to keep your heart alive were quite frankly, what we could afford. We had worked with all of our creditors and they had given us a pretty extensive grace period and I'm thankful for that, but unfortunately that grace period ran out, and the bank exercised their right to take back the car. Fast forward to May of 2010, so almost a year after my cardiac event we find a place to move the family up in Toronto, I was commuting back and forth. We got everything unpacked from the movers, and we realized that we left our bunk bed ladder for our daughter's bed back in the old house. I was going back there the next week to visit with family and friends and all of that, and I said, "Well, I'll just swing by the house, grab that and anything else we left behind," because we were going to be listing it with a realtor that following week, it was ready to put back on the market even though the market was horrible. It's like we got to sell it, we can't pay rent and a mortgage at the same time, that's not going to work. But they were all ... Obviously our mortgage payments weren't being made either because of all the things that were going on. So I went down there, had the good visit with the family, and then I went by the house to grab the ladder and whatever else we left behind. Opened up the screen door on the front of the house, I saw the largest padlock I've ever seen in my life. I've never seen this padlock at Home Depot or anywhere else, and there was a small sticker on the door that said, "Foreclosure." Now we never got any notices from the bank saying that we were that close to that happening. I'm not sure what happened, but we didn't get the notices. So basically over a year I had a heart attack that should have killed me, lost my job during the Great Recession, had my car repossessed and my home foreclosed. All of those things happened because I was burned out. My burnout created all those scenarios. I wasn't taking care of myself, I was making mistakes at work. I was constantly in a fog and I wasn't motivated to do anything in life. I certainly wasn't eating right, wasn't sleeping well, and all of those things, all those dominoes came tumbling down. Thankfully, I survived it. But it was obviously not a fun period of time, and I see so many people that are burning out or approaching burnout, they're flirting with their own year of worst-case scenarios and it scares the crap out of me. So that's why I do the work that I do. Alyssa Scolari [18:38]: Now at what point was it when you saw that padlock with the foreclosure sticker on it, did that hit you? At what point did it click in your brain that this is what it is, this is burnout? Because I think a lot of people who may not necessarily be aware of burnout tend to go down this other thought path of, why can't I catch a break, why do all these bad things happen to me, I'm just that guy or I'm just that person that I just get shit on all the time. Michael Levitt [19:12]: Yeah. For me it was during that 17 week recovery before I had lost my job was I did a lot of deep ... Because I had plenty of time and wasn't working, just deep review of what in the world happened, how did I get to this point? Why am I having to take a nap at 2:00 p.m. every day when I was 40 years old at the time? 40 is a little young to have a cardiac event. But we're seeing- Alyssa Scolari [19:43]: Yeah, that's really young. Michael Levitt [19:43]: ... We're seeing a lot of people now. I know a lot of people in the healthcare industry, there's still a lot of people that are starting to have heart attacks even before 40. That's not good because unless you make some dramatic changes, you could have 30 or 40 years of having to take medications, who knows if you had any ... Thankfully I didn't have any long lasting impact from mine, but I know some people could have strokes, or partially paralyzed or inability to work. It's not something you want to mess with. But during that time I did a lot of reading, which is something that I had stopped doing. When I was younger I read a lot, and then college and university my reading switched to textbooks and things like that. But after getting out of college I didn't read for pleasure, I hadn't for several years and I loved doing it, I just got away from it. So during that time I rekindled my love for reading. I would read different types of books, leadership books and inspiration books and comedy books, just to read and relax. I realized that leading up to my 369 days, I forgot how to relax. I didn't know how to relax. And a lot of people I think are in that boat because they've been going so much, they're so driven, Type A, people pleasing, they never let up off the gas. And when something happens and there's a lull, they don't know how to react so they have to grab something quickly to fill that "void." That's no way to live. For me, case in point yesterday I was supposed to be on two different shows yesterday, and both of them had to reschedule for whatever reason. Basically that cleared out a good chunk of my day. Did I fill it with anything? No. I listened to some music, I sat out on the balcony so the weather's beautiful now. So just relaxed, just kind of eased into things, and that's an amazing way to fill time. Because automatically we look at that long to do list that we all seem to have and we go, "Oh, I can tackle this and this." You could. Should you? Or should you if you're not- Alyssa Scolari [19:43]: Not necessarily. Michael Levitt [22:08]: ... Yeah, if you need that time to just ... Do it. Don't worry, that stuff's still going to be there. Don't worry about that. Alyssa Scolari [22:17]: Right, it's all going to be there, and I think you speak to something so important which is something that I up until recently, have truly struggled with my entire life was this concept of well, when there is a gap. For me, even a couple years ago if there was a weekend where I didn't have anything to do, I was crawling out of my skin, crawling out of my skin. Those are just your big red burnout flags of okay, I can't be still for even a hot minute. So for you to now be at this place, where did that transformation come? At what point did you go, "Okay, I am reinventing myself and now actually going to make this my career"? Michael Levitt [23:06]: For me the reinvention started initially during that 17 week recovery period, and then of course after losing the job then my full time job was to find a full time job. That took several months to do so, and that was where my focus was, and I basically had boundaries on it. It's like okay, from 9:00 to 5:00 Monday to Friday I'm going to research and look for opportunities. On the weekends, I'm not. I'm not going to look for jobs, I'm not going to do research. I'm just going to watch sports, do something with the kids, run errands, whatever the case, and just live life. So I started getting in the habit of getting some time blocks around when I work. Then when I finally found the new role which ironically was in healthcare again, my parents wanted to have me committed. They said, "Are you kidding me? You're going back into the field that nearly killed you? Are you that stupid?" And I'm like- Alyssa Scolari [23:06]: Do you have a death wish? Michael Levitt [24:06]: There's quicker ways to do this, not that we want you to and please don't, people. But they were quite beside themselves. I said to them, "Look. I've done a lot of work on me over these last several months. I want to give this another shot and I want to approach it differently, completely different than what I did before." And I did. I stayed in healthcare for another ... Do the math here, that would have been almost eight years. But during that time for, I guess from 2010 to I'd say 2014, was just working on myself and working. I was getting really successful and doing things in the healthcare space, I was on boards of directors and all this kind of stuff, so going back to that people pleasing thing and giving back and all of that. Then I realized in January of 2015 I was like whoa, my calendar. I don't like what this looks because I started color coding my calendar and meetings I always used the color red, which I think a lot of people see red when they have to have a lot of meetings. But I used that one for not good meetings, just a work thing. So I look at my calendar and I just start ... Digital calendar of course, and skimming back and forth. And I'm like, I'm seeing a lot of red. I said, "That's not good." So I looked at it and I started counting the number of meetings that I was going to have in the first part of 2015. And in January I had 57 different meetings. And I said, "Okay. Let's not do this again." So I immediately resigned from two boards of directors, and withdrew from a handful of committees at work. I said, "No," switched the team meetings from monthly to quarterly, and just by March it was like I had six meetings. So I went from 57 to six, and was like okay, why did I do that, then I kind of revisit. I'm like, "All right." Then I started talking with my colleagues and noticing wait a minute, there's a lot of people that are flirting with burnout in this sector and this is healthcare. So I started talking with them about it, not really sharing what happened to me but saying, knowing what I had known and the studies that I'd done. And well, I'm just going to work through it, which is the common answer a lot of people think on how they'd beat burnout. It's I'm just going to work harder, I'm going to work through it. Alyssa Scolari [26:39]: Right, or it's like I'll wait until the summertime, and then once summer comes then I'll be able to take a break. Or it's like once I just get through this real big project that I have going on at work, then everything will be fine. Michael Levitt [26:51]: Right. Well, it isn't. Because we've seen studies. I know The Hartford just did a study, indicated that 61% of people working are identifying as burning out. Deloitte did one as well that said that 77% of the people they surveyed have been burned out in their current job. Seven, almost eight out of 10 people. We've got a huge, huge challenge with this. So for me, when I started seeing this and everybody was saying well, I'm going to work through it, I'm like, "That's not going to work." So I just started doing a little bit more research on burnout, a little bit deeper dive. Even back then six years ago, there was some conversations happening but not as much as what we're seeing today. But there was still a lot of material and a lot of research and the stuff that, the Maslach stuff out in California and Dr. Freudenberger who wrote a book that was published in 1980 called Burnout. 1980, okay? Alyssa Scolari [27:54]: 1980? Michael Levitt [27:56]: Yeah, 1980. The phrase burnout, he was the one, a German guy, died about 20 years ago, I guess. But he first coined the phrase burnout in the public forum in 1973, so this is not new. But it's getting worse because what's happened is, and I'll use this example. My iBinky, that's the nickname gave my brother gave me, my iPhone because if I don't have it, I'm like a little kid without their pacifier or their binky, not happy. So he's like, "Can you put down your iBinky for a minute?" And based on the number of hours I spent on it, the answer is not likely. But these devices, the smartphones, the laptops, they're great devices because they allow us to work anywhere at anytime. But the disadvantage is we can work anywhere at anytime. And we're horrible of establishing boundaries around when we work and when we don't. It's so easy. I mean, for many of us our laptop's probably just sitting open all the time at a table somewhere, or if we got a computer we just go ... Or the phone is literally two seconds, unlock, go to it, answer that text message or answer the WhatsApp message or the email or the Slack message, or all the notifications we get on a daily basis from these things. We don't shut down. I think back to my dad, he used to work years ago at General Motors, and he worked on the assembly line for the most part, but towards the tail end of his career he worked in the engine assembly plant. And he drove a forklift, so he would deliver engine blocks to the assembly line so they could put engines in the cars and continue building them. I never remember seeing a forklift come home. He never brought it home. I'm sure the emotions and stress of working in the auto industry which was up and down, he did bring that home. But he never worked on anything at home. Well for the majority of us we can work at home, on the beach, on our vacation, all these other places. You see these images on Instagram, oh look at my office today. And it's like you see this ocean or mountains and things like that. Yeah, it's cool that you can work in a beautiful setting, I get it. But are you taking time to actually experience that beautiful setting, or are you just plugging away? If you're not enjoying that time, I'm going to save you several thousand dollars right now. Don't go on that trip, have your background image on your computer of those mountains and just work at your desk, because that's basically what you're doing. Alyssa Scolari [30:40]: Right, and save your money for all the health bills that are going to come when you eventually suffer whatever illness befalls you because you're not truly taking the time to unplug, relax, unwind. Michael Levitt [30:57]: It's critical. I mentioned sleep a little while ago. Lack of sleep impacts your cognitive ability, your awareness, how you digest your foods, pattern recognition, problem solving skills. But the thing of it is when we don't get good sleep, the lack of clarity, the fogginess, all that, what happens is then you start making mistakes at work, or you have to work harder and longer on things because you're not able to flow through things. So if you get a bad night's sleep and we've all had that, we know how we feel the next day. If that's consistent over a period of time, then that's when you start having all types of mental and physical ailments and issues, and you can end up with clogged arteries or a stroke or hypertension or chronic diseases, you name it. Over two dozen of the chronic diseases that we identify as chronic diseases have stress as one of the contributors. Alyssa Scolari [32:00]: A thousand percent. Even I would dare say a lot of autoimmune diseases as well, not all but a lot of them are related to chronic stress. Michael Levitt [32:11]: Yeah. Because your body and your brain's going I got this stress, this is a toxin to ourselves, I need to send the energy to go fix that. So it's using energy that could be used to help prevent all kinds of different things. I don't know, like maybe COVID for example. People that are stressed out, I haven't seen anything on this, but I'm certain that your stress is going to lower your immunity to be able to fight off things. That's why when you see people stressed, they get coughs and colds and whatnot. Well, you don't want to be flirting with COVID either, so again that's so important for you to get a good night's sleep and do the necessary things to keep your stress at a minimum. Because if you don't have prolonged stress, you won't burn out. Burnout needs the stress. If you don't have the prolonged stress, you won't burn out. Alyssa Scolari [33:05]: Exactly. I know when we first connected, you talked a little bit about the work from home burnout because of COVID, and I think it's interesting because I see in my practice and then the people in my life, the people who are truly thriving from working from home like my husband, he's genuinely thriving, have incredible boundaries with themselves where he opens up that laptop at 7:00 a.m., and at 3:00 p.m. it is shut. His phone is gone, and we don't even talk about work. But for the most part like you said, a lot of us don't have great boundaries with ourselves, which I think is probably why the work from home is really, really causing major burnout in folks. Michael Levitt [33:56]: It is. I mean and also the, I have to do everything. Well spoiler, you're not going to be able to. Alyssa Scolari [34:03]: Ever. Michael Levitt [34:04]: So many people became full time schoolteachers during this pandemic as well. So, and we know the school time tends to coincide with when many of us work. Well, you're trying to do two things that are completely different at the same time. It's not going to work, so that's why you see a lot of parents getting up earlier and they're doing a little bit of work, and then they're helping their kids with school and making sure they're on the computer doing the schoolwork and not on their PlayStation 5, and then after dinner they're working again. These long days are not sustainable. The healthy organizations have recognized this and said okay, we need to focus on what we really need to do right now for our customers, and do that. And the other stuff, we'll get to it if it needs to get to. But unfortunately, there's a lot of organizations that have micromanaging managers that were micromanaging before that have completely lost it because they can't physically see you, and they're like, "I don't know how to manage people if I don't know how to see them." So that's why you hear all those horror stories of you need to stay connected on the Zoom call all day with your camera on. I'm like, "Am I six?" [crosstalk 00:35:21] I approach these managers and I'll ask them, "Why do you do that?" "Well, I don't trust them to do their job." "Okay, wait a minute. You don't trust your employees?" "No." "Then fire them. Right now, go." "I can't do that." "Why?" "Well, I need them." "But you don't trust them?" "No." "Then why did you hire them?" It's the managers lack confidence, training, maybe sometimes there's a personality issue, but for the most part it's confidence, a lack of training in how to manage because no one gets the proper training on that or leaders, for that matter. Alyssa Scolari [36:07]: Yeah, and I think it also can be burnout on the manager's end. When you get to the point, and they even say this in the therapy world, when you get to the point where you feel like you can't trust other people and you have to micromanage folks whether it's your clients, whether it's your employees, whatever it is, you need to check yourself. That's a sign right there, we need to step back. Michael Levitt [36:29]: Yeah. It's a thing of ... I implore people. I had great, great bosses earlier in my career and throughout where I engaged with them. And the great ones gave me all the information that I needed, I had all the tools that I needed to do to be successful in the work that I was doing, clear instructions on when I need to do it and when it was due, then they got out of the way. They let me do my job. Alyssa Scolari [36:54]: It's a beautiful thing. Michael Levitt [36:55]: Yeah, and I remember the first day I worked for a company, Rick, one of my bosses back two decades ago, yikes, time flies. But it was 3:30, I remember it vividly. I'm sitting in my cubicle, he comes up, it's my first day, we already chatted earlier in the day and all that stuff, we had lunch and whatnot. And he said, "Okay, just some ground rules." I'm like, "Oh, here it comes." He looks at me and he says, "I don't care when you get here, I don't care when you leave. As long as you get your job done, we're good. You okay with that?" I'm like "Yep, I am." Alyssa Scolari [37:29]: Beautiful. Michael Levitt [37:29]: I worked for him for three years. That was during the dot com era too, when everybody was switching jobs every two months because the recruiters were saying, "I know I just placed you for this job and paying this. Well, we can give you an extra $25,000 if you go over here." Okay, let me grab my knickknacks. Okay, let's go. Because it was just a zoo back then, but you had to take advantage of it. But I didn't when I was there because I'm like no, this is good. This is a good place for me. Alyssa Scolari [38:02]: Sometimes that's priceless, having a good boss. Sometimes you can't put a dollar sign on that. Michael Levitt [38:06]: Nope, it is priceless. It makes you feel like you're being listened to, you're being supported, you get to work in your sweet spot with the things that motivate you and all that. When you do that, work flies by and it doesn't stress you out. Even though you may have busier periods, you may have some big workloads, you come home and you're like okay. Yeah, that was a long day, it was tiring. But you don't feel completely wiped out because well, you enjoy what you do. I think that's a big thing for everybody to look at as well, is rekindle what you enjoy doing. Sometimes I know with people that are burned out, they don't know what they like. They don't know what brings them joy. How do you not know? Well, you got to ask yourself. I know why they don't know because they're completely fatigued and wiped out. So rekindle that- Alyssa Scolari [38:58]: And put everybody else before themselves. Michael Levitt [39:01]: Yes. And self care is not selfish. Although it is, but it's a good selfish, it's- Alyssa Scolari [39:08]: It's a good thing. Michael Levitt [39:10]: ... you got to take care of yourself first because then that way when you do choose to give to people, they're getting a much better version of you than they would before. Alyssa Scolari [39:18]: So much better, so much better. Absolutely, it gives you better connections with everybody at work and personal. Michael Levitt [39:28]: Absolutely. Alyssa Scolari [39:28]: So you have now made ... This is your entire career is burnout prevention and intervention. You have your own podcast, right? Michael Levitt [39:39]: Yes, The Breakfast Leadership Show, yep. Alyssa Scolari [39:42]: The Breakfast Leadership Show. You are a speaker, so I assume you speak basically all over the world. Michael Levitt [39:53]: Yep. Last year, lots of virtual events because of the pandemic. But I spoke at over 30 different conferences last year across the globe. Every industry, you name it, I've spoken with them because burnout doesn't care what industry you're in. You would think yeah okay, healthcare, education, legal, yeah, it's like those are all there. But admins and single parent groups and engineers and automotive, you name it, I spoke at their events. My original career was public accounting, so I was an auditor and I did audits for all different types of businesses, so I'm familiar with most sectors so I can tailor my talk. When I go in and work with organizations, I know some of the struggles that they face because I used to be in those industries in an auditing capacity, so I needed to know what those businesses did and how they did it. So that decades ago career comes back and says hi, remember me? And I said, "Yeah, I'm going to grab the good parts of that and not the long tax season hours. I don't need that again." Alyssa Scolari [40:59]: Right, I'm going to leave that. Michael Levitt [40:59]: Exactly. Alyssa Scolari [41:03]: Then you have two books that are out? Michael Levitt [41:06]: Yeah, I've got a couple of books related to burnout. The first one that I released four years ago, 369 Days: How to Survive a Year of Worst-Case Scenarios chronicles what I talked about earlier, about that year of loss and some of the lessons learned from that. Then my new book Burnout Proof covers what burnout is in greater detail, what are some of the signs, what are some things you can do right away to stop burnout. Because people think burnout is this treadmill that you can't get off of, and you can. You make some simple adjustments. And I will say this, most people don't need to reinvent their life if they're burned out. In my situation I did because of all kinds of other factors and the way that I was living my life. I did have to reinvent myself, but most people that I've encountered don't, they just need to make some adjustments here and there. The deeper work, and you know this in the work that you do, is figuring out why you burned out in the first place because that's important. You don't want to ... Because otherwise you have been burned out two or three times, well I was burned out once and it nearly killed me. So I'm not going there again, I don't want to go to that trip. Alyssa Scolari [42:12]: Yeah, you literally don't have the time to be able to do this again and again and again. Because it only takes one time, but it could end your life. Michael Levitt [42:21]: Exactly, and when you're laying on a procedure bed in the hospital and Dr. [Morrisey 00:42:25] meets you and says, "Hello," and he looks at you and he looks at your chart and he goes, "You don't know how lucky you are to be alive right now." I looked at him, and I was in pretty good spirits at that particular point and I said, "So, you skipped the bedside manner course, did you?" And he laughed and we all laughed, and we thought it was funny. But it's like, I said, "I know where you're going, I get it. I'm really lucky to be here. Okay, good. What do you need to do?" He said, "We're putting two stents in." "Got it." And he did. A nice little quick procedure thankfully, but needless to say it was a very, very important lesson for me to learn, and I don't want anybody to go through that. No one should be laying on a hospital bed to have heart surgery basically when you're that young, because it's not good. You shouldn't do that, so you need to make those adjustments and figure out why you get yourself into the situations you do. Alyssa Scolari [43:26]: Exactly. Michael Levitt [43:28]: Once you do that, then you can make the adjustments on that aspect of it, and then your life will be so much better for you. Alyssa Scolari [43:36]: Yep, absolutely. I do agree that there's definitely an element of deeper work that I think people need to do where it's like, how did I get to this spot in the first place. Michael Levitt [43:46]: Exactly. Alyssa Scolari [43:48]: Both of your books, are they sold on Amazon? Michael Levitt [43:51]: Amazon. You can order them on Barnes and Noble as well if you don't like Amazon, then you can get them through Barnes and Noble as well. If you're in Canada, you can get them through Indigo or Chapters. I know there's a few other places that sell it, too. But those are the ones that people tend to flock to. Alyssa Scolari [44:07]: Perfect, okay. Then I have the links to everybody for the listeners out there because I know this is something that the listeners will really take to. I think burnout is something that a lot of trauma survivors suffer from because we tend to be chronic people pleasers. It's something that I find myself talking about time and time again in my practice, something I've struggled with personally. So I am so thankful that you were able to come on and share your story and hopefully just continue to save lives because it really is what you're doing, trying to save people from what you had to go through. Because not everybody ... We don't have to have a life threatening situation in order to check our burnout. We're trying to get people before it gets to that spot. Michael Levitt [44:59]: Yes, I agree. Prevention is so much better than recovery. Alyssa Scolari [45:02]: Yes. Yes, exactly. Thank you so much for coming on today, it was truly a pleasure. Michael Levitt [45:10]: Thank you, happy to be here. Alyssa Scolari [45:12]: Thank you. Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information please head over to Lightaftertauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to Patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support.

So Friday afternoon we sat down with Filmmaker, Director, Screenwriter, Sawyer Skipper and went deep on literally every subject. We heard about his High School experience, his secrets on how to stay inspired/motivated, and even got to hear a little bit about the reality tv show he is currently working on and the great white shark he saw. So much wisdom was spoken and received and we hope you enjoy this half as much as we did.

So Friday was bonkers!!! Hosts missing & where did the judges go?!?! Let's try this again!!! Leggo

This week we check in with Tamara about her family's spring break road trip to look at colleges. Find out how the trip went and why her visit to the Vista Verde Ranch in Colorado was the perfect spring break retreat. College Road Trip Stops The first stop was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to visit Lehigh University. This historic town is popular at Christmas time and offers a cute downtown with lots of restaurants. The historic Hotel Bethlehem is nice but in need of renovation. If you visit, try the Social Still for dinner and the Flying Egg for breakfast. The second stop was in Cleveland to visit Case Western Reserve University. Located in the University Circle neighborhood near the Cleveland Clinic, this is a nice area to explore the city's museums such as the Museum of Art, Museum of Natural History, and Botanical Gardens. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland is offering timed-entry tickets, temperature checks, one-way traffic, and social distancing. It was not crowded at all, making it a good time to visit. The third stop was in Ann Arbor to visit the University of Michigan. The Graduate Ann Arbor is a perfect spot to stay to visit the college and offers one-bedroom king suites for families. If you are staying in town, have lunch at Zingerman's Deli, dinner at the Slurping Turtle, and breakfast, lunch or dinner at Sava's. Next up was the University of Madison - Wisconsin. Again, The Graduate Madison is a good spot to stay just off State Street and close to campus. If you are traveling through Nebraska, the Old Haymarket District of Lincoln, Nebraska, home of the University of Nebraska, is a cool neighborhood to visit. The next college stop was at the University of Colorado - Boulder. The Embassy Suites in Boulder offers beautiful views, one-bedroom suites, and modern decor within walking distance to campus. When in Boulder, plan to spend time in the Pearl Street Mall area. Two great dinner stops are Oak at Fourteenth and Santo Boulder. If you are visiting Colorado Springs, you will probably want to visit the Garden of the Gods park, but be prepared for crowds in addition to beautiful red rock formations. Tamara's family then spent a few days relaxing at the Vista Verde Ranch. This all-inclusive luxury ranch was an ideal spring break retreat offering snow tubing, snow shoeing, cross country skiing, ice fishing, snow mobiling, horse back riding and other indoor and outdoor options. The food is amazing and plentiful and there are a number of cabin options on property ranging from one to four bedrooms. On their way back, Tamara stopped in Topeka, Kansas, St. Louis, Missouri, and outside of Pittsburg, PA. In St. Louis, the Hotel St. Louis, an Autograph Collection property by Marriott, is a great place to stay with gorgeous large suites and a convenient location. If you are planning on visiting the Gateway Arch, be sure to by timed-entry tickets in advance. The social distancing protocols make for a pleasant, uncrowded stay with designated tram cars and viewing windows. See Tamara's tips for road trip mistakes to avoid.   Full Episode Transcript [00:00:00.120] - Kim Tate We're back. Stay tuned to hear about our latest adventures.   [00:00:16.230] - Announcer Welcome to Vacation Mavens. A family travel podcast with ideas for your next vacation and tips to get you out the door. Here are your hosts, Kim from Stuffed Suitcase and Tamara from We3Travel.   [00:00:31.260] - Kim Tate Tamara, we have just had, you know, a couple of awesome road trips. So I'm sure our listeners are dying to hear all about it. Everything that we've done, everything we learned or discovered. So this is our episode to kind of dish and just tell them about our latest.   [00:00:46.920] - Tamara Gruber Yeah, I was thinking as I was driving, I'm like, hmm, this is what I want to say about Nebraska. This is what I want to say. Well, you know, just kind of and I was like, I really should make notes, but I was driving for half the time, so I didn't actually make notes.   [00:00:59.400] - Tamara Gruber But I'm excited to chat with you. It's been so long and I know we're going to go into more detail about your California road trip in a couple of episodes, because I know that that's a trip that probably a lot of people want to make.   [00:01:11.370] - Kim Tate But we should definitely talk about your epic one, because how many miles and how many states did you hit?   [00:01:15.990] - Tamara Gruber Oh, my God, 5000 miles. I didn't realize it was going to be quite that far. And I think I think because of the way we came back, we actually hit 16 states.   [00:01:26.970] - Kim Tate Yeah. My goodness. Yeah.   [00:01:28.260] - Tamara Gruber And I mean, a lot of those actually, for me, I had been to all of them before. But for Hannah, there were some new ones. For Glenn, there are some new ones. We saw, you know, a lot of ground, I will say, because we went in mid-March. I remember before we went, you were sending me pictures like it'll be pretty and you're sending me pictures of, like fields of wheat in the sun, sunset and like. Yeah, no, it is just brown.   [00:01:50.940] - Tamara Gruber It's brown, brown, brown. So it was not a scenic road trip at all. I think a lot of our listeners know that we were going to look at colleges. We did have a really beautiful part of Colorado, you know, where we were in Colorado and we stayed at a ranch. And, you know, I could talk about that a little bit, but it did convince me, too, that I really should consider moving to Colorado at some point. But it was most of the trip was, you know, a little bit boring when it came to the scenery.   [00:02:21.990] - Tamara Gruber But we did get to see quite a few colleges. And you know what? There's something about driving through huge parts of this country that it just stirs me. You know, like I just I it's so important to me to feel like connected. And I feel like I can visualize, like, what it is like to live in other parts of the country, you know, get a little bit more sense of like where people coming from, what their, you know, regular life is like, you know, because I'm just I've lived all my life in the Northeast and the Northeast we know is like, you know, it's crowded.   [00:02:55.050] - Tamara Gruber It's just, you know, like one city blurs into the other, you know, in our rural areas are, you know, like you can't drive for miles and miles without finding, you know, a place to get gas or, you know, like any of these things.   [00:03:08.490] - Tamara Gruber It's just very different. And so I really appreciate every time I'm able to, like, drive through a lot of this country. And I really I really hope that more people, you know, can do that kind of thing. You know, like even if it wasn't pretty, there was just something to it.   [00:03:21.810] - Kim Tate It's just something to like the vastness and the diversity and everything to it. Yeah, I think that it's good for the coastal people to realize and experience the breadbasket of America like they term it because it is so different. And, you know, I grew up in the Midwest, of course, and knew nothing really about toll roads and all that stuff. And so that's always something. When I go to the coast, I'm always like, oh, there's there's toll roads in these places.   [00:03:47.310] - Tamara Gruber So I just wrote a post about like road trip mistakes that people make because I feel like tolls is definitely one that people don't always pay attention to.   [00:03:56.130] - Tamara Gruber And nowadays there's not always a man toll booth like it's often like electronic billing. And if you're not from that area, you don't have that system. And so then you have to try to figure it out. I can't even tell you how many hours I spent trying to figure out where I was supposed to pay the Illinois tollway, you know, and I don't I'm not sure I'm expecting I mean, like eight tickets in the mail.   [00:04:16.530] - Tamara Gruber And I'm like, I registered for your site. I filled out everything. But I'm not seeing, like, where I actually I we took pictures of every single, like, gate kind of thing. Like the time and the number, you know, because Glenn's been there before and I'm like, I can't figure this out. So some of the systems are not so easy to figure out. Come to the northeast and they're like what do you mean it's fifteen dollars across the bridge. I'm like yeah.   [00:04:44.040] - Kim Tate Yeah. And it's you know, well we have on the West Coast like HOV lanes. Right. So we had where we couldn't even use the lane near San Francisco because we didn't have you there. And we have that in Seattle as well. Like you can use the HOV lane for a fee for a fee.   [00:05:00.150] - Kim Tate But if you want to use it as a high occupancy vehicle, you have to have the, you know, Washington tag that's in your windshield and is registered to your vehicle on your plate. And so, yeah, it was kind of frustrating. I was like, oh, because we got hit in a major traffic. And like, I was like, oh, I want to be in that carpool lane, but I couldn't. I didn't want to pay whatever the fee was because, you know, in Washington, if you don't have the past, you have to pay three dollars to pay it by mail. They charge you a three dollar surcharge. So anyways, it's crazy.   [00:05:32.830] - Tamara Gruber Well, I will say, I have a lot of overall observations of driving 5000 miles. Number one, our roads are crap. They are terrible.   [00:05:42.130] - Tamara Gruber Like I know they're trying to pass an infrastructure bill and I can't even say how much we need it. Like I always comment on that around, like where I live. But I feel like I live in such a busy area, like it's get so much traffic. Well, you know what, we're driving i 80, i 70, i 90 like.   [00:05:59.500] - Tamara Gruber And it's all trucks, there's so many trucks and it was you know, I don't know if it's more now or not, but like it was the point where it's not relaxing at all, even though it's just a straight highway. It's like because you're constantly passing trucks like we had had to drive. She just has a permit. Knock wood. By the time you hear that, she'll have her license. But she drove for like three hours in Nebraska and three hours in Kansas. And the speed limit is like seventy five. And she's like constantly like trucks are passing her, she's passing trucks. And it was she's like, I'm exhausted. I don't know if you see that on the West Coast, but it was terrible.   [00:06:44.740] - Kim Tate Yeah, well, we went through Oregon and I guess in Oregon, it's one of the few states that allows three semi links. And I think you probably passed some, but I we don't have it in California or Washington. Oh, but it's semi trucks allow three, you know, the back seat and it says long load.   [00:07:07.660] - Tamara Gruber I even said it like those trucks drive like they rule the world and like who cares about you. I had one literally drive me off the road like I'm so glad that I was driving and not Hannah because I managed to keep us like in the like in not a shoulder. I had to go into the grass but like straight without like like she probably would have with the car. It's like they I was next to it and not like far back, like next to its cab.   [00:07:38.740] - Tamara Gruber Yeah. And it started, you know, it put its turn signal on and it started coming and I'm like laying on the horn and it just kept coming. And so I had to go into the median and again, you know, you're like you're driving through grass and you're like seventy five miles an hour, you know?   [00:07:52.790] - Tamara Gruber And then I was able to like, you know, safely get us back up, you know, on the road. And that almost happened to me multiple times. So I will say, like, it's not you know, it was not always pleasant driving. I would have loved to have gotten off on just some of the smaller roads, like when we were in like Wisconsin and Colorado, we were in some smaller roads that were like much more pleasant. Although let me tell you the other thing that I observed about Wisconsin.   [00:08:21.730] - Tamara Gruber I felt like I was in another country. We have you ever seen this where the instead of, you know, how you have interstate, you know, we have Interstate 95, we have high U.S. Highway One, we have state route two. There are like state highways or, you know, it was like exit for Highway X, Y or an X.   [00:08:42.070] - Tamara Gruber It was the letter letters I've never seen. I know we're going to have listeners that are like, what's wrong with you? But like, I had never I never seen that either.   [00:08:52.570] - Kim Tate I didn't know that either. I are. We're just inspiring people to take road trips with all these. I'm just kidding.   [00:08:59.050] - Tamara Gruber Sorry. anyways, these are the things you learn, right?   [00:09:02.830] - Kim Tate Yeah, these are the things you learn. But I always think it's cool how the states have different highways. They have the little symbols. And I've never seen anything fun like in California or Oregon or Washington. But I know once we were in like I think Utah and they have like a beehive. Is there like have you seen.   [00:09:18.400] - Kim Tate Oh yeah. It's like different shape. So, yeah, different states have fun little shapes and stuff, but I don't think we have anything fun. So I was wondering if you saw any fun shaped state highways.   [00:09:28.510] - Tamara Gruber Not that I recognize, but I can kind of picture that. I'm pretty sure in New Hampshire there's looks like one of the mountain faces. I did learn that Nebraska. Oh, what's that? What was the town?   [00:09:40.410] - Tamara Gruber Kearney, Nebraska is the sandhill Crane, capital of the world. As we're driving, this is the time that Hannah was driving. So I was sitting in the back because I'm like, you know, I need a break. And if I'm in the front, like, somebody needs to, like, be paying attention to her. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm just going to sit in the back for a little bit. I can't do it long because I get carsick, but I'm like, I'm going to go back there.   [00:10:01.450] - Tamara Gruber So I'm just like looking out the window and I just see all these birds that I'm like they kind of look like Osprey, like they look like water birds, but they're all in these open fields, you know, because it's just like plowed fields now. And I'm like, this is so I. And I'm like, did you guys see that, did you guys see that and they're like, what? What's, you know, like I have nothing else to look at back here. You can't, like, look ahead of me, you know?   [00:10:22.150] - Tamara Gruber So anyway, then we would drive past the sign that says the sandhill crane capital of the world. I'm like, oh, that's fascinating. Yeah, that's cool.   [00:10:29.380] - Kim Tate I was going to mention with bathrooms when you're talking about stops and stuff is surprisingly I forgot about travel centers like for when you know about travel centers.   [00:10:43.450] - Kim Tate They normally have like a food place in them, but I find they're the restrooms at most of those travel centers, like the big ones, like the TravelCenters of America, like the big T and A..   [00:10:52.750] - Kim Tate Yeah. Although it's funny, like growing up in the Midwest, we always laughed about the T and the giant T&A. But anyways, you know, it's normally a pretty good one. And so we stopped at that a couple of times. And I think that the other thing we had done was because she was looking for like a cheesy California keychain for a friend. And I was like, oh, we need to find a travel center, because that's the kind of stuff they have there.   [00:11:16.480] - Tamara Gruber And yeah, like, that's that kind of thing is very common here in the East Coast. It's not like they're not always the labeled ones like like they're just like like if you're driving like I-95, it's like, you know, here's this rest area and it's there's gas and there's inside there's bathrooms, there's, you know, food court. And there's the little shop and the bathrooms there.   [00:11:36.790] - Tamara Gruber Like I actually they're usually pretty clean, like they weren't when I worked at one back on the New Jersey Turnpike when I was 16.   [00:11:43.630] - Tamara Gruber But it's pretty clean and you don't have to touch any doors, you know, like everything touchless, you know. So that is and it's very open like versus going into like a gas station that has like a one.   [00:11:56.020] - Kim Tate Yeah, yeah. Or they've got like the paddle key you have to get. Yeah. That people have touched in the last fifty.   [00:12:00.250] - Tamara Gruber But even and even if they have like one that has multiple stalls, it's like two or three styles and people might be waiting in a line and it's very close, whereas those are like so open, you know, that like the circulation is much better.   [00:12:11.090] - Kim Tate Exactly. And there's normally find parking and certainly easy to get on and off and back on the highway. Yeah. So I really like those. And then we used rest stops a lot actually. And I was really impressed.   [00:12:20.860] - Kim Tate I think rest stops are like the gift to road trips because for us, especially with teenagers and when they were little kids, we discovered this.   [00:12:28.900] - Kim Tate Inevitably somebody is waiting for a bathroom, are looking for and they end up wandering down the aisles and wanting to get this chip in this drink. And you spend another hundred and fifty dollars on snacks that day because of all the stops for bathrooms that you ended up buying junk food. And I noticed at least on the West Coast, I think it was practically 100 percent mask wearing on all the rest stops. And I even noticed one point because I kind of I think it was partially me, because I noticed this older couple was walking towards me like walking their dog and they didn't have my son.   [00:13:02.530] - Kim Tate And I, like, gave them a wide berth. Like I walked in the grass to go around them. And as soon as I passed, I heard the woman go, Oh, honey, we have our mask. Let's see, I'm going to go to the car and get our mask. Like she hadn't thought of it because she was thinking they were just going to walk our dog. But then she realized, you know, there's a lot of foot traffic.   [00:13:17.050] - Tamara Gruber Right. Right. I've had that experience, too. Yeah. So for you, like when you say, like, rest stop, So that's like the building off of the highway where like, yeah, people walk the dog and there's bathrooms and sometimes there's like a brochure's or something but that's like yeah ok. Yeah.   [00:13:31.810] - Tamara Gruber Great. Yeah. Yeah we have been, we have like the big ones kind of too.   [00:13:36.460] - Kim Tate So yeah these are, I'm talking about the ones that are just like literally on and off the highway, I-95 there almost every twenty five miles ish most of the time. So but yeah. And there's definitely different qualities in some of them are nice and have lots of stalls and others are not great.   [00:13:52.660] - Kim Tate But everyone we all went to always had toilet paper, had seat covers, running water, all that. So it was a good, good thing for us.   [00:14:00.670] - Tamara Gruber It shows you our priorities that we're spending like five minutes talking about bathroom. I'm so sorry, everyone.   [00:14:06.280] - Kim Tate They're like, OK, yeah, I'm bored. Yeah, we're like twenty minutes. And we haven't even started talking about your road trip. So let's jump to that.   [00:14:18.220] - Kim Tate Let's talk about your specific road trip. We've talked about the mileage and the states, but what were the highlights?   [00:14:23.980] - Tamara Gruber Let's see. I'll just run through an order because it's easiest for me to remember, like, in that way. But we our first stop was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which is known for its like Christmas things, because, as you can imagine. So we visited Lehigh University there and that was good. It was actually a very cute little downtown. It was good.   [00:14:43.600] - Tamara Gruber I liked the university was beautiful, but it was not Hannah's favorite just because she wants something a little more integrated, even though it was like a very cute town, she's like it's more like town adjacent than town, like into like, OK, so that was our first stop.   [00:14:56.440] - Tamara Gruber And then we headed off to Cleveland and we stayed in the university circle neighborhood of Cleveland. So we didn't see a lot of downtown, but I really explored that area. It's so it's case Western Reserve University is the school that we're visiting and it's right next to like all the hospitals and Cleveland Clinic, but it's also near there. Museum. So they have like this really nice green area, you know, with like parks and it's like the Wade oval and around it there's a botanical gardens, a museum of natural history, an art museum.   [00:15:28.080] - Tamara Gruber And then also just a few minutes away, kind of right next to campus, too, is a contemporary art museum. So there's a lot of museums around there to explore. There's like a Little Italy neighborhood, you know, and of course, we spent time, like walking around campus.   [00:15:42.210] - Tamara Gruber But then one of the things that we got to do was to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, because I'm like, if we're going to go to Cleveland, like, we have to do this, like we all love music.   [00:15:52.230] - Tamara Gruber You know, Glenn, you know, especially like is such a classic rock guy. But I was really surprised by, like, how up to date it was, you know, they had like outfits from Billy Eilish, you know, like it was it was very like all the like Harry Styles to like all the way up to date.   [00:16:08.280] - Tamara Gruber And here's going to be my plug in my learning for this. It's like I know that everyone's going to head to the outdoors in the national parks this summer. I know in a couple weeks we're going to be talking about one of those kind of road trips. But I will say, if you want to be counterintuitive, it's actually really cheap to be in cities right now.   [00:16:27.870] - Tamara Gruber And the indoor attractions are very quiet.   [00:16:31.470] - Tamara Gruber And it's so well managed that I we felt so much safer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame than we did when we went to the Outdoor Garden of the Gods in a park in Colorado Springs because you had to get timed entry tickets.   [00:16:47.100] - Tamara Gruber Everybody has temperatures taken. It's one way traffic. It's all sanitized like everything. Like I really felt we were obviously were there on a Monday afternoon. So it wasn't like primetime.   [00:16:57.090] - Tamara Gruber But I was like, could there even have been 50 people in this entire building of like three or four floors? Like, it didn't it was not crowded at all. Some of the interactive types of things were closed. So I'm sure it would have been more fun if we could have done more of that, like listening kind of things.   [00:17:13.140] - Tamara Gruber But we still like, you know, we really enjoyed it. We got a lot out of it. So I feel like maybe it's not too bad to do some of these indoor things or things that are usually crowded when there's not the crowds. So I can throw that out there as an idea.   [00:17:26.520] - Kim Tate You know, I totally sorry. I was going to say I totally agree. I was just talking to Carolyn, our friend Carolyn, about that, because I went to the mop up museum in Seattle and it was the same thing. It was like a timed entry ticket that you bought online, got temperature checked. Everything's one way.   [00:17:39.510] - Kim Tate And there is it felt like nobody felt like we had the exhibits to ourselves. And of course, like you said, we went in the weekday. But I definitely think you're right that that's the place to, like, really take advantage of your, like, staycation local cities. If there's some museums you avoid or I think now's the time to.   [00:17:56.100] - Tamara Gruber Yeah, because and like I said, the the days I mean, for the most part, almost all of the hotels we were in, we it was not like they they are kind of concentrating people on certain floors, I think probably for housekeeping reasons.   [00:18:08.010] - Tamara Gruber So it's not like we're the only one on the floor, but only in I think one place did we sometimes encounter people like on the elevator and we'd have to wait for the next elevator. But for the most part, there was like no one around and it was cheap, you know, so that all worked out well.   [00:18:23.010] - Tamara Gruber So we moved from Cleveland and I actually really like that school, too. So so maybe we'll be back and explore more in Cleveland. We'll see. But from then, we drove like about two and a half hours to Ann Arbor, Michigan. And I will say, like, I know Michigan is a huge school, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and they have the largest stadium football stadium in the Western Hemisphere, the big house.   [00:18:43.680] - Tamara Gruber And so I thought the school is going to feel immense and like really just spread out and like not manageable and confusing. And it really didn't like first of all, Ann Arbor is the cutest town. You know, like there's great, like restaurants and like just little districts. And, you know, walking around was great. And the campus felt like there's like a north campus that you definitely have to drive to. But then the rest of it felt like pretty compact. And there's just so much school spirit there.   [00:19:10.110] - Tamara Gruber Like everyone that you walk by is wearing like Michigan or something, you know, like sweatpants, sweatshirt, you know, like it just you could tell, like, they're super into it. So and we had a couple we brought in.   [00:19:21.630] - Tamara Gruber Well, one time we eat outside at a deli. Zingerman's Deli is like really famous there. So we had to check that out. And then we brought in from like an Asian place called Slurping Turtle, which was delicious.   [00:19:33.300] - Tamara Gruber We stayed at the graduate there, which again, I love graduate hotels for college towns because they have so much personality. And there it was, you know, not crowded at all. And it was adjacent to campus, like adjacent to State Street, like everything was convenient. So if you go in to Ann Arbor, like, I would definitely look at a stay there. It was you know, it was a really nice property.   [00:19:55.680] - Tamara Gruber We I had booked a suite, so it wasn't quite as big of a separate little room as I thought, but it had like this little living room area, you know, I usually like the suite would be like the main room is like you walk into, like the living area and then the bedroom would be off here. You walked into the bedroom and then off the bedroom there was a. A little like I would call it a den, you know, like it had a little tiny couch and a little like a TV and a chair.   [00:20:20.810] - Tamara Gruber So we put Hannah in there and like you, you could extend the bed, but you couldn't then walk around it, like, crawl across.   [00:20:28.400] - Tamara Gruber So it's very small, but it was perfect because, you know, she had at least her own little space. And then the next morning before we left, we had this amazing brunch.   [00:20:37.920] - Tamara Gruber I have to, like, look up where it was. But we had this, you know, amazing brunch of this beautiful place. We actually had to knock on the door, like to have them open for us.   [00:20:46.790] - Tamara Gruber So we were the only people in there for a while. And I think that was one of the like, you know, eating inside still makes us nervous. So we're like, OK, it's like a two story place. We're the only people in here, so we're good. So if you go to Ann Arbor, the place is called Savas. And it was it was delicious. I'm sure it would be amazing for lunch or dinner, too.   [00:21:03.350] - Tamara Gruber But from there, we moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and I've been to Madison before, as you know, and I really liked it a lot when we got there.   [00:21:11.780] - Tamara Gruber It was pretty like rainy, but like an icy cold, you know, windy kind of rain. So it wasn't like ideal conditions for exploring. But luckily, like a friend of ours, their daughter goes to University of Wisconsin, Madison. So she was able to walk us around, I think, which definitely made an impression on Hannah because the other places we were just exploring on our own because tours weren't open right at the time. So, you know, so that was good.   [00:21:36.320] - Tamara Gruber And we that day was actually St. Patrick's Day. So I was like, I am not going out on St. Patrick's Day in a college town. Like, there's no way. Not a pandemic, no way. So we brought in some food there. And we also stated a graduate there and actually the graduate there, we stayed at we again booked a suite. It was called like the Camp Wanda Wenga Suite or something. But it's set up like very camp style.   [00:21:58.190] - Tamara Gruber And the separate little room had bunk beds and it had like an Atari and like, you know, a little gaming system and stuff. So it was really cute. And I was like, oh, my. Like, top bunk is going to be for this and I'm going to be in the bottom bunk. And I know she she had fun that she had bunk beds. That's cute. So that was good.   [00:22:13.250] - Tamara Gruber And then we drove. That's the day that we then drove and we stayed in Nebraska. So that was just like we had a driving day and then we had another driving day and we got to Boulder, Colorado, and we definitely loved our stay in Boulder.   [00:22:25.250] - Tamara Gruber It's such a cute it's a cute city. Has is like this Pearl Street district where it's just like an open pedestrian mall with tons of like restaurants and shops and stuff off of it.   [00:22:35.570] - Tamara Gruber And we stayed at an Embassy Suites. And I will say, like Glenn and I were, we used points for a lot of these. And so Glenn and I were kind of expecting, you know, a lot of embassy suites are kind of old, right?   [00:22:46.910] - Kim Tate You know, like, yeah, they have this in the nineties. Like this big center foyer. Pyramid or whatever.   [00:22:54.500] - Tamara Gruber Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was like a brand new Embassy Suites. It was the nicest Embassy Suites or looked brand new that I've ever seen.   [00:23:02.240] - Kim Tate And we had a nice we had an Embassy Suites in Seattle.   [00:23:07.220] - Tamara Gruber Really nice. Yeah. It's just. Yeah yeah I agree because you get that stuck in your head about certain brands. Right. You kind of have like what your expectations are. So I was like, well you know, we're using points like whatever, it's an embassy suites and I got there, I'm like, oh this is really nice. And again had a suite again. We were on the road a lot, very close together. So a few times I wanted to splurge and have a suite and have like a little more space, you know, to be in.   [00:23:32.150] - Tamara Gruber But it overlooked the you could see the campus, which is kind of up on a hill, then behind it, the Flatiron Mountains. And it was stunning. It's like, you know, to to open up the window and see, that was amazing.   [00:23:45.530] - Tamara Gruber And just the campus was beautiful. We love you know, she loved the campus. She loved Boulder. I just loved, you know, they had just gotten like two feet of snow a week before. So I thought it was going to be crazy. And, yeah, there was some snow on the ground, but it just doesn't stick. I think, like, you and I are both come from like wet climb, you know, colder like wet climates.   [00:24:02.660] - Tamara Gruber And so we'll get ice, you know, it sticks around. But there I think because it's dry, like the snow just melts and evaporates right away.   [00:24:10.970] - Tamara Gruber But yeah. So one day we drove down, we were going to go to Rocky Mountain National Park, but then I was reading about it and it looked like a lot of the trails, like I would need snow shoes. And then I'm like, well, you know, you can only drive so much of it because the main road is closed in the winter. You know, you can't go all the way across the park.   [00:24:28.520] - Tamara Gruber And so I was just debating, do we bother to go up there? We're going to have we're going to do snowshoeing and stuff when we go on our next stop. So I didn't really want to rent equipment to do that. So instead, we it was a beautiful day. It was like seventy degrees, which is crazy. So we drove down to Colorado Springs and we went to the Garden of the Gods, which I think everyone has seen pictures of.   [00:24:48.800] - Tamara Gruber And I just oh, it looks so beautiful. Like let's go down there.   [00:24:51.830] - Tamara Gruber First of all, we got stuck in all this traffic, which was crazy. And then, you know, so that was stressful. And then we got there and it was insane. It was it was a Saturday afternoon. It was seventy degrees, but it was insanely crowded. So I had and I got there. I had to use the bathroom speaking bathrooms. So I did wait in line like outside, because everyone that came in to the visitors center had to like sign in and provide your.   [00:25:14.170] - Tamara Gruber Contact information for contact tracing, which was a joke because it's interesting that they're still doing that. Yeah, like everyone else, like tons of people didn't even go inside. And so we're walking, you know, then into the park and like, no one had masks, hardly anybody had masks on.   [00:25:30.550] - Tamara Gruber And these are like jammed walkways, like you cannot avoid being within six feet of people. And it says, like, you know, mask is required even outside for when you can't be. It wasn't like it required all the time, but it's like when you can't be with, you know, more than six feet away. But it's like you clearly no one can be.   [00:25:50.440] - Tamara Gruber So we were wearing a mask and we're like trying to like, you know, get through it really quickly in a way. But it was it was definitely stressful.   [00:25:57.370] - Tamara Gruber It was like it was really like all of us were feeling it were a super stressful, you know, like trying to, like, look away when somebody, like, walked by you and like, you know, like just I don't know, like just protect yourself.   [00:26:07.860] - Tamara Gruber And I know what's outside. And you generally passing people like within seconds. And there's probably very little danger, but it's still kind of freaked us out, you know, like it's been a long time since we've been around a lot of people.   [00:26:19.090] - Tamara Gruber And it was not really fun. And I wanted it to be fun and I felt bad. So that's just my feeling is that granted, if I was in that situation and I had been vaccinated already, I wouldn't feel quite as worried. But I do really worry about being in crowded places like this summer and like what that's going to be like in some of the parks. And I know some people will feel like very comfortable because they're vaccinated. But like, if things are still circulating a lot, you know, like we still have to take certain precautions.   [00:26:47.890] - Tamara Gruber And, you know, I don't know. It does make me a little bit worried about being in, like I said, crowded places in the summer.   [00:26:54.370] - Kim Tate But was it pretty, though?   [00:26:56.110] - Tamara Gruber It was beautiful. It was. It was. But it probably was a little more crowded than I would have liked anyway. I just have to get used to that.   [00:27:04.900] - Tamara Gruber So after Boulder, we ended up going to a ranch for a couple of days, which was like definitely the highlight of our trip. And, you know, you know that when we went to the ranch in Montana a few years ago, it was still like one of our top trips. We just kind of love that experience. But I wasn't quite sure what it was going to be like in the winter, spring, you know, kind of season, like what activities there would be and what it would be like.   [00:27:30.400] - Tamara Gruber But it was exactly what we needed. You know, it was like time outside. We had, you know, time. It was just such a relaxed environment, I think. So we went to the Vista Verde Ranch, which is just a little bit north of Steamboat Springs, and it is a luxury ranch. So they definitely have more amenities and, you know, service than the ranch that we went to before. And I think both can be great.   [00:27:56.950] - Tamara Gruber But I felt like for this, especially for this season, it was nice to have the kind of that extra level of of amenities and activities and things. But there max capacity is something like 50 people, you know. So I think it's like a dozen cabins. They have cabins that go from one bedroom up to four bedroom. And you have you know, you have your own space because you have a cabin.   [00:28:17.500] - Tamara Gruber So it felt like a very covid friendly type of vacation. And I wasn't sure because everything that we did before was so like community oriented.   [00:28:26.590] - Tamara Gruber And I think that that does it is sad that you don't have some of that now, because that is like one of the really cool things about a ranch environment. Right. But it's still like they did it in such a way. That was it was just really nice. So I just can't like I don't know, I was so happy. Like, I wish we could have stayed longer. It's definitely pricey, but it is, you know, just a very unique experience.   [00:28:47.980] - Tamara Gruber I mean, we did activities they have like you can sign up for activities like the day before. They have a calendar out. There's morning activities and afternoon activities, and sometimes there's a night activity. And so we did snowshoeing one day, which was just fabulous. And the way that they do it, you know, they have all the equipment on site, they have guides. And what they're doing now is like if you're with a family or small group, they're sending you out with like a private guide.   [00:29:17.470] - Tamara Gruber So you're not even in a group of people, you know, it's just you and your family, which is kind of nice because I think I've told a story about like one other time when I went snowshoeing and I showed up and like all my ski gear, like thinking I was going to be freezing and I showed up and there were this there was like the guide in this other couple and they were in, I don't know, like a sweatshirt and like winter pants kind of thing.   [00:29:40.480] - Tamara Gruber And they were like, I hope we're going to really get our hearts going now. And I'm like, oh, crap. I did it myself into and the whole time I'm like huffing and puffing because there it was like climbing in, like trying to keep up with them and sweating and ripping off layers of clothes. And then I would catch up to them and then they'd be like and then they would keep going, you know what I'm like. I didn't get a chance to have a rest. And so I feel like to go by yourself. And the other time I did it was in Idaho and it was just me and a guide. But she was like twenty three. She was out there on the mountain every day, you know, and I was like my foot hurt from. For the last few days and, you know, it's just like you're at altitude and you're climbing up and I remember being like, I'm going to stop and take a picture.   [00:30:21.760] - Tamara Gruber I'm going to stop stopping and taking pictures because I needed a little break. But this one was like, you know, he kept stopping and he was just like, how are you guys doing? We're like, no, we're good. Like, let's keep going and let's let's climb up there. And, you know, we climbed up to this point. We had a beautiful view and know. So they really can match your peace. And like he says, like, you know, with a family, like your patient, with each other, you know, it's not like a group that, you know, someone's left behind or annoyed or, you know, all that.   [00:30:48.020] - Tamara Gruber So so that was, you know, really worked out well. And then I think that afternoon, Hannah and I did a trail ride. I forget what Glenn did. Maybe he just decided to skip it. But we did a trail ride. And so, you know, typical, like, you know, line up my horse.   [00:31:06.100] - Tamara Gruber My horse was a little nasty, though. Apparently, it was like the I don't know, what's the queen bee of horses, you know, like it has like seniority. So I kept trying to bite all the other horses. I would like to try to walk by. And so, yeah, like then the other horses were like, given it the side. I'm like, hold onto it like really tight. So stop trying to like bite the other horse. I have a little like a little bully over here.   [00:31:43.810] - Tamara Gruber I was talking to one of the ranch hands afterwards about it and she was like, oh yeah, he's got a little attitude, you know, but they're so used to some of it that I don't know, like I just I felt like like it was a personal reflection on me.   [00:31:55.360] - Tamara Gruber One of my horses tried to, you know, be nasty to another was like I wasn't controlling it well. But he was just like an hour, you know, ride like through a trail. But it's, you know, everything was still snow covered. So it was really it was just pretty. And I can't even tell you how much we enjoyed the weather because it was like sunny skies, blue skies, which I'm leaving looking at my window now in April.   [00:32:17.440] - Tamara Gruber And I'm just seeing gray, you know, and it's just it makes me feel like so much more alive when the sun is out.   [00:32:24.310] - Tamara Gruber And even though it was like twenty, thirty degrees when we were doing these things, like we went snowshoeing and I just had a base layer. And like a zip up fleece and that's it. And like my snow pants and I was totally fine and like that's kind of it felt like thirty degrees warmer than it actually the temperature was.   [00:32:46.150] - Tamara Gruber So we had a good time with that. And then afterwards they let you go into the paddock for this thing they call a spring shed. And so basically the horses are shedding their winter coat and so you can go and help like brush them and you can just like, you know, go up to any horse.   [00:33:01.840] - Tamara Gruber And so I was like, do we need to be careful around there? Like, no, just kind of like them. No, like, talk to them, let them know that you're coming.   [00:33:08.380] - Tamara Gruber And so we're brushing them and of course, like it was starting to be mud season. So it's like a little icky out there, like with the poop.   [00:33:16.900] - Tamara Gruber And and so I'm like, OK, I really wish I brought my rain boots that I could just, like, spray off. Yeah. So my tip would be to bring like a plastic bag or anything that is coming back from there. But it was, you know, it was just fun. Like Hannah loves horses.   [00:33:32.650] - Tamara Gruber So it was like, you know, fun for her to just be able to to do that for a while and then, oh, the food was crazy good, like so, so good and so much food like the first night we got there and it was barbecue night.   [00:33:47.590] - Tamara Gruber So you think it's going to be, I don't know, like family style. First of all, it's all like table service. And what they've done is they did used to have like community tables, but now because of covid, you can choose to have your own table. And so they've spread things out. So they have like them spread out in the dining room.   [00:34:04.030] - Tamara Gruber And ours was actually in the main lobby, which is like towering ceilings, like beautiful lodge. And we were by a window. So we had this amazing view. There was no table anywhere near us. So it was like so comfortable, you know, for like indoor dining. And they would know. So you had a printed menu every time, like beautiful place sitting. Everything was like a starter, an entree and a dessert. And the first night it was like brisket, ribs or Alaskan king crab legs.   [00:34:33.400] - Tamara Gruber And I'm like, I didn't even get Alaskan king crab legs when I went on an Alaskan cruise and I went to the seafood restaurant, you know, like so Glen was like, well, I can't decide, like, can I get everything? And the girl was like, sure. And he was like, what? Like, you don't expect people to do that, you know? And she's like, yeah, like if you want like whatever you want, like I can bring you a little bit of this, little bit of that. And in the next morning scene with like breakfast, I was like, OK, well can I have like a pancake and an egg and some bacon. She's like, sure. So they it was so much food and it was really. Yeah, it was delicious, you know. And the next night was a formal night. So the kids have an option of doing like grab and go. Dining where it's more like a kid's meal, you know, that they can just take and they can eat it in the cabin and or go do a kid activity, but it's a little bit more of a formal meal. But it wasn't like you had to get dressed up. But these chefs came out and like presented and then they had like a wine pairing to go with it. So that one was I think we had like a salmon over like a lemon truffle, cauliflower risotto and Brussels sprout leaves. And, you know, it was like really it was it was fine dining.   [00:35:43.710] - Tamara Gruber And every meal was great, like, you know, you had lunch. And I was like, OK, let's start with like a giant salad and then a burger and then dessert. And I'm like, I can't do this. Like, I can't keep eating.   [00:35:54.360] - Tamara Gruber It's like it's so much food. But it was all so good. So definitely like a food is food is like a major highlight there.   [00:36:06.780] So you go at happy hour at like five thirty and they have a selection of wines and beer. I don't even know if they had cocktails. I think it's wine and beer and then like a little like aperitif, you know, you had at one night was like a prosciutto wrapped date.   [00:36:21.760] - Tamara Gruber And one night was like a deviled eggs, you know. So you had these little like snacks with your drinks. And that's the time where people can socialize if, you know, if they want to. So like there was oh, we just sat at our table because we were already in, like, that large area with our reserved table. So we would just sit there. But then there was this one group, like a big family group that would gather by the fireplace.   [00:36:40.890] - Tamara Gruber And sometimes they were a little forgetful when it came to like putting on their mask, when they stood up to walk to back to the bar or whatever. But luckily, like, we're like, OK, we're over here. You stay over there. Yeah, but it felt weird to, like, not be super friendly, you know, like it's the kind of thing where usually you'd have more interaction with people. But then what do we do? The next day we went and we did cross country skiing because Glenn really wanted to try that. And all I can say. Have you done cross-country before?   [00:37:07.860] - Kim Tate I have once. Paul is really into cross-country skiing and something they did in Edmonton a lot.   [00:37:12.180] - Tamara Gruber But yeah, I could see that because he's like the triathlon kind of guy. Yeah, yeah. It's not my thing. That's all I'll really say we were doing.   [00:37:20.820] - Tamara Gruber It was funny because we were gearing up and they said, like, it's not really great conditions for it because it's a little too icy, because that day it was like a little bit snowy, a little bit, it was still pretty cold in the morning there. It's like it's better in the afternoon. But we wanted to do something else in the afternoon and we're only there for a couple of days. So we didn't have like a ton of choice.   [00:37:39.330] - Tamara Gruber And so we're like, you know what, it's included. This is our chance to try it. Let's just go and do it. And they kept saying, like, oh, like when you fall, this is what you do.   [00:37:47.460] - Tamara Gruber And I'm like, fall. Like, isn't this just like walking? Like, when are we going to fall on cross country? And they do have like groomed trails, but they took us into like backcountry. And so then we were going like up a hill and then we had to go downhill. And I, I had no idea how different the skis are, you know. So, like, there's just I'm used to being able to, like, dig in or like control.   [00:38:09.750] - Kim Tate And it's just, you know, was your heel is free.   [00:38:12.430] - Tamara Gruber So, yeah, I'm like walking and the edges, there's just not like the edges that you have in downhill.   [00:38:16.710] - Kim Tate No, not at all. Yeah. So you stay, the whole idea is like, I mean I guess some people like plow but when I that time I went cross-country skiing. You're kind of in a rut of already done.   [00:38:28.530] - Tamara Gruber So you kind of I think it would have been cool if we did like the groomed trail but. But they're groomed trail was more like almost like a track, like an overall kind of thing. And then they it's more used to get people comfortable with it and then they go out to backcountry. Yeah. So like that part, I mean we made it fine. It was fine. Hannah actually really liked it and she liked like going ahead and laughing at us a bit.   [00:38:51.120] - Tamara Gruber But I just, I definitely love snowshoeing. So I'm like I don't think I would choose like cross country over snowshoeing. You know, I just I, you know, me and my control, like, I like to be in control and like, it's so easy to be in control.   [00:39:06.720] - Kim Tate Snowshoeing is better for that with than cross country. Yeah. I took out, yeah. I took out my father in law because I didn't know anything about it or how to stop and he had stopped to like look at something.I just kept going. I don't know what to do. So it's kind of funny. I mean it we were fine but yeah.   [00:39:25.260] - Tamara Gruber Yeah that was cool to get to try that, you know, and then the next thing we did didn't end up quite as well, but we went snow tubing and again, it's like a little bit icy. And so they have, you know, there this is just all on their property.   [00:39:40.710] - Tamara Gruber So they have a hill where they have kind of, you know, trails. But it's not like this. Quite the same grooming that you would have, you know, if you went to a ski resort type of of snow tubing. But they pull you up in a snowmobile, so they take you up there up to the hill on the snowmobile, you tube down, then they snowmobile you back up, you know, so that's kind of cool. And it was a lot of fun.   [00:40:00.450] - Tamara Gruber Like, we were definitely having a ton of fun, like Glenn and Hannah were going down, like in Hannah. And I did it, too, like together together, you know, and like, go down. But when you went down, you were going really fast.   [00:40:10.680] - Tamara Gruber They're like it's really slick, just so you know. So if you. Want to slow down like you use your foot to, like, kind of slow you down, like it's better if you went on your belly. We're usually like sit in the tube, you know, go on your belly and then you can, like, control it a little bit more.   [00:40:23.870] - Tamara Gruber And then at the bottom, they had some, like, barriers. And it's like you don't really want to go past the barrier because you're not going to go off a cliff. But it's it's not going to be great if you keep going, you know.   [00:40:32.150] - Tamara Gruber So I would always, you know, slow myself down, but it definitely was getting sicker and sicker. And then Glenn and Hannah, which we're almost it was almost going to be like the end anyway, like we're almost at the end of the day. But he went and then I saw, like, the two of them went like because there's two runs and I was waiting at the top. And then I went down. I kind of saw Glenn go like, oh, you know.   [00:40:52.790] - Tamara Gruber And then I was like, oh, what happens? I get down to the bottom and he can't stand because he he was using his foot to slow down and he felt something. And then when he went to stand up afterwards, the snow is like really deep, but it was just a little bit crusty on top. So then you kind of fall through and you might you know, you might be like a couple feet deep and snow and you have to, like, lift your foot out.   [00:41:13.970] - Tamara Gruber And so he kind of fell in to someone's like hole and then his foot, like he just felt something so like a few to three years, two years ago, he fractured his foot doing, you know, like he was doing a half marathon.   [00:41:27.650] - Tamara Gruber He was running a lot and he had like a stress fracture. So he says that this is what it felt like. So that was not the ideal end to our little trip. Yeah, it's a bummer because it sounds like you guys were having such a good time.   [00:41:40.610] - Kim Tate And then now it's a, you know, kind of like the end as calmly as you want it.   [00:41:46.160] - Tamara Gruber And then, yeah, it was especially great that while at least I was like, OK, let's like put ice on it and wrap it and like, put it up and just like, relax for a while and like see how you feel. But then he called a friend and the friend was like, you really should get x rays before you go, like all the way home, because we're leaving the next morning to start at 10, 12 hour drive to Kansas.   [00:42:07.160] - Tamara Gruber And so then I was like, I really think I have to go get x rays. And by this point it's like five o'clock. And I'm like, well, by the time I get you to Steamboat Springs, like we're missing dinner here. And then we're driving back here at night after dark, which not like great roads for driving after dark when you're not familiar with them.   [00:42:26.510] - Tamara Gruber And then we're just getting up and leaving the next morning and we're we'll have to drive back, pass through Steamboat Springs, you know, like we were north and we needed to go south. So I was like, OK, I think what we should do is just pack up and check out early and I should take it as Steamboat Springs and then like, let's just stay down there and then start our drive from there in the morning. It just, you know, it just wasn't worth it to come back, like just for breakfast and so sad, like we only really had to two nights there, but it worked out like we drove down.   [00:42:56.810] - Tamara Gruber I got us all packed up and checked out and we drove down to Steamboat Springs and dropped them off at the hospital for X-rays. I'm like, well, I can't come in anyway. So like, let me go take care of, like, getting gas in the car and finding where we can get some food to pick up and, you know, researching where to stay. And so, like, we could have stayed in Steamboat Springs, but we were kind of like, you know what, let's just drive down to 70, Interstate 70, so that in the morning, like, we definitely have less of a big drive tomorrow.   [00:43:22.340] - Tamara Gruber And so we we thought it was all going to be good. And we he was finally done at like eight o'clock. So it's like, you know, maybe before eight o'clock is like just turning dark and we start driving and we have to go up like over a mountain pass.   [00:43:36.950] - Tamara Gruber And I'm driving, of course, because he has like a boot and crutches and it starts snowing like swirling white out snow, like I can barely see. So I'm driving this mountain pass like I don't know how easy it is, you know what I mean? Like, is it is it really slick? Like, it was terrifying. I will tell you, like even like everyone in the car just like was quiet. So I could like, just very much focus on my drive.   [00:44:04.100] - Tamara Gruber And I was like gripping that wheel and going like twenty five miles an hour and just trying to be so careful because, you know, like it's a mountain pass in Colorado, like.   [00:44:14.180] - Tamara Gruber Yeah. And all I could think was if I pull over, are we going to end up one of those people that like died on the side of the road because they froze overnight. And, you know, like, what if it gets worse, you know, versus better?   [00:44:25.220] - Tamara Gruber And so I just, like, pushed through. And when we finally started coming back down, at least it stopped snowing. But then I was like, still so tense, like the rest of the drive. It was like a two hour drive to get like south to Interstate 70 because, you know, it's just dark and small mountain road. And then we had to look out for deer. There's all these signs for Deer Crossing. And they even I saw a couple bridges.   [00:44:48.500] - Tamara Gruber So I think it's where they've made those like wildlife. Yeah. Crossing thing. Crossing things. Yeah. Yeah. So and and the people at the hospital had warned Glen, like, if you're driving that way, like watch out for deer. So, you know, we finally made it to our hotel and it was good that we were plant we had booked ahead because when we got there the hotel parking lot was jammed. And so I dropped Glenn and he ran off up front, you know, because he has crutches and they went in to check in and like I.   [00:45:12.700] - Tamara Gruber To go park so far away and as I got out of the car, I realized a lot of people were actually sleeping in the car and their cars were running. And I'm like, what's going on? And then I realized that, like, they had closed Interstate 70 because of snow. And people were just, like, waiting it out there, I think.   [00:45:30.520] - Tamara Gruber So I'm like, oh, I'm really glad that I had booked the hotel room and I'm glad that we didn't plan to go any further. But I was so exhausted. We got there and I was like, I just need a minute. Like, I just I need to decompress. Like it was I was at the point that stressful. Yeah, I felt like breaking down in tears. I was just like, I need to like, let out all the stress, like I was so like I just really needed to breathe for a little bit.   [00:46:01.570] - Tamara Gruber I really, really enjoyed the ranch part and then from there we just, you know, we headed home and we, we stayed. I will give a lot of credit to Marriott because we booked a lot of our hotels with points and we ended up on the way back, like having to adjust.   [00:46:16.720] - Tamara Gruber Like, I just like to have our hotels booked on a road trip because I don't know, like I'm just worried. Like, what about the thing like with, you know, Interstate 70 and like the hotel gets sold out or, you know, something like that. So we're planning on stopping in. You will know. Is it Seleena or Salina? Salina, yeah.   [00:46:34.180] - Tamara Gruber So we were planning on stopping there, but because we had started from, you know, like an earlier like because we had already gone south and we were starting it was going to be not as long a drive. We're like, let's just push on and go a little further. And so we decided to push on. I don't even remember where we stopped, but it was like closer to Kansas City. I think it was still in Kansas, like, I seriously can't even remember. But we called, you know, on at least it brought us like another hour or two, you know, like, yeah, further east.   [00:47:03.310] - Tamara Gruber And so Glen called and he had you know, he's so big into his like, I got the email the day before, you know, because I'm like, whatever status does in already. So, yeah, we want to change it. But he's already checked in like .   [00:47:15.700] - Tamara Gruber And so I was like, well you need to call because like if y'all like maybe they'll say something, you know, they'll let you. So they were like, OK, we're canceling it. But, you know, you booked this with a certificate, so you're going to have to call like Marriott to get it, like reinstated. So then luckily I'm driving because Glenns. But, you know, so he's calling. He gets them to, like, give him back his points and then immediately, like, we rebooked somewhere else, like with the points.   [00:47:41.770] - Tamara Gruber So it was all like very seamless. Yeah, it was great.   [00:47:44.680] - Tamara Gruber So we did that and then. Oh I think it was Topeka. Oh I think that's where we stopped.There was a very good coffee shop across the street. That's all I know. Which I don't, you know, I don't even drink coffee but it was really cool.   [00:48:07.150] - Kim Tate I saw people become coffee drinkers just because like when the craze of the coffee shop aspect and then, like, working at home, I think people it's kind of funny to think that way, but I'm convinced.   [00:48:18.700] - Tamara Gruber Yeah, it was. And then. Yeah. So the next day we just had to drive to St. Louis and so we got there and you know, you and I had talked about on a previous episode like that, we were going to go to the arch and so I had bought tickets in advance. And it's another thing, just like the Rock Hall of Fame, where it was such a better experience because there were hardly any people, you know.   [00:48:38.800] - Tamara Gruber So I bought the tickets in advance, which is good. When we showed up, there was a big sign that was like we're sold out for the day, but we had something at the end of the day anyway. So we got there. We didn't have time to do the museum downstairs first because we were a little like five minutes late for our tram, you know, up to the top. You did that, which definitely it is.   [00:48:58.540] - Tamara Gruber If you've not done it is not good for claustrophobic people. So it's like these little pods. I don't know if you remember from when you went, but it's like this little round pod that, like, you get in. But they've done it.   [00:49:09.310] - Tamara Gruber It's kind of like a Disney ride now. So like you get a boarding pass and you stand on like Circle five and then you're going to be in pod five. And somehow in normal times, they could fit like five or six people in these pods. And I have no idea, like a gondola pod.   [00:49:28.810] - Tamara Gruber But then you're going up. I mean, it's kind of fascinating technology because first we're like, how do they do this? Like how do you go up on an angle.   [00:49:36.010] - Tamara Gruber So you have to like read about how they do it. But it's like because it's like a you know, like a round pod, they can like, rotate it like you don't feel it. But anyway, it's it's interesting, but it does have like a glass door. So then you can like, look down. So that's also not so great for some people. Even Hannah was like, I don't really like this, but it's like I think three minutes up or like maybe four minutes up, three minutes down or something like that.   [00:49:59.710] - Tamara Gruber But then when you get to the top, you have an assigned viewing window. So like we were window five and one on both sides.   [00:50:07.150] - Tamara Gruber So no one, you know, like you're not fighting with anyone for like a photo. No one's leaning into your. Like, you have your own little window again, and I didn't love it because you had to, she's getting like a little bit nervous with some heights you had to, like, lean just like you said, like you have to lean to look out the window.   [00:50:24.540] - Tamara Gruber Yeah, but and also it had been raining and so it was pretty foggy, but it was still is a pretty view. I'm glad we did it. We went downstairs. There was a really cool museum, which, you know, a lot of things.   [00:50:35.130] - Tamara Gruber She's like, oh, that's in our AP history class. And, you know, like all the, you know, things that she had learned recently. So it's a nice museum. Then they were closing. So we left and we had to leave the building. But it's pouring torrential rain when we walk out and we have to walk like ten minutes back to the hotel. And so we were like, well, like we just have to walk. Like, I hadn't brought an umbrella and I had a coat that's at least like water-Resistant, but hers was not really. And luckily it wasn't freezing, freezing cold, but it was so torrential, like we were laughing, like we were just so completely soaked, like to our skin that we were just laughing. And we got there.We walked in and Glen was like, oh, my God. Like, look at you guys. And like, the front of our pants were like a completely different color than, like the back of our pants.   [00:51:28.710] - Tamara Gruber Are you sure that I could feel the water like running down my leg inside my pants, like into my shoe. It was so bad but it was like funny. So we immediately were like, OK, we're like stripping out of this. I think we yeah.   [00:51:41.160] - Tamara Gruber We did like a room service, like drop off thing for dinner and we got into like the robes and stuff. Oh. And this was the place it's called Hotel St. Louis. It's an autograph collection of Marriott. And it is it was great. Like it was a beautiful, historic kind of property. And are we again got a suite like Glen did the upgrade thing with his points. And it was a huge, beautiful suite. And it had this big bathroom with like this nice shower stall and a tub. But it had something I've never seen before. And it had a heated toilet seat with like a built in bidet. But like when I pulled off those wet pants and I sat on that toilet seat and it kind of like, OK, I

You may only know Kellogg’s as the company that makes your favorite cereal. But there is so much more to the company than just delicious treats. Robert Birse is the Head of Global B2B Ecommerce at Kellogg’s, and he has been leading the charge to position Kellogg’s as one of the leaders in creating scalable B2B Ecommerce strategies. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Robert explains all the ways that Kellogg’s is upending traditional Ecommerce strategies in order to help customers find greater success. Using technology like A.I. and machine learning, and by developing a platform that all of their customers and partners can use, Kellogg’s has been pushing the ball forward on bringing small and large businesses into the world of Ecommerce and helping them get the most out of their Ecommerce strategies.  3 Takeaways: A brand like Kellogg’s has the power to up-end the typical Ecommerce strategy. Instead of asking how to get customers to buy more, they ask how they can help their customers sell more. In doing so, their customers and partners become more successful, and it’s a win-win for all parties Change management is important because many of the small businesses Kellogg’s works with have to fundamentally change the way they think about doing business.hey have to rely much more on technology than ever before. But the appetite is there because A.I. and predictive analytics are proving to be critical tools in helping businesses determine what to stock and how to look at consumer behavior B2B Ecommerce is still in its infancy, but there is an appetite for innovation across the board from brands to retailers to distributors. They’re eager to test, iterate and experiment with new technologies in order to create better one-to-one engagement at scale For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Stephanie: Welcome to Up Next in Commerce. This is Stephanie Postles, your host from Mission.org. Today I'm very excited, we have Robert Birse on the show, the head of Global B2B & B2B2C E-commerce at Kellogg. Rob, how's it going? Robert: It's going great. Thank you very much, from captivity. Stephanie: Yes, yes. How is life in captivity? Robert: Well, I'm thinking about calling Amnesty International, see if they can get me out of here. Stephanie: Well, we were just talking about what life looks like right now, just us eating lots of Cheese-Its on our bed at home, calling into Zoom calls, or maybe that's just me. Maybe that's not you. Robert: No, I think that's a typical picture across the world right now. Stephanie: Yeah, which is okay. Temporarily, it's okay. So, I saw you have a very long history in E-commerce. I think I saw dating back to even early 2000s, right? Robert: I'm afraid it was in the '90s. Stephanie: Oh nice, okay perfect. Well, I would love to hear a bit about your background and what led you into E-commerce. Robert: Sure. Well, I was working for a catalog distributor, so not a distributor of catalog. We use the catalog as our medium to communicate with our customers who were predominantly engineers in factories across Europe. The business that I was responsible for at the time was a small specialist distributor, and we were struggling a little bit to find our position as E-commerce was starting to take more of a role in the consumer engagement or the customer engagement in our case. So we were on the tube and this was the late '90s, and we took a digital transformation, even though digital still wasn't really a bonafide strategy because it was only emerging. The first task we undertook was to create a digital asset library from all the bromides and things that we'd cumulated to support the catalog production. Robert: So we partnered with a startup in London, a bunch of basically college graduates who were trying to create the first digital content management system. And that was more than 20 years ago. So we did that and we started to work to create a digital presence online, starting with static content and then moving into transactional capabilities. It helped transform that little business into something that had a much greater future. So that was my first introduction to digital and then never looked back since to be honest. Stephanie: Oh, that's great. What kind of transformations has your career seen since the starting point in the '90s to now? And what does your role look like now at Kellogg? Robert: Yeah, I mean, I've used digital disruption and innovation in all the roles I've had since that position in the UK to varying degrees of impact. When I joined Allied, and I moved to Texas, we transformed that business collectively from a couple of hundred million to 600 million in a very short period of time. Just really ensuring that we unified the sales channels with the digital channel. In the early '90s, or early 2000s was very popular to Ring-fence E-com as a separate channel, and I felt that was wrong. So when we moved to the US I tried to ensure that the unification happens, so it was the best one to punch we could possibly give our customers, we're always on capability with the human interaction. I have used that principle throughout my career to build success. Robert: Ultimately all the way to Kelloggs where now, I'm using technology to create value for our customers, changing the paradigm that was always traditional in sales engagement of how do I get my customers to buy more? Now the principle behind our E-commerce strategy from a B2B perspective, is how do we enable our customers to sell more? And then we will be the recipients of the downstream benefit in due course, and that's a big change in the approach. Stephanie: So what did your first, maybe like 90 days look like? When you came to Kellogg's and you saw the lay of the land, what were some of the initial things that you were like, we have to do this, or have to shift this? What did you do? Robert: Well, the train was leaving the station when I joined Kellogg and I decided to embark on a pilot, a B2B pilot, in Brazil of all markets, one of the hardest B2B markets in the world. So it was an interesting challenge to ramp up very quickly. Now, thankfully that we're using Salesforce Commerce Cloud as the technology platform, which I was very familiar with. So that was okay, but getting familiar with our business model in Brazil, which was a direct store delivery model was a different beast for me. And then obviously with Portuguese language challenges, it was an interesting 90 days, but it was certainly a massive. You know the saying, jump in the deep end and [inaudible] and that's where I found myself. Stephanie: Thankfully you're still swimming today, which we all are glad about. So what does your day to day look like now? And how would I think about B2B when it comes to Kellogg's? Because from a consumer perspective, I don't really think about what goes on behind the scenes. I just go to my local whole foods. I find my cereals and my RXbars, and I don't think about how it gets there or how maybe it gets to a smaller Mom-and-pop stops. So how do I think about Kellogg's B2B experience and B2B2C experience? Robert: Well, I hope the consumer will start to see how B2B is impacting the shopper experience, not directly but indirectly. So as part of our mission, we're trying to use technology B2B platforms to create a conduit where we can influence, educate, and inform and enable our retail, especially our independent small retailers. Not a frequency store or space in particular, to be better store owners and to create a better in store experience. As well as use some of the modern engagement tactics, such as social media engagement to bring more food traffic to their store from within their community. Therefore, strengthen their business and providing a jumping off point for them to become more successful in the future. Robert: So the consumer should recognize that when they go to the store, the store has always got the product they're expecting to find in the store, and if that product is displayed in a fashion that's compelling and it's positioned next to other products, they well, that would be the perfect combination. Then B2B commerce, modern B2B commerce is starting to have an impact on the buying experience. So that's what goes on behind the scenes, and that's what our vision is built around. Stephanie: Yeah. That is something I never think about, is this product positioned next to another one to make a better, maybe make me buy more. How do you figure out what products should be next to each other? And how do you work with the store owners to ensure that they abide by those rules? To make sure that, maybe not rules, but it'll also help them sell more as well. So how do you work with the store owners to creating a partnership? Robert: Well, in the past, it was always through traditional sales engagement. The Lucas success has always been a principle behind how we've engaged our retailers in using planograms and driving compliance around these planograms and the science behind them has been well understood, and the discipline has been in place for a long time. However, the cost of serving and maintain that relationship at a cadence that we need to continue has become ever more challenging. So digital is helping to change that paradigm and allowing us to go back to the long tail and really start to help our smaller retailers to really become stronger and more effective in their day to day life. So we see things like AI driving the intelligence around product recommendations for a store type, for instance. Robert: So if you are an independent store owner and you are in a rural environment where you are a 1,000 square feet and two the cash registers, that we would like to be able to cluster you with other retailers just like you, do the analysis and determine what you must stock, what you could stock and what you shouldn't stock. And then ensure that we're talking to the owner operator on a cadence that would allow us to then do more of that and offer and recommend as consumers trends change. So we're always ahead of demand, not buying demand in the long tail. Stephanie: How do you stay ahead of demand? What kind of tools and technologies are you using to ensure that you're able to quickly react to consumer buying behaviors or inventory levels for the store owner? How do you stay ahead of those things? Robert: Well, you're giving me way too much credit to say that we're actually ahead of those things, we're aiming to be ahead of these things. So let's make sure that's completely clear and we're being transparent, there's a lot of work to do here. So what we see is the ability to take all that historic purchasing information, and then combine it with social listening to see what consumers are talking about, then plugging in triggers like weather and other influences on buying patterns and then continue to feed machine learning and AI logic to build a picture that is constantly dynamic and changing so that we can then say to the customer, the retailer, "Hey, this product is starting to decline its popularity so we're recommending you start to reduce the inventory you carry. And by the way, this product is gaining popularity and we're going to drive a marketing campaign in your market to promote it. So now it'll become a hot commodity, please accept this recommendation and capitalize on that demand and it will happen in the coming weeks." That's what we're aiming for. Stephanie: Do you see the partners being ready to accept that and wanting to stock the products that you're recommending? Are they trusting your guidance or has it been an uphill battle when it comes to those recommendations? Robert: Well, first of all, the primary segment we're focused on is that high frequency store, independent retailer, a C-store, a convenience store that kind of customer segment, and they've been incredibly underserved for many years now. So any insight that we've given them so far, and the questions we've asked them about would it just be of interest, they've all unanimously said, this is what we've been asking for years, please help me grow my business. So I think the appetite is definitely there. Stephanie: Yeah, that's amazing. How do you set up platforms and systems for these different businesses? Because I could see each one needing something a little bit different. So how do you scale that model to provide the data to each company in a different way, or each, like you said, store in a different way? Robert: Right. It has to be done without human intervention to start with, we cannot be responsible for building an army to support such endeavor. So at Kellogg we're really focused on a single global platform, one ecosystem of applications that will scale globally across markets and channels and the customer segments within these channels, with a lower cost of ownership as we scale it out. So that's the first guiding principle. The second end is, if a machine can do it, we probably shouldn't do it. So everything is going to be machine driven. And then by rewarding the owner operators to complete their profiles, that allows us to capture information like, is your store rural, suburban, or urban, gives us another great data point to then create more effective costuming. Robert: And then in these clusters, the analytics can be very powerful and the machine can then start to communicate through marketing automation on a cadence that we could never possibly imagine before, and then touch them with relevant content that is absolutely pertinent to their business. So I would make a recommendation to you and your store that you're missing these two products, you should this and if you do stock these, we predict that you will make X number of dollars incrementally every year thereafter. And that's very powerful for comparison. Stephanie: Yeah, no, that's great. Are there any pitfalls or learnings when going about this partnership model and helping the retail stores that you saw along the way that you would find maybe other companies or brands will need to do this, where you're like, "Hey, we ran into this problem along the way, or this was a big hiccup that other people could probably avoid if you listen to this podcast." Any advice around that? Robert: Well, I think it's going to be the same answer that everybody gives, and that's really focused on education, change management. You're asking people to change their habits. So in emerging markets like Brazil, for us high growth markets, there's a full service that the reps provide to date. And so the store owners are accustomed to doing a particular style of business with us, we're asking them to change that and be more responsive from a digital perspective. Now corporate, for all the bad and sadness that's come with corporate, it has been the catalyst for changing the perspective of many retailers to how they should interact with their brands. So that's been that the silver lining of corporate is it's elevated the position of why B2B could be a very important tool in their growth strategy going forward. And that's changed the perspective of consumers considerably. Stephanie: Yeah, that's a good silver lining. So I saw that you also created a mobile app to reach some of the smaller retail clients. Can you tell me a bit about what problem you were facing and why you thought mobile was the best way to solve that problem? Robert: Well, that's a really easy one is the business tool of choice for small business owners. The internet and the mobile device and companies like Kellogg's are now developing solutions, online solutions that years ago would have been financially out of reach. Now they have all these tools that they can run their business, and that's why mobile is so important to us. Stephanie: Got it. Do you ever feel like you're encumbered by trying to meet your partner obligations or that the experiences maybe can't be what you want them to be because of certain obligations you have with partners? Robert: No, I feel more enabled to be honest, because it's a difficult market. The times are always challenging. So anything that might add value to a relationship, I think it goes a long way to creating a winning business scenario. So don't feel there's any barriers, maybe some adoption challenges that those would have been there regardless. So I feel that there's such a large opportunity to use Ecommerce to change our engagement model, that there're enough partners that have put their hand up and will put their hand up to say, "Yeah, I would love to be part of that because I can see that could create competitive advantage for me and alone I can't do it but in partnership with you, I feel that you could guide us and help us aspire to our own digital endeavors going forward." Stephanie: Yeah, completely agree. How do these retail partners keep track of all their other brands? So I'm thinking, if Kellogg's has their website that you would log into and you would look at the recommendations and get your orders and your inventory and all that kind of stuff. How would a retailer keep track of everything else they have in their store too? Is there like a single source that they can rely on or how do they think about that? Robert: So that's a great question, and it's greatly misunderstood. There is no real lifespan for a single application to serve a single brand in a retail environment. Who in their right mind would manage 50 different applications from different brands? So for two different models, I foresee. So in a mature, disciplined distribution based market, such as North America where most of our distribution wholesale partners have a web presence to date with E-commerce capabilities, we will be looking to integrate into that, to improve the experience in that environment. So think about a store within a store concept, and that would be where I would see brands like Kellogg's and others prospering and allowing the retailer to buy across a broad selection of products available from the distributor, but also to technically punch out to reach my Kellogg experience, where they can see their performance plus with their peer group to get the recommendations that we're offering, being informed about trends and product demand and so forth. Robert: And then if they're inclined to confer upon a recommendation we've given them that product order will go back into the distributor environment to be processed in a normal fashion, thereby allowing them to continue to go about buying other products for the store. Now in markets where distribution isn't as well evolved from a digital perspective, then marketplaces become the answer to ensuring that a retailer can go to a marketplace designed for their customer segment, with brands that represent at least 40% of their shelf. So that there's enough for them to do in one execution to not create administration, but to reduce administration in the procurement of product. Stephanie: I got it, that makes sense. How do you think about working with different platforms? You just mentioned marketplaces and I saw when you go on Kellogg's website, you direct people to go on platforms like Amazon and then also CVS and Target. How do you balance working with bigger stores and retail partners, and then also platforms like Amazon within your Kellogg strategy for E-commerce? Robert: Well, there's a lot of room for improvement on both ends, so in the end you're referring to where the large platforms are in play, there's a ton of up side to improve content, to improved recommendations, to really get deeper integration, that we can take all that learning and insight and present it as a more refined offer list dynamic. Obviously the price part architecture element of ensuring that what we're presenting is something that's scalable and profitable for us, as well is a key factor in these relationships at both ends, of course. I would say that they're not mutually exclusive in the sense that, we can operate in two spectrums here. So in the large platform, but also taking that technology and applying it to enable the long tail to prosper. Robert: Monetizing the long tail is actually, a very worthy prize worth unlocking for every CPG company in the world. And I think that's where the glue on your food is to be honest, we do a great job in most cases with our Walmart's, and our Target's and our Amazon's. We don't do a tremendous job today with a smaller, high-frequency stores as an example. Stephanie: Yeah. That long tail does seem really important. How would you advise other CPG brands to engage with those? Like you said, the long tail? Robert: Do you know, I think partnerships are key. The synergistic product from more than one brand that you could curate into a collective offer, there is a lot of power in that. So strengthen in numbers has always been the case. So I think we could really team up better in the industry to make a more powerful proposition to our retailers, that creates greater value, greater economies of scale, and it's easier to adopt. And I think that's what's missing today because everybody is a little nervous about working together, trade secrets and what if the competition find out. But honestly in my entire career, I've always had a hard time just getting our innovation execution done, nevermind, stealing somebody else's in time. So in reality, it will never happen, but there's an insecurity, that's common to human nature, I guess. Stephanie: Yeah, I see the same thing in startup world where people don't want to share their ideas and you're like, "Trust me, I've got my own stuff to work on, I'm not trying to steal your idea and build a whole nother startup on top of the stuff that I'm working on. Don't worry." Robert: So true. Stephanie: Have you seen any successes when it comes to those partnerships that you would advise others to think about it this way, when it comes to letting people lower down their guards and allowing them to see this could have benefit for everyone, any successful case studies there? Robert: No, nothing is mature as a case study yet. We're still very much in the embryonic stage of developing this strategy. You can see it though in play from time to time when we do joint ventures with other brands targeting the consumer, to be honest. We did last year, we did a very exciting campaign with cheeses and house wine, that was the box wine company. Stephanie: Oh, tell me more about that? Robert: Well, this one is very interesting and very simple, it was a box wine. The box had to be extended to contain cheeses. Cheese and wine, as you know, is a perfect combination. I personally was just eager to get my hands on a box and, yeah, that morning it went live at nine o'clock and we sold everything in about 40 seconds, I believe. So none of us got any, so the power- Stephanie: You're still on the wait list. Robert: It's never coming back, I don't think. Stephanie: Oh, no. Robert: We have to recover from the demand. Yeah, cheeses doesn't need much help [inaudible] as I said, we can't make enough to meet consumer demand. That's a great example of when you can join forces and just make the proposition more compelling. So I see that playing out in the B2B space as well, as I said before, together we're stronger. Stephanie: Yeah. How do you think about what partnerships are advantageous to have? It seems like it'd be hard, and I could see a lot of brands maybe partnering randomly, and you're like, "Ah, that's not really even helpful to the consumer." So how would you think about striking up new partnerships in a way that's mutually beneficial to both brands and is good for a longer term strategy? Robert: Well, it depends what your ambition is, of course. So there'll be different solutions for different approaches. I mean, obviously, we wouldn't partner with a Benjamin Moore Paint brand, there's no correlation. So within the food industry taking snacks as an example, the beverage industry is the perfect partner, beer, wine, alcohol, Cheez-It and Pringles, it's a perfect combination. So the same as for cereal, milk and yogurt, it's a perfect combination. So there's definitely groupings of product where you can see which brands aspire to the same vision, it would be critically important as well. So just because the product has synergy doesn't mean that the strategy is there, you can't force a round peg into a square hole. Robert: So my first checkbox criteria would be, is the digital ambition the same? Do both companies, or do three or four companies aspire to own breakfast across all hospitality in the world? Well, if we do, then we've got a common objective. Now, how do we go about it together is the next step. Stephanie: That's great. It seems like the larger brands too, might have to give a little bit more, or provide a little bit more help to the smaller brands, if they're picking someone like ... If you were partnering with a smaller wine company or something, it seems like you might have to be ready to do maybe the 80% of the heavy lifting, because maybe they don't have the resources or the budget. Is that kind of how you're seeing things play out when you pick partners, that sometimes Kellogg's has to do the heavier lifting to create a partnership? Robert: Yeah. Even with partners with some of the bigger brands we're actually willing to do the heavy lifting. We made a decision with our leadership to own our destiny in this space. So it's from top to bottom, and I do see that small startups in an incubator fashion, we would be a great big brother to get products launched. And we have our own startup business within Kellogg's where we're giving grants to products like Leaf Jerky and so forth, which is a different plant-based product that challenges the status quo of what we felt like Jerky was in the past. So yeah, I could see that there could be a market verticals that we would go after, there might be health club awaited before we joined the Kohler, we were talking about RXbars and examples. Robert: So predominantly through health clubs and so forth, why not probiotic yogurts? Why not non-alcohol based beer? So why not the combination? All plays well to the health industry, so there might be some small companies in there that are pioneering excellent alternatives that we would be, I think, more than delighted to partner with them. Stephanie: Yeah. No, that's great. So Kellogg's is over, they've been around for over a 100 years, right? Since 1906, is that correct? Robert: Yeah, it's correct. Stephanie: Okay. Oh, good memory, Stephanie. So with a company that's been around for that long, how do you think about making sure that the company continues to innovate? Like you said, you have a startup within Kellogg's, what do you see within that startup? What kind of products do you see coming out of that? And would you advise a lot of other large companies to also put on their startup hat to compete with these B2C companies that are all popping up everywhere? Robert: Well, change has become the new norm. I mean, taking COVID aside, people want to taste new things, that is my impression, anyway. I think, there's an appetite for new and more challenging flavors and so forth. So in the food industry, I can see that the innovation around our product offers is actually critical for success. But the innovation doesn't stop there though, we have to be more innovative in how we present these products, how we ensure these products create value other than just in flavor, but in health and wellbeing as well. So Kellogg has always been a very health driven business right from its inception, that continues to be an underpinning philosophy of our company. I see a great deal of passion in our business and investment for innovation. It's not just digital, it's all down to food, not innovation kitchens and the chefs we have, they're inspired to really go find new products. Robert: We do a great job of creating an incubator within our business by constantly searching for ideas within our employee base around what we could do with Kellogg products. So I think you look inwards and outwards there's no stone not worth turning over to find out an idea about a new product. Stephanie: Yeah, that makes sense. When you mentioned marketing earlier, it seems like you would have to market to two different audiences. You have to market to your retail partners and then also to the consumers, how do you go about, maybe within your platform where you're selling to retailers, do you market differently than how you do to consumers? Or how do you think about that? Robert: Well, so now you bring up an interesting subject in the sense that direct to consumer, which could in sense be side by side be B2B, does provide you with an awesome channel to test the appeal of new product, and affordable cost if you engineered it appropriately so that you've got something you can stand up and tear it down quite quickly without major investment. So I don't know if you would really want to continually be knocking on the door of your retailers with new products without having some good market data behind it, to say that this will sell. And so testing that product in market that becomes a critical part of the evolution of the go to market strategy. So I see traffic consumer testing being interesting proposition for companies like Kellogg's going forward. Stephanie: Got it. So you test the product with a market first, and then you go to your partners and say, "Hey, a lot of people like this, you should also put this in your store?" Robert: Absolutely, because that's where we get the scale, and then we can then turn on all of our abilities to cross sale and use some of the capabilities we talked to earlier about in the B2B platform, ensuring that our retailers know how to create success with new product. There's another interesting aspect of that too, so if you'd go back to the conversation around the long tail of retail, these companies, these business owners don't have sophisticated inventory management tool. So one of the biggest challenges we're solving for is ensuring that new products, our products we've recommended for that retail when they're placed that they stay. Because we see a lot of occasions where a new product is being placed or our product from the portfolio that they should be adopting, has been taken. Robert: And then a week later has been sold and never replaced because somebody in the evening has just redistributed product on the shelf to complete the look and that position be lost. And so making sure that these products are reordered and reordered again, until they become habitual, their presence is habitual on the shelf is a massive opportunity so it's not about just new product and innovation, it's also about ensuring the stickiness of product they are placing on a shelf. Stephanie: What ways do you engage with your partners to make sure that they, like you say, keep reordering, have you seen any best practices to stay top of mind with these people even if they do excellent and lose a spot in the shelf. They're like, "Oh, hey, this product actually belongs there." How do you go about building those patterns? Robert: Well, there's also technology becoming available from scanning to just constant recognition. So there are solutions coming, they're not particularly affordable today for the segment we've been addressing, which is the high frequency stores segment. So the challenge has been resolved by manpower up until now, and of course, that's not very affordable. It's interesting when you go to markets like India, if you don't show up something else will steal your space. Stephanie: [inaudible 00:32:09]. Robert: I know, so there's a whole bunch of, I must run ... Making sure that you hold onto the shelf space that you've worked so hard to attain. So we're looking at tools like, asking our retailers to take shelfies using the robot cameras and uploading- Stephanie: Shelfie? Tell me more about a shelfie. Robert: So a shelfie is just, the shelf equivalent of your selfie, in the sense that, we're to set challenges for our retailers and say, "Listen, take a shelf of your cereal display." And then we'll match that image to the planet ground that the AI has in its memory, and then give them a score, and that score will then be translated into points, Kellogg points that they can use for purchasing everything from a discount to cleaning services, say for instance, in the future. So one thing happens in this process, is we ask them to do a challenge, before the actually did their pictures there is a pretty good chance they're going to address any gaps on their shelf. So we see it being a little self serving and helping us get a better position in the store, but also then just educating the retail around best practice and reinforcing that practice. So the look of success is getting closer and closer in the package stores within their reach. So that's just one example, I guess. Stephanie: Yeah, no, that's awesome. That's a really fun example. Have you seen the rewards program that you have actually really incentivize these retailers to, like you said, take these shelfies and engage with your brand more? Robert: No, again, you gave far too much justice. I talk with authority, but we're still very much in the theory and the testing, the technology is still catching up, but we see rewards and we have a rewards engine built into our platform to date. We haven't really turned it on to its full force yet, but it will be a cornerstone of our strategy. We're looking at gamification rewards and recognition as being a key driver of behavior going forward, and creating the path to best practice. So it will be a constant in our engagement strategy, so at eight o'clock, nine o'clock at night, we'll be connecting with an owner operator of a store through WhatsApp or email or text to say, listen, we have a challenge for you, and this challenge is worth a 1,000 Kellogg points. If you go and take that shelfie or if you can tell us, answer this question about the new product you recently stocked, did it sell out, did customers come back and repurchase? Did you get any feedback in any shape or fashion about the flavor? What did they think, and reward them for that first party data insight. Robert: Now, all of a sudden you've got this incredible ability to harvest information that could be invaluable to your R and D teams. At the same time, you've got the opportunity to influence best practice and take the customer on a journey, the customer being the retail owner operator on a journey to become better at their craft, which is super exciting to us. Stephanie: No, that's really awesome. It seems like there'd be room to build a community among these store owners, to all do the challenges together and to talk about best practices. Have you all explored that? Robert: We're exploring it. We're definitely exploring it. So it came from, when we looked at one of our customer's segments being a K through 12 schools starting here in North America, there's a lot of schools that are rural. They're isolated, they don't have large school communities to support them, and there's so many challenges that they face from allergies and health and nutrition, taking food and making education subject matter. All of these things we're looking into to say, okay, so our community together would be again stronger. So connect schools that are similar together and then connect schools that are not similar and let them use our product as a teaching aid. So we aspire, this is long away from happening. Robert: So please don't take this as something that's been executed today, but we can see that sometime in the future, we'll create a syllabus around corn and our cornflakes and how it changes the flavor of patterns in Japan compared to Idaho, and then to schools when their kids are having their breakfast, they can share the differences in the sweetness and so forth because the [inaudible 00:36:46], the climate is different so that the plant takes on a different flavor. So that's a subject that you could turn into a syllabus and education and bring kids together. Yeah, it is a very exciting proposition for us and different from anything we've ever done before. Stephanie: Yeah, that's awesome. And I did not know that flavors around the world would be different. So you definitely taught me something brand new here. Robert: Yeah. We've done a few things at Kellogg's in the office in Chicago where they've taken five or six or seven different sources of cornflakes and put them all in independent bowls unmarked, and then tasted them and people were convinced that sugar had been applied and so forth. And it actually hadn't, it was just that the different produce, produce different flavors and it was quite an epiphany for many of the folks tasting them. Stephanie: Yeah, no, that's really interesting. So when it comes to your B2B platform, what are some of the best capabilities that you're using today that maybe you weren't using a year or two ago? Robert: Again, cornerstone of what I'm trying to do with the B2B platform is create efficiency, and so to create efficiency, the first thing I'm trying to tackle is preventing any waste of time as it pertains to identifying a product. So we are integrating scan into the mobile device, using the mobile device camera, quickly scan that barcode it will take you straight to the product in our platform. So no need to key in, no need to type in the barcode or any keywords that are associated, just quick scan within less than a second you're on the product detail page, and you got a path to purchase with one click. You've got a path to understand your performance versus your peer group with one click. And you've got a path to understand how to sell more by accessing the tools that give you the toolkits that will help you do that. So that's, that's one aspect. Robert: The second aspect is to create value around ensuring that big data is conferred into some form of exportable logic that says that, hey, you are not creating the optimal product assortment. Companies, businesses, stores, like you sell these products successfully, and you're missing revenue as a result of not taking them. So here's a recommendation for these products. Here's the stocking quantity that we believe you should take. And here's a revenue projection based on MSRP from the class that you belong to that. That to me is transformational in so many ways. Stephanie: So are you using AI behind the scenes to create a lot of these recommendations? And do you think a lot of brands are also doing this or is there a lot of room for them to adopt to this technology? Robert: Yeah. AI is the key to success. So we've talked about AI for several years now, and it has really not delivered what it says in the box as of yet, but I am a 100% confident we're getting closer and closer all the time. Anybody that's been getting with AI knows that a lot of teaching into the logic that supports the output, but we're definitely getting closer to being able to use it at scale. What I see in the next year to 24 months will be the ability to then turn on that dynamic, self-sustaining logic that continues to morph as it reads more data and continue to present very tailored recommendations to all of our retailers worldwide, simultaneously because the computing power, obviously, continues to scale at an exponential rate. So it doesn't do necessarily what it needs to do today, but the path is now clear, and I think it's just around the corner, to be honest. Stephanie: Yeah, no, I completely agree. Are you all training your own models for AI? Are you relying on a platform to help you with that? How would you recommend another brand or a larger or smaller brands to start adopting this technology or start experimenting with it? Robert: Well, there's a lot of data scientists that they're all better actor than I am for sure. Stephanie: Sure? Robert: Yeah, I'm absolutely positive. So we've been looking outward to smaller businesses, as well as some of our larger partners to use their experience. Because clearly they see the opportunity too, so I would continue to just make sure that you're using a blend of traditional partnerships and innovative new businesses that come up with some left-field idea about how to resolve one of the challenges. Constantly looking for new ideas from the marketplace, from the periphery where there's new startups starting and looking for an agent, they might have a great concept that we can use. I often equate it to something you might see in a Paris fashion show where coming in the the runway is a presentation that could be quite outrageous, but some form of it we'll get to the high street that will be very popular with the consumer. So a really wild idea can really translate and be boiled down to something that can be a game changer in reality. So never assume that it has to be something that's already in place, but to be open to suggestion and I try and work on a daily basis to be that way. Stephanie: Yeah. I think that's a really good lesson too, to look at tangental markets and industries that could also help influence not only new products, but also E-commerce strategies and just like keeping tabs on what other people are doing, especially startups who are moving quickly and experimenting quickly. How do you keep tabs on companies like that stay up to date with what other people are trying? Robert: Well in prior lives, working for brands that were less recognized, it was on me to continue to search and find, and encourage my team to continue to look for these innovations. Working for a brand like Kellogg's, there's a lot of people come calling. So I'm obviously in a fortunate position to be exposed to a lot of these ideas on a day by day basis from various entrepreneurs. I feel that Kellogg's could prosper from taking on the idea so that role has changed. So I'm very fortunate in that regard to be exposed to great ideas across the industry and not just from within the food and beverage industry as an example but from sending an upturn to, you name it aerospace, there's a lot of innovation going on. Stephanie: What is definition of success for E-commerce? What kind of metrics do you look at? What do you think is successful? Robert: Yes. Okay, so none of the traditional metrics are really going to be of any interest. So for me, the success has moved upstream. So when I think about what does success look like from a digital perspective in B2B, it's very much around ensuring that the retailer is selling more products more effectively and more efficiently, and putting more money in their pocket. So if I can look back and say that all the retailers that we supply our products are prospering as a result of our E-commerce engagement, because we're delivering not just the fundamentals of E-commerce, which is about auto management and everything else that comes with it. That's just table stakes, whatever else comes with it, where we create the value through AI recommendations, access to toolkits, marketing campaigns, guidance on how to create the perfect store. If that's translating into more dollars at the point of sale, then that's what success looks like to B2B commerce going forward, in my opinion. Stephanie: Yeah. It seems like that partnership and education is really important in B2B, have you guys seen success with doing that? Robert: Well, again, I wish I had something much more tangible to give you in terms of the successful metrics. This is still ground zero, we're still very much in day one of our B2B engagement. I think you will find that modern B2B is still in day one globally across both industries. So there's still a lot of learning, a lot of testing, a lot of refinement to do, but the appetite is there. When I talk to other brands, they feel the same way about how we can harness technology to create value. The retailers I've talked to they are hungry, and so is our distributor and wholesaler partners too, to participate in this new era of one-on-one engagement at a scale that's affordable and on a cadence that has never been achievable before. Just that combination of menu items is really driving the hunger to get to that point quicker. Robert: I wish I had to go quicker, we're definitely trying to get there quicker, but it just takes time to build. And so ask me again in six or 12 months, and I'll be in a far stronger position to give you a better answer. Stephanie: Oh, you've just invited yourself around two. So with things changing so quickly, are there any new or emerging digital channels that you all are focused on or trying out? Robert: Again, comes back to just watching and keeping an eye on how things are changing, an example would be, for instance, say WhatsApp for instance. So WhatsApp starts life as a messaging tool, becomes incredibly popular worldwide, supplanting email, phone, texting everything. Now WhatsApp is developing your online ordering capability that will potentially change the trajectory of B2B commerce. So we're watching it very, very carefully, but there's a caveat, there's so much low hanging fruit in just doing what we already know, we can do better in B2B commerce. The WhatsApp example would be a very shiny object while we still need to continue to look to shop opportunities, we need to temper our enthusiasm to be distracted, it can be a distraction. We know that there's enough revenue potential just executing our primary mission without chasing rabbits down holes. Robert: I don't want to be the anti-innovator, but there's got to be a balance. So I use three words to caution myself, stop, better and clever. Stop doing things that create no value. Identify what you do well, but do it better. And say Friday afternoon is for the clever things. So Friday afternoons are dedicated to it, but don't let it become all consuming and that's how I approach this. Stephanie: That's great. That's a really good lesson, Friday afternoons with a beer maybe then you're even more creative, right? Robert: Why not? Yeah, certainly, my wine consumption during COVID is gone up tremendously. Stephanie: I think everyone else. So are there any B2B commerce trends that you're excited about that are coming down over the next couple, well, maybe even in the next year? Robert: Well, I just think the fact that the chatter around B2B has climbed exponentially in the last three or four months, is exciting. I'm super excited about what machine learning can do for scale in just enabling us to do the value added services that we've aspire to do, but couldn't execute because of the cost. So these two elements that B2B is becoming a cornerstone of business strategy, and it's not seeming to be as a poor cousin of B2C, B2B can be sexy. We're taking all of the goodness from the user experience and applying it, but then with this logic, that's data driven it's hard to turn down when we recommend products to a particular owner operator that I've got a revenue projection associated with them, that's a hard proposition. Plus we're giving them an award for accepting the recommendation. If that recommendation comes and was close to our prediction, then I think conversion could be a 100% going forward. Robert: Now in digital, we usually have 2% conversion and an action was great, a 100% conversion, wow, that's perfect execution. What does that do to the industry? Truly transformational. Stephanie: Yeah, I completely agree. So when it comes to implementing technology and stuff, because I think, like you said, a lot of people and a lot of platforms are focusing on B2B now, it is a new player to look at where B2C was maybe the sexier area before. How would you advise other companies to think about onboarding new tech technologies and tools in a way that sets them up for longterm success? Robert: Well, first of all, think scrappy. You can't innovate with the mindset of perfection. Large companies, I think suffer more than small companies, of course, there's a procedure and there's an ROI calculation, and there's a certain set of expectations. Especially when you're dealing with technology that can't quite deliver on the initial promise, but you have a fairly competent perspective on it, we'll get there. So you have to be a little ashamed of what you take into market, because quite frankly, in my experience, you see the flaws, whereas the target audience does not. They see something different, something value added, they know it's a work in progress, and they can see it resolves a pain point. It removes all of the inadequacies of what you didn't do as a result of getting to market quicker and testing a reaction. So that would be my recommendation. Feel a little ashamed, to be a little ashamed about what you go to market with initially. Stephanie: So is there anything that we didn't cover that you want to cover before we move on to the lightning round? Robert: Oh, no, I didn't know there was going to be a lightning round. Stephanie: Yes. There's a lightening round. Robert: That's a little scary. Stephanie: Yeah, anything high level, E-commerce trends, the industry that you're like, "Man, I really wish Stephanie asked this question and she just didn't." Robert: No, I don't think so. I think we've covered off the fact that, I think the biggest thing that's missing in the industry is that more collaboration. I think collaboration is going to be a game changer in terms of driving success. So that's what I'm seeking to build through networking and working with other brands to try and find some common ground we can explore in. So if anybody is interested, please reach out to me and I'll be happy to partner. Stephanie: Yeah. I completely agree. That's great. All right. So the lightning round brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud is where I ask a question and you have one minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Rob? Robert: No. Okay, I am. Stephanie: All right. You're ready. What's up next in your cereal bowl? Robert: Oh my God. No, Scott's, it should be porridge, but it isn't. I like porridge, I'm a diehard Frosties guy. I don't know, there's not a bad time in a day to consume Frosties, so that's what's always in my cereal bowl. Stephanie: I agree. It's a delicious choice. What's up next on your Netflix queue? Robert: Netflix, I just finished watching Altered Carbon and it was a book that I'd read, three books I'd read many, many years ago. And it was actually a really good rendition of the novel. So I thought it's Sci-fi is very forward looking, it's probably what you'd expect me to watch, but I thought I enjoyed that series. Stephanie: Yeah, that sounds great. What's up next on your podcast list or audible? Robert: Yeah, so podcast, during COVID, I mean, I listen to a lot of podcasts, especially at nighttime and I've started to rediscover Vinyl. So I've become a bit of a pseudo audio file or want to be, at least I fought the big stuff, but I'm working my way into. So I started to listen to Vinyl's audio file podcasts, which have been fantastically interesting, but suddenly they're talking about technology I can't afford or justify. My wife keeps a very close eye on me, so sorry- Stephanie: Oh, man, so rude of her. Robert: I know terrible, isn't? But logical, she saves me from myself. Stephanie: That's good. Yeah, that's really fun. Well, if you were to have a guest on a podcast of your own, so if you were to have The Robert's podcast and you want to bring on your first guest, who would you bring and why? Robert: Oh, that's easy. That's easy. I am a big soccer fan from the UK. And one of my idols is Alex Ferguson. I would love him to be my first case on a podcast. He has such great insight into leadership, management, the stories he has. He would be, there's an entire encyclopedia of subjects we could discuss, and he's an idol of mine. Stephanie: That'd be a fun one. I would listen to your podcast. All right. The last hard question. What one thing will have the biggest impact on E-commerce in the next year? Robert: One thing, I think, changing the culture within companies to really embrace innovation, not to necessarily wipe the investment and make a net positive operating gain in the short term but to be more risk orientated. I see a lot of challenges around investment strategies and payback periods and so forth, and it really does slow down our ability to go to market. So if we can get to a point where there's an acceptable investment tolerance, and that will obviously vary by company size and profitability, then I'd like to see more about an entrepreneurial approach to taking that startup fund internally, and going to market with it, improving success or a failure. In Kellogg's we've done a tremendous job recently of celebrating failures. Robert: We've even have an award, for the peace of the award for failure. So it's a transformation that's underway, but we still have to get more comfortable with capital investment that can be used to experiment rather than the business case that supports it longterm, which will come, that will come when we determine what the metrics are or what the levers that work that can be expanded upon and so forth. So that's what I'm looking for. Stephanie: I love it. You are a lightning round expert, so nice job. Well, it's been a blast having you on the show, where can people learn more about you and Kellogg's? Robert: Well, they can see my profile on LinkedIn, obviously, I'm not a big social media user today. So reach out to me through LinkedIn and I'll be happy to engage. Stephanie: Awesome. Thanks for coming on the show, Rob, it's been a blast and we will have to bring you back since we have an invitation now for round two, we'll have to bring you back in the future. Robert: That was a mistake, wasn't it? Stephanie: No mistake, we'll have even more fun then. Robert: I look forward to it. Thank you very much for having me on. It's a great pleasure. Stephanie: Thanks.

Today how we lost a cool £49,000 to a Spanish bank, that we will never see again.  Property nightmares and how to avoid them, here in Spain. Find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com Disclaimer, we do NOT receive any remuneration from advertising, the views expressed our our own and not others.   Day 75 - Property Nightmares   Friday, Day 75 phase 1 and the blind men are still here, it is confirmed that we will be in Phase 2 by Monday, I we are still a little confused as to what extra benefit there is, we believe that more shops with a bigger floor space can open, but neither of us is absolutely sure.   Martin Myall the Editor of the Seaside Gazette makes a good point about yesterday’s drop in old people claiming their pensions. Normally new pensioners pop off to an office to sign up for their new pension, but at the moment this has to be done online, and as many Spanish pensioners are not internet savvy, they haven’t claimed their pensions yet.   A quite depressing sight greeted us on Facebook yesterday.  An ad for the flat we were buying back in 2006 has come up.  The bank has finally finished the construction and the flats are for sale from 72 thousand Euros.   We were in the process of buying a flat in a small coastal town not far from here, it was an off plan sale, and the bank had already snaffled 49 thousand pounds worth of our money and then the financial crisis hit and the promoter went bust and the flats lay empty but tantalisingly close to completion.   Never mind, all off plan purchases in Spain are protected by a guarantee. So, we toddled off to the bank to get our money back.  The man from the bank he say ‘NO.”   We said that is against the law, the man from the bank he say “Si”   So, can we have our money back, the man from the bank he say “NO”   They said we were welcome to sue the bank for the money, but so far those who have tried, are either seriously out of pocket in legal fees or have got nowhere and received nothing, and the process has taken now 15 years.   So our advice is to NEVER, NEVER, EVER, NEVER buy anything off plan here in Spain, as there is a good chance that the guarantee that they offer you is completely worthless.   Also, a lot of promoters and Estate Agents are very fond of over photo-shopping and over computer generating images.  From afar you might think you are buying a property in an upmarket urban district with fully grown palm trees and lush vegetation when in reality the house or flat is down a dusty track next to a dried river bed filled with years of detritus, that will flood in the winter rains.   And as for the lush vegetation and those palm trees, they never get planted.   To be fair not all off plan experiences have been like this and some people have been very happy with their purchases.  But our personal advice is NEVER, EVER buy off plan.   We met a couple of guys who bought from an off-plan development, it was a modest house and they had some issues with the roads and services but finally the house was built, and they went to visit the property.   They were so excited at seeing the place one of them said, I must just pop to the loo.  He went into his new bathroom, did what he needed to do, while his partner was outside admiring the garden.  He flushed the loo and the contents of the bowl was flushed out onto the garden below. No sewerage or drains had been put in!   So Friday has arrived and I can hear the blind men packing up, I am hoping they will show us how the complicated remote control for the blinds operate, I had a quick look and it does look a bit like the control panel of the new spaceX rocket.   Don’t let us put you off your Spanish dream, but it is worth doing that reality check I spoke about the other day.   Yesterday I saw a Facebook post from a couple who are planning to come and live in Spain in a couple of years’ time, they said they were looking for an up to three bedroom house with a swimming pool, her husband had 10 motorcycles he wanted to bring over too, so they also needed some space for those.   They wanted somewhere not out in the sticks and close to the coast.  Their budget was £200,000 British pounds.  And that is the problem, all those bargain holiday home shows have done Spain a disservice,   they like to portray Spain as a place where you can buy cheap property.   That was probably true twenty or more years ago, but for what they wanted to buy, realistically they need a budget of £400,000 British pounds to avoid disappointment.   There is also the cost of changing all the motorcycle licence plates over.  We matriculated our car, the process was quite expensive, involved a lot of tooing and froing that our Agent had to do on our behalf, there was an import MOT that had to be done, and a great deal of paperwork, original documents for the car, which luckily we had.   There is a lot to learn, but the rewards are a lifestyle that others dream of, a chance for friends and family to visit -  and the enjoyment of family time together, here in Spain.

Cindy MacMillan  0:00  This is Exploring the Seasons of Life podcast episode # 11. I’m Cindy MacMillan and today’s guest is Connie Viveros. Welcome to Exploring the Seasons of Life, a podcast for women over 40 who are trying to be everything to everyone and forgetting themselves in the process. Each week, join Cindy MacMillan as she interviews coaches, spiritual explorers and celebrants from all walks of life about beginnings, endings and the messy bits in-between. Self-love, well-being, and mindset are at the heart of our conversations because once you change the inside, the outside will begin to change as well. Welcome back to Exploring the Seasons of Life podcast. I appreciate that you are spending time with me today and I am so happy to share my conversation with Connie Viveros with you. Connie Viveros is a professionally trained and Certified transformational life coach. She is an inspiring public speaker on transformation and a published co-author of two books. Connie is a longtime advocate for women’s rights and social-change philanthropy and leads personal development seminars and life-changing workshops in California and now online!  Connie‘s personal passion is connecting with women who also believe they can and must make a difference in this world – starting with themselves. She is dedicated to creating inspiring content and programs that empower all women to transform self-doubt into self-love. Oh, Connie, I love that so much. Thank you for being here on the podcast today. I really appreciate it. Connie Viveros  1:35  Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Cindy MacMillan  1:37  So what does exploring the seasons of life mean to you personally, or in your business? Connie Viveros  1:43  Well, Cindy, I think this is a great question. It is a wonderful metaphor for life as a whole, but also for honoring the seasons not only of life in general as we go from our infancy all the way to adulthood and then into our geriatric years, you might say I'm actually in my 60s. So I'm in that phase of my life right now, where I definitely feel is a cycle that is ended and both beginning. And sometimes I feel very strongly that this generation and this period of time on our planet is one of the first where we haven't really honored those cycles, those cycles of nature, those cycles of the moon, and I for one, what this means to me, is to honor that that is a cycle. It means we're not always in constant flow, that we actually honor that time where sometimes we retreat. We go into darkness, we go into the gestation period, and we grow something new, we plant something new instead of always being addicted to this concept of being go go go do do do and flow. Sometimes we need to retreat. And I love that that is really what your topic seasons of life means to me both in my life as a whole, as well as the cycles that I'm going through. And I feel very strongly that right now, I'm in a new cycle of my life, like birthing almost a reinvention of who I'm going to be in my for the next 30 years, so to speak. Cindy MacMillan  3:30  Thank you. So what are you birthing right now? Connie Viveros  3:34  Well, what I'm birthing right now, I believe is, and I really dislike this, this word, but I will say many of you might understand the triple goddess, which is the Maiden, Mother, Crone, and I'm choosing to call the grandmother stage. So what I'm feeling very called to birth right now is that wise woman, that wisdom, that keeper of the wisdom, I've gone through my maiden voyage I've been a mother I have raised three grown children, they're all adult children now. And I'm entering into that phase where that level of responsibility no longer I hold it as tightly and I get to in a sense; what do I want to do next? And that I'm choosing to call the grandmother, the wise woman, the keeper of the ancient secrets. And that's kind of flowing in now as I sit in my own gestation my own new birth and cycle of life of saying, what does that look like? How will my classes be this virus clearly has brought about a whole new paradigm in the way we deliver our work. They used to be commonly in-person workshops, and all of that has been reimagined to online. So it's shifting and changing and I'm seeing Oh, new possibility, new ways of growing new ways of working with women from afar from us. From much further distances. Cindy MacMillan  5:01  That's right. When you and I first connected about you coming on the podcast, it was right as the virus was becoming, I'm going to say well known and everything was changing. And we just had to, you know, reschedule the date because you had a lot of commitments and workshops at the time that you had to take care of. Connie Viveros  5:22  I did and I had to quickly you know, reimagine them and redirect them to an online format. And with that, Cindy, unbelievably, they have doubled in size and capacity. We would typically do workshops where I would attract 20 or 30, which is a good number to have in your workshop. So and online, they're bursting with 60 - 70 women attending in attendance, men and women but predominantly women been the energy of everyone is putting their work out there and people are looking and seeking and hungry for, you know, give me some content something to do while I'm in this situation. And as luck would have it, we were able to reimagine it and re approach with online to offer them   Cindy MacMillan  6:12  You're right about people looking for things to do. You know, as I'm going, as I look on Facebook and things like that, I can see that people are starting to get I am going to use the word antsy, you know, because we have been at home now for about six weeks. So they're looking for those things to enrich their lives. Connie Viveros  6:36  Absolutely right. They've gone through sort of the existential crisis of the situation and now they're moving into some like to call it cabin fever. And it's kind of hard to sit on your hands any longer. You know, they've watched enough Netflix they've eaten enough food, they're really looking to create a, I would say routine and I know for myself, that's been really positive thing that I've been able to create a new routine inside this capsule. I can't go to the gym I don't have my girlfriend's to walk with. And so I've created my own. Cindy MacMillan  7:11  What intrigued me Connie was all your work around your nonprofit leadership and social justice work. How did you become interested in working for underserved women? Connie Viveros  7:23  Well, the story is long and winding. And it actually began Cindy, back in the day when we were both in community with Debbie Ford. And at the time, I was so enthralled by Debbie's work. So Debbie's work and the coaching really was first; that was the horse before the cart. We were invited during one of our workshops to help Debbie and her son Beau, who was 13 at the time to build a school in Uganda. And my hand,it was one of those spiritual impulses like my hand flew up in the air and it's like, wait, wait, wait, who whose hand is that up there? And it was okay, I'm in. And upon participating in that, Debbie, as you know, fell ill shortly after around 2009 2010, she was invited to go see the school that she had and her community had built. And she was not well enough to really travel to a third world country for so many reasons. And she looked around the room and said, Connie, why don't you go and I kind of looked over my shoulder like me, like, Why? Why? Why are you picking on me? You know? Anyway, I thought to myself, I remember going home and getting in my car and driving home and saying, why not? You know, I could that would be a it would be a real act of service. And I love Debbie, as you know, and the work we did with her was just so, so deep and incredibly transformational. So I said yes, and upon that trip going to Africa and seeing the school that her organization, The Collective Heart was called at the time changed my life. It changed my life. I didn't know what to expect going to Africa. And there's a little bit of a story there. But I it's kind of long, but I won't tell you the details of that. But in the end, as I stood there in front of the school that we had helped build, there was a vision that I had seen previously in a meditation that was realized in that moment, and I didn't, hadn't connected those dots. And I went, Oh, my goodness, I'm meant to be here. I mean, this was a seed that was called into my life. And here it is. And it's remarkable. So I got on the plane, I came home from Africa from that trip and had a hard time reconciling that children by virtue of being born, you know, 6000, 7000, 8000 miles away their life circumstance, so entirely different and it wasn't okay with me. So I went on a quest, and I spent the next seven, eight years immersing myself in what more can we do? We are wealthy, wealthy, you know, society regardless of what country you come from, there's enough wealth there are enough resources that we have to be able to fix this. And first, it was children be educated, clean water clearly and girl, the empowerment of girls Cindy, became in my understanding through all my years of working in that and research almost, I think it's not, if not the number one of the top three biggest differences we can make to empower our world to move it forward where we create an equal and just society for all just by empowering girls giving girls a voice.   Cindy MacMillan  10:43  You know, when you're telling your story, that's actually putting cold chill bumps on me because I love it so much. So is The Inspired Heart Foundation a culmination of The Collective Heart? Connie Viveros  10:59  Well through circumstances with Debbie's passing and her transitioning and leaving the earth plane, lots of stuff happened and changed. And yes, I came back to the States, I was spending years working in the realm of Africa and women here in the United States through building my own coaching practice began to say, well, that's great, Connie, that you work with girls in Africa and women in Africa. But what about here? We have so many problems right here domestically in the United States. And I said, I couldn't agree more. And that was the impetus. The seed again, that gestation piece that I said, All right, I'll take that on. And you're right, so we created a sort of a bifurcated empowerment program where it was half 50% domestic 50% International. And what I chose to do is take the work I was currently doing with women to help build their personal empowerment, self-love, self-confidence, value, and worth. And we transitioned that into a program for women who didn't have access. We women could pull out our checkbooks and pay $900 $1000, sometimes multiple thousands of dollars for a weekend retreat with a spiritual luminary. And yet there's this whole segment of our society who are living, they can't afford that. They can't afford a weekend off to sit in a women's circle and, you know, talk and feel uplifted and encouraged and, you know, nurtured by other women. And so that became the program here. Didn't think I had much to offer the low income at risk segment of my population. And yet, when we brought our first cohort of women together for a weekend, I asked how many of you have been to a woman's retreat, not a single hand was raised, and Cindy I just took for granted that you know this time in life, most women are participating and circles have some community of support. Not so not so. Cindy MacMillan  13:08  Maybe it's what you're doing online now. How are you bringing the women together? Because I'm getting excited listening to you. I'm thinking, man, how can I do this in Florida? Connie Viveros  13:19  Well, my goodness, we can absolutely collaborate offline after this call, let's let's definitely stay in touch. But it was in person. So if you know this segment of our population, the low income as at risk, they don't have as much access, access to transportation, access to technology, etc. And I knew intuitively that we needed to hold them in a very tight container. I mean, there were some women who came in the door on a Friday night. It was much like the work we did with Debbie it was a weekend and if I had let them go Friday night, they would never come back. And so we held them for the entire weekend. So Friday night, Saturday, and then we would release on Sunday. In that time, we create trust and intimacy and community. And by Sunday, crying hugging you are my sister, oh my god falling in love with and in truth, you know creating that environment where women feel they're not alone in their struggle, and it was huge and I was blown away I let spirit lead the way. And he put me she put me to work in a very, very big way and it's part of what I do, but it's one of the most rewarding. Cindy MacMillan  14:33   I can see where that would be rewarding. Having your heart filled with so much love.   Connie Viveros  14:39  Absolutely. It was already what I was doing. And and the impetus came in a workshop when one of my paying participants and I charge hundreds if thousands of dollars for my work said Connie, every woman needs that how can we make this accessible? And I said All right, I'll take on that challenge and most people who know me know, my middle name is you know, get it done. So you give me a challenge and boom, we get it done. So it's been very rewarding. We've had three cycles of cohorts go through the program. It's a nine-month long mentorship, as well as deep retreat, personal retreat, or transformation where we hold them, we do three retreats a year. Cindy MacMillan  15:22  For it to be nine months, that is some really deep work that you're doing. Connie Viveros  15:27  And we knew it had to be that model, only because they didn't get this way overnight. You know, many of them were coming in, in their from their late 20s all the way through their 60s. And you know that transformation does not happen overnight. And so we knew that the unfolding and unraveling was going to take place and the transformation was in their commitment and showing up for themselves. And at the end of these programs, the testimonials are just this. It's this you know, it'll bring tears to eyes to hear how they've changed and shifted their own lives and who they're becoming just by being given support and encouragement and someone to believe in them.   Cindy MacMillan  16:10  And somebody just to listen to them as well? Connie Viveros  16:12  Oh, I mean, it's remarkable, someone to open their heart, another sister and to sit and hear their vulnerability and hear their challenges. I'll just tell you one little anecdote. One woman came to us a survivor of domestic violence, abuse, she had been in a long-term abusive relationship. And she always viewed herself through the lens of an abused woman as a negative as something that made her very weak. And she stood up in front of the group one weekend and told her story to a standing ovation and responses of you're so strong, you're so amazing. You're so resilient, and she said, I never thought my story was insensitive. In that moment, Cindy, she shifted her perception of what she had been through. And today you wouldn't recognize her from the woman that walked in the door.   Cindy MacMillan  17:10  I love hearing those stories, because I think a lot of us also felt that way when we would go out to our weekend workshops with Debbie as well.   Connie Viveros  17:18  Exactly. And you asked the question to me earlier in your email of you know, was coaching that led me to The Inspired Heart or vice versa? Well, it was the coaching that changed me that allowed me to see more women need to have receive this work, then the other way around, and if we can get this work out to more and more women and men, our world would be a very different, different place to grow up and live in. Cindy MacMillan  17:49  Well, I'm definitely going to be in touch with you though. What I can do here. Connie Viveros  17:53  Thank you. Thank you. I look forward to that. Cindy MacMillan  17:55  You work with self-love, transforming self-doubt to self-love. Can you give us maybe three ways that you do that transformation, to self-love, quite frankly, that we all need and that we all forget. Connie Viveros  18:10  Absolutely. And my pleasure and I would say it starts with the foundation. And I remember starting as a coach and I didn't necessarily step into the coaching arena and life coaching, thinking it was necessarily a spiritual practice. But over the years and I've been doing this now for well over 10 years and this was really Debbie's influence upon me way back then, is how deeply spiritual Shadow Work and transformation is, and it can change your life. Once we remove these layers of shame and guilt and fear. And so my first tip is developing a spiritual self-care practice and that can mean something unique for each and every person. And not necessarily just women. But what is self-care, it's meditation, its nature, it could be a walk in nature, it could be listening to deeply meditative music, dancing art, but find some way that you connect to something that is greater than yourself, that pushes you, you walk toward it until it begins to pull you in a way that inspires something within you. So that would be my first tip. And then a second-deep practice is to connect and find a community of likeminded advocates, people who are your champions. We all surround ourselves with so many different types of community. And I even know for me, I spent years trying to fit in, fit into my birth, family fit into my school environments, my college environments, I have friends that I met through my raising three children. And I never felt like I quite fit. And so for me when I finally acknowledged that, you know, I was a spiritual person, and I was going to go meditate and found people that were also pursuing that greater idea. I took this big deep breath and relaxed into likeminded people, people that encouraged me and motivated me and said, yay, you're doing great. And Debbie's community was a big part of that. Cindy MacMillan  20:31  Yes, you could just feel at home Connie Viveros  20:33  Absolutely. You can just feel your you don't know more pretenses. You're holding your breath trying to be someone or something that you just weren't authentically and I like Debbie's community because we could show up as our brilliant selves, or a hot mess, and we cynically and we were completely accepted. It always shapes it and, and we were celebrated in that way. And the third thing that I think is a very doable thing right now and it sort of is dovetails hand in hand in fist with the first thing is to unplug from technology. I know we believe that this is really our friend and in times like this, Cindy it's actually kept us connected to those communities we've needed. But I believe strongly that there are times and opportunities where we need to go off the grid, we need to completely disengage, put your cell phone away, I like to call it you know, technology fast where I will spend two sometimes an entire weekend where I won't turn on my phone, I won't engage because the inspiration and that is you know, the impulses that come to you from Spirit are in the silence and if we're constantly filling up our time with you know, social media and that syndrome of you know, comparing ourselves and FOMO and all I like to call it JOMO, the joy of missing out, so go for JOMO instead of FOMO. But really, it allows you to get tethered to that spiritual sense. And that's all part of you know, the underlying umbrella of creating a spiritual practice in your life that fulfills you and nurtures you. Cindy MacMillan  22:20  Connie, I do agree with you. Ever since I've been on Facebook, I don't know exactly how long that's been, let's say 10 years. At least twice a year. I can't remember what Facebook calls it's now I don't delete it. But I temporarily deactivate it a week at a time because I can find myself getting caught up in comparison. And I just don't want to do that. So I like what you call it a technology fast.   Connie Viveros  22:51  Detox or whatever you want to call it. Yeah. So we do juice cleanses and food cleanses and exercise cleanses is really we have to do a tech a tech detox and they're finding scientific evidence that you know, we didn't know this when technology and the way in which Facebook came into our lives we didn't know it then because I think it surprised even the people you know, Zuckerberg and his team and all those that have come after him it's surprised them the level of engagement but it's turning into you know, manipulation at its finest in a way that we can't even fully understand and I think for all for us that are awakening and ascending in our spiritual work, we have to be aware and not let us pull us down the rabbit hole and that's really really important that it's become something other than what it once was. What Yeah, and it is getting kind of scary. Cindy MacMillan  23:49  We are this time has flown by, Oh, well. I want to get I want to respect your time but I want to get just a couple more things in. What do you wish you had known when you started out as a coach? Connie Viveros  24:02  Well, I think I would have liked to know that I was going to become a coach. I went into the work for personal reasons because I knew something deeper and something needed to shift in me internally. You said at the top of your show that you know when you change the insides external change, then Debbie was famous for saying that your outside circumstances are a direct reflection of your inner thought-forms. And my outsides looked really great. But I came to Debbie's work as kind of twisted up angry bitch, and I wanted to get to the source of that because I knew that wasn't who I wanted to be. And it was not allowing me to enjoy everything I had, and had I gone into the training, knowing I was looking to become a coach, I think it would have helped me understand the bigger picture of what I was doing at that time. And at the time I just said, I just want my own transformation. And then it turned into, oh my gosh, everybody needs this and how can I be of service?   Cindy MacMillan  25:18  You know, I'm reminded, as you're saying that Connie when I went out to San Diego for the Shadow Process when I went out for that, I remember when I got on the plane to come back, that I would never be the same again. Connie Viveros  25:32  And we weren't what happened in those rooms. And I and I, again, this phrase, I think is overused and misunderstood. But that spiritual bypass, you know, so many of us are doing the spiritual bypass. And I think that Debbie created a container that allowed us to work our stuff out in a safe, holy container, where we didn't have to blather all over the world and our family and our loved ones anymore. We went in one way, and we came out another and we went home more loving and more peaceful. And over time, I know for me, it changed my life. And now my family didn't change my husband anything but my external circumstances didn't change. It was how I viewed them, and how I was at peace with the life that I had created for the first time ever. Cindy MacMillan  26:27  That's right. If you could turn back time and talk to your 18-year-old self, what would you tell her about the season that you're in right now? Connie Viveros  26:37  Oh, I would tell her she's loved and she's she matters and that she's doing just fine. And everything's gonna be okay. You're doing your absolute best and we appreciate and love you beyond measure. Cindy MacMillan  26:54  This is the perfect place to end because that is beautiful. But before we do finish up completely. How can people follow you on your journey? And how can they support you?    Connie Viveros  27:13  Oh, thank you for that question. Well through my classes and my workshops, my website is angelemerging.com and I offer spiritual mentoring and Oracle readings. I have a relationship with sort of channeled information and inspiration. And then my workshops. I have a meetup group as well called Angel Emerging meetup and it's on the West Coast and but like you said, we have online classes now. And then they can contact me by email, which is connie@connieviveros.com. Cindy MacMillan  27:52  And I will make sure to put all of this into the show notes so everybody can have your information. Connie Viveros  27:58  Thank you, Cindy, so much. And you asked how people can help it is just continuing to be the best version of themselves. And whatever they're bumping up against, get some help, get some mentoring, get some, you know, support for whatever it is you're going through. Very few of us can do it alone. Thank you.   Cindy MacMillan  28:19  Thank you very much.   Connie Viveros  28:20  What a pleasure to be with you.   Cindy MacMillan  28:24  Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Exploring the Seasons of Life. I enjoyed my conversation with Connie Viveros and I especially liked it when she said, " I had a hard time reconciling that children by virtue of being born 6,000, 7,000 8,000 miles away their circumstances were so entirely different and it wasn’t ok with me.” Right now, we are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s our turn to say, it is not ok and how can I help? How can I contribute and make a difference? What feels right to me at this moment? Here are just a few things to consider: Donate to your local food bank Support local nonprofits Check on your neighbors Be kind Take care of yourself If you live in Brevard County Florida consider United Way of Brevard, Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, The Children's Hunger Project, or The Salvation Army of South Brevard County. There are so many wonderful organizations to consider. Just take action.            Make sure to visit our website, CynthiaMacMillan.com. While you're at it, if you found value in this show we'd appreciate you simply telling a friend about the show, that will help us out. Until next time, live inspired!  

Well for those of you that are joining us, we are here in the warrior divas real talk for real women Facebook group and we are doing our show we're adapting to our ever changing society. We are being emotionally connected in a social distancing world so Today, I am excited about the show we have for you We but before we get started, I wanted to let you know that if you're watching this in the group, you can invite other people to join us in the group to watch it. comment in the comment section, give a little like a little love. Leave one of the emoticons if we make it happy, sad or mad, any of that in the in the group. And I want to welcome our guests today and just a few moments, they're gonna let us know a little bit about themselves. And then as we go through the show, you'll get to learn a little bit more about them. As I said, I'm Angie Monroe, I am the host of the show. This show airs every Tuesday from 11am to 1pm Central Standard Time on fishbowl radio network and then you can find it starting at 3pm on all the podcast social networking sites. So if you hear something you like today or or you really want somebody else listen to that's the great way to share it. Plus, it'll be here in the group as well. So We're going to start off we've got Stacey up in the top we've got Janet Stacey wave. Janet under Stacey. We've got misty right next to Stacey to Janet and then we got cam. I don't know how it's showing up on everybody. thing. I guess mine's a little bit different. So getting yelled away. So I want y'all to we're gonna start with Stacey and kind of go in that order. So Stacy if you will, kind of give us a who you are, what your occupation is, where you're located and what you're passionate about. My name is Stacey Penny when I am the owner of Alexander medical Spa in Hurst, Texas. I'm also very involved in the Chamber of Commerce. I'm on the board of directors. I'm also on the board of directors for central arts of Bedford and Hearst. I like being involved in the community. That's one of my passions. I love helping other people. I like to be involved in charities. I also am passionate about learning. And I like to learn from other people. I like to learn from books. And I like to learn from doing. And this is my first podcast so I'm learning right now. Awesome. All right, we have Janet Janet, tell us a little bit Hey, Shay break out and dance or when I was live that and you did that sway app yesterday, didn't you? Yes, I had 500 views as people actually think I can dance that good which is really awesome. Yeah, I can't really dance that good y'all. Okay, my name is Janet Manor and I live in the middle of nowhere Kansas. I used to live in Texas and I miss you guys miss all the Texas hair and all the beauty of Texas women. And not that I don't love my Kansas ladies, but I do miss Texas and and I am retired but I still passionate about helping People, I I take a lot of phone calls and do a lot of praying for people still people call me for that a lot. And I teach a Bible study class of about 25 women every Monday night. So that's I'm really passionate about studying the Bible. I have the time, most of the time now to do it. And so a very busy life up until this point. So it's been, it's a blessing to be able to sit and sit in word and he's, we just did James Bible study. And so he's prepared us for a time as this to consider it all joy to be in this trial. That's where we are. And as women and all the people that we love and care for are going to follow our lead. You're just really that's the truth and our families. So trying to keep it all joyful here, and it's not being unrealistic, but now's the time to shine. Ladies, now's the time to shine. So absolutely, absolutely. Misty, how about you? Hi, I missed you. I'm the owner of picture perfect brows and beauty and co founder of expanded woman. And you know, I, I'm located but for Texas By the way, and I'm super passionate about people, connecting others and also just empowering other women building confidence. Those are the things and I'm very woman centric as well. So I definitely think we aligned in that way, Angie. Absolutely. So Kim, Kim get started. Marcel reviver talk about her so much, but many of y'all have not ever really officially met her. So this is Kim. Hi, Kim. I'm Kim. And I'm in Grapevine, Texas. And um, I, for a long time have been a small business owner had a graphic design business out of my house. Really Long time since 2015, I've been doing ministry and biblical counseling with women and I graduated last November with my certification to be a biblical counselor. And so, out of that, hopefully a ministry is being birthed. But, you know, God had different plans for how 2020 is gonna go so I'm just my word for the year was restart. Um, I know that I'm still very passionate about women seeing women healed, broken hearts restored, just walking in freedom and and the path that God has for them. So that's my true passion and how that shows up and what that looks like kind of ebbs and flows. As I think I'm growing and maturing in the Lord, so we'll see what he has for next. Yeah, it's interesting because without planning it tonight, we ended up with two of the ladies on the show that have helped me with my external beauty. We got misty and Stacy that have helped me with the external beauty. And then Janet and Kim have helped me with my spiritual beauty over the last several years of my life, and I tell the story about mending the soul all the time and how much I hated that class but loved that class. And Janet's the one that kind of I brought it up to her one day and she goes you're in my class period, you know it's done now I was like, Okay, what did I get myself into? So and then all that you've seen growing with divas impact the magazine The the beautiful flyers and all the thing, the logo for warrior divas all of that has been done by Kim. So pm is the previous creative genius behind all of that. So Mary, and I just get to come up with great, crazy ideas and go, Hey, friends, let's have some fun. But so, you know, Kim has been on isolation a little bit longer than the rest of us. And I'll let her share a little bit about that as we go on. But we were just talking about what is the purpose of the show? What are we wanting to do with the show? And yes, I'm not touching my face. I'm touching my hair. So don't anybody freak out about Corona on me because I'm putting my hair in my house. But, you know, our biggest thing is we want to be somebody that shines a light. So we realized that when you are socially isolated, you don't need to be emotionally isolated. And so we're going to start doing more and more things like this inside the group. Just to have a fun way Friday night, we're going to have a pajama party inside the group everybody show up, we're going to open up the zoom live thing. Let everybody jump on, we'll have a little dance party on there, we'll do a whole bunch of fun stuff inside the group. With that, just because moms and women married single with kids without kids, we all just need to blow off steam at some point, right? Ah. So part of what we're wanting to be is shine that light, we're going to do that and a lot of spiritual ways. We're going to do that in a lot of emotional ways. We're going to do that in a lot of fun ways. So Friday night will be instead of a divas night out it will be a divas night in so you will start seeing us talking about that later on this week. And we'll do one of those each week until we're set free and then we'll start having divas nights out because we'll be building relationships behind the scenes. So somebody somebody had a post up the other day, one of the single people I know was talking said, Wait a minute, you mean I actually got to talk to somebody and get to know them first before I go on a real date. So we're going to take the opportunity to get to know you and we want to talk with, you know, the girls here, I want you to realize that it's not just me in this group. There's other amazing women in this group that can leave things up and talk with you and encourage you and inspire you. And that's what we're all here to do. So this morning, I shared in the group, the john Maxwell video about leadership, and I was live streaming watch parties in this group and another group and trying to leave the notes in there and I do have the notes I'll put them in the notes in a file here inside the group from that section once I get them cleaned up to where other people can kind of interpret my notes as I typed them up, but they're still a little wonky and You know, it was great because he was speaking to leaders. Now tomorrow, he's going to be talking and tomorrow and to say he's going to be talking, turning adversity into advantage. And we're going to kind of kick that off tonight talking about what we as women are thinking and doing and feeling, and, and all of that. So what I want you to know is, we're women here, we may be sitting in a somewhat good situation. I don't know everybody's situation here. But I do know all these women, I don't know all their stories. But I do know all these women. And I do know that they are women that lead with love, they leave with graciousness, they don't lead with fear, they lead with joy. And that's why I was so excited that they joined us on the show today. So as we get going, we're going to start off with emotional health. So first off, we're going to do a temperature check of everybody on the call. So how are you Feeling what's going on? For some of us, it's day one for some of us. What, 90 Kim? Boy? So, um, you know, let's start. Let's start with Kim. Since she's been the longest Kim, how are you feeling? I you know, I'm actually feeling really good. I think that, you know, my journey started on January 2 with my quadruple bypass. So, I think I went through some emotional shock that kind of first month, like, I came home from the hospital on the fifth. And physically, I did great. But emotionally there were some really tough days. The it's not fair. This shouldn't have happened to me, like, you know, this was just completely out of nowhere and I didn't fit the profile and you Still, so, for me, it was sort of having to deal with a lot of the I'm having to come to acceptance with what is my new normal, I had to come to the fact that, you know, I don't know what my future is gonna look like and I gotta be okay with that now, you know, I don't know how this is, is gonna go it's a progressive disease. So new normal looks totally different. And then just even changing everyday habits I have to work out I have to eat completely different. And so there was a lot of that morning I can't eat a cheeseburger and my pepperoni pizza with extra cheese anymore. Took me a month and you know, but then I started discovering new foods, and I learned that I kind of did like working out and You know, you start to accept some stuff and roll your eyes when you said that can you rolled your eyes? here's the here's the funny truth is, it is like ripping teeth out to get me to start working out like getting on the treadmill. But I can tell about eight minutes in. Like, I don't know if it's the dopa mean or what happens chemically but then I start liking it and my 20 minute workout I'm noticing is going 3035 40 minutes like I'm, I actually feel good I feel better. I it's, it really is starting to shift and that was something I didn't expect at all. And then I even started lifting weights this week. And that was completely something I never thought I would be here year was restart and so in every way I've had to restart So it is kind of neat that here God sort of prepared me because I haven't been leaving the house that much I was social isolating already cuz you know you're immunocompromised and healing and and really restricted on what you can do for a while so, you know, I think the Lord was like No Let's prepare her for the corona virus apocalypse just a few months so you know that's where where I'm at I think my husband thinks I'm insane cuz I have bought enough food for the apocalypse and then even like ordering online the dog snacks and dog food so he called it the dog Apocalypse Now as they are delivering that but we're good over here in grapevine. Good Yeah, yeah. So So misty. What about you what's going on in your world I know there's you. You've been doing a lot inside our community as well to take care of the emotional health of some of our community. Yes, there's there's an organization that our chamber has called leadership hgb. And you're a part of the class this year and y'all had a big event planned. The next one, I had to get scrapped because of everything that's going on. But your group in your class just pivoted so beautifully to really attend to what's going on in our community. So I want you to talk a little bit about how it affects you, but what you've been doing to help those around us. Sure, sure. So um, yesterday, you know, worse I'm a salon and permanent makeup company. So yesterday we find out that we had to close the shut down, so Okay, no more livelihood. Don't have the option of unemployment. So, you know, there's a little bit of that fear factor, but I've really been through this whole thing kind of tapped into books and motivational podcasts and things to just kind of get my mindset, right, because you know how that goes. But I refuse to let the devil get me and let him fill me the women are so I honestly feel way more calm than I thought I would, knowing, knowing what's going on. And it helps me to help other people during this time too. So our group has put together another group that basically, we currently call it Corona virus. Press help us here AGV. So for this whole ATV area, and let me tell you a little bit about the project that we started off with. There was a mirror a wall that was painted on next to a company where some Hispanic people owned it and somebody graffiti I hate Mexicans on the wall. So our proud our program was to create a mural, which we did. And it looks amazing. The mural is the map of the HTV area. And we painted over the I hate Mexican. And it just turned out to be so beautiful. Unfortunately, we don't get to show it off yet, but we will eventually. But it is a great reminder of all the community resources that are available in the area. So our secondary thing was to have community resource fair at the same time for the mural unveiling. So instead of doing that, and on this coronavirus, hgb we took it virtual since we cannot really be together. Um, and basically we set out you know, different resources for people what's available, we set up you know, grocery updates and activity websites and all the different things that our community could come together and we made it a needs profile, so we can help those and there's another side project to where we set up little news people Paper stands and put products in there like toilet paper and toothpaste and and just some resources for people to just grab if they need it and also where people can donate goods as well. So it's been really good to help kind of take my mind off that of what's going on around me and helping others. Well, let me see what what's the HTV stand for? GPS you list Bedford? Okay. I thought much better the three cities. Yeah. So it's kind of like our little suburb area. Yeah. Yep. I just want to make sure I knew that was Sam. Yeah. And one of the one of the beautiful parts of it is if you're talking and somebody asked a question about the corona virus or different things like that, they don't want a lot of speculation in the group. One of the rules is the group is to cite your cite your source. So we just we want to make sure that we're citing our sources at all times. So that right there is huge for turning that to for what they're doing, because, you know, everybody can go out there and speculate and do random what is a conspiracy theorist? A lot of that there there is a lot of that so and I think john even said it today he goes first off if the media is your source you need to get a different source World Health Organization to you know, CDC go to places and get get it straight, quote unquote, from the horse's mouth so yeah, so Janet, what about your world? How is things going in your world? I know you've got a little space between the all the normal most of the time Yeah, well, there's still lines that are Sam's and there's still lines in our stores and people are still hoarding the toilet paper. And so I our little group, we we set up in the basement and we social distance to each other enough, but we're making masks You know, the ladies can so I can't so but we're cutting. We're doing okay. I mean, I'm so grateful for the you know, we have our phones and we can still talk and have this group and zoom and Facebook each other and FaceTime each other. I mean, what, what would we you know, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for that because emotionally and you know, if it all goes down, we're all gonna, it's gonna be a little more difficult, but this way we can stay connected and so I'm grateful that we have that, you know, that's really good. As far as I can see, we're a bunch of can i say i'm not going to use curse words but really a bunch of really tough American women. And that's starting to come out we have this Christian toughness I don't even know the warrior divas perfect because I just see a bunch of Lady she's got it together. You know, they, you know, people are sick people are isolated, you know, but they're still just kind of keeping it together and I'm just really proud of the people that I know in my life. I know there's other people who are struggling financially lost jobs, and they're still, you know, just carrying on helping their neighbor. It's just incredible, really incredible to watch. So I'm blessed in that regard because all I see is good stuff. That's all I see. I don't see any nonsense yet. So I'm grateful I got tickled watching the Facebook means or something the other day one of the guys goes I don't even know why we still have farmers and all that stuff. Why don't they just go to the store and buy this stuff that they want from the store? And then somebody else's if we have to, if we have to hunt for our food, I don't even know where Doritos lives. And you know, I love the tongue and cheek of it, but it's because of that tongue in cheek. I've had people reach out to me and going Hey, could you tell me how do I make mac and cheese with ah crap. You know, they need to know how to make their Is what mac and cheese they know they've got the ingredients for it they just don't know how to put it all together so you know trying to be some of those women that has some of these answers together not just mean not just you yeah but you know how to be creative and like my guests on my leading moment show on Thursday said he goes Guess what? He goes the store still have plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables on the shelves, because everybody's buying all the junk food all the company. Now don't eat junk food. You can. Yeah, and then another thing he brought up that misty I was going to tell you might be I'll send you a picture for it. That might be a good thing to post in your group was if it's got the wick symbol on it, that the women and children that are eating off of that wick that's only the only cheese and milk and eggs and things that they can buy cereal that they can buy. So if you have a choice, choose something other than that, but don't wipe Yeah, the witnesses are limited. That sounds like that is just huge. So I've been repeating that and shouting that as often as I can. So I just I took a picture of one of the wick signs the other day and said we need to post about this and I have it That's good. So I'll send you the picture lets you post about it and then I'll share it in post about it too. So all right, Stacy. So you're kind of in the same boat that misty is in yesterday, six o'clock and a face to face interaction. And then you know, what, what are you going to be doing? How are you emotionally handling this pivot? Well, I had already made the decision on Thursday or Friday that I was going to close before before we were closed. Because I have employees that have children. I'm all of them. But most of my people because I'm an anti aging are older. They shouldn't be coming to see me. Some of them are secret still mentioned He's messaging me, Hey, I'm working from home, can you can you get that treatment done to my eyes and we won't tell anybody, you know, just show up at the office. I still have that going on, because people want still want to get their stuff done. But I mean, I'm a mom and I have four children, I really don't need to get sick, what are they gonna do without me. And in the grand scheme of things, I have a roof over my head, I have food, even if my my business falls apart, which it won't. And I need to be here for my kids and my family. They're the most important thing. So I had already chosen, but I have gone through many different emotions throughout the last couple of weeks. I was kind of in the know about certain things beforehand because my brother works for a city and he's in a director position. So he was telling me about closed downs before they were starting to be announced. And so I was wearing before everybody else and I feel good right now I feel the things that I feel are like, I'm excited that I'm going to get to see my kids. I'm a working mom. I'm a mom that has owned a business for almost 20 years. So I have been busy. This whole time. My kids don't see me as much as some other moms get to get to see their kids. My kids are very what they were asking yesterday, where are you home so early? You know, why did you What's going on? Why is mom here? And so I'm anxious to see what it's going to be like when I'm here the entire week with him because, you know, they, they don't they only have that when I'm on vacation. I'm anxious to see I'm anxious to cook food. You know, I because I own a spa. I come home later. So sometimes a lot of times our food is you know what Costco made that my husband gets put in the oven before I got here. So I'm excited about getting to make some things and getting to do some art projects. That's what I'm Putting my focus in. Now I know, I have a list of things that I can get done remotely, to move my business forward. But every time I think about my list, I also think about, I know that I'm going to be okay. What can I do to help people that are probably not going to be okay? Yeah, that's good. There's so many people that work in a restaurant that are paycheck to paycheck. You know, I have a business savings account. I can cover my bills for a while. at my office. My husband works from home. He we're not going to lose any income from him at all. So what can I do to help other people? That's what I've been thinking about. Yeah. But I, I mean, I'm my, my biggest fear is, I don't know how to not be busy. I know I was thinking the same thing. I think how do I think that problem So maybe I can figure out how to be busy doing more things that are fun. The other thing that I think all of us are going to figure out how to be busy at home organizing and whatever else we can think of. We should people like me and Missy who take care of people all day long. We don't take care of ourselves as much. Right? So we should probably think about doing some self care. Mm hmm. Already on that? Yeah. Are you? Mm hmm. No, I watched your list. I can say I can tell you that. I used to be super busy. And I'm not super busy. Now. As much as I was when I lived in Texas. Also, I've had six months of my husband being retired at home. How's that? Because I'm worried about two weeks in with my husband. And there is an adjustment and he's a I'm married to a really nice man. It's still an adjustment. So you will have those moments, right, honestly. And I just say, I'm gonna go in my room and be by myself, you know, I just take that time, but you learn to do other things when you're not busy working or taking care of kids, like, I still help with my grandkids too. So, you know, I'm trying to do art projects and find things. I mean, I've already raised my kids and I'm having to rethink how do I do all this care at home for these kids. And so, but the business that you have when you're outside working versus coming home, I will say it's an adjustment but you're you guys are creative women, and you're hard working and so you're going to find things to fill your time you think, Oh, I'm gonna retired and I'm not gonna be as busy. That's not true. You just find different things to do because you're productive and because you like helping and because you like doing, you will find other things to do. I mean, that's just, it's God's good that way. He does give us other things and God help us all might instead of hit water, you might have to have some wine and let's be honest Vodka, I'm just kidding. Really. wine, take yourself, take your bath. But you know, God's gonna give you what you need when you need it. I mean, it's amazing. So you think I'm gonna have all this free time no other people are gonna come and look to you for things they're gonna call you. They call you and come to you because they know they can't. And they know you're going to answer they know you're going to cry with them when they cry, and you're gonna laugh when they laugh. And they know that if they call you you'll answer Now, I'm not saying being emotionally available for everybody all the time, but you find new things to do is I guess the point, you know, and and what you said God will find what you need when you need it. So the past probably three or four months, I've been training a new employee and then my employee of nine or 10 years is moving on and it's been really difficult. I've been working six, seven days a week, so maybe this is what I needed. Trying to stay home a little. I think the Lord, the Lord's just sending an adjustment, you know, we've been prepared for this time, as a time we're all prepared for this time we've been placed here. It's not a coincidence that we're all women and Esther's at this time. And you know, you'll find your inner Esther, and you'll, you know, God's gonna put people in front of us, and he's going to give us what we need when we need it. And even if you're a single mom, and you ask for help, just ask for help, because this older ladies are willing to, you know, even if, you know, we, we can watch them on a park bench. We don't have to, we don't have to be in the same room with them. But we can actually watch a kid for an hour or whatever. I mean, you can do that outside. We don't you can, you know, you can do that. So that'll work. Well. And I think another thing that a lot of people don't think about is because we have had this happen in the middle of all the social technology we have you're really not as alone as you could have been. So we have a lot of resources to reach out to talk to ask questions. And you can do it in private message, you can do it over email, you can do it on a Facebook post, whatever it is. And we met I went to a event last fall, where they talked about it was last fall last summer sometime where they were talking about abusive relationships. And I'm going to bring it up during this part because we're about shifting to family dynamics. And, you know, I'm married to a great guy. We've been in business together for seven years. I had my own business before that, but he's had his plumbing business for seven years. So we've worked together. So being home alone together hasn't really sunk into us. And he's part of the essential forces so it he probably won't be home as much as some of the other ones. But on the other side of it, there are women that are trapped at home. home with their monster, there are children that are trapped at home with their monster. So my my point to all this is, is if you're a woman, and you're listening to this, and you're trapped in a situation like that, we are the women that are saying, you can reach out to us, we are the Oregon, saying you can reach out to us. We want you to get stronger. We want to help you get a plan together, we want to get you out of that situation. We will pull all of our resources together to help with that. But we have to know that's what you're involved in and what's what's going on. And we don't want to put you in a date a more dangerous situation while you're trying to get out of that situation. So we will help find ways to do that safely for you and everyone involved. So, again, that's a little side note, but I feel it's important because when we start talking a lot down, you know, that's, I mean holidays is when domestic violence calls go up. It's just Police statistics statistics see YouTube can be a professional speaker. It is a real life statistic that that's when they go up. So it's it's something that I'm not hearing any of the media talk about or any of the police departments talk about. I'm hearing about the police departments being exposed to things and police forces dwindling because of all this. So therefore, it behooves us as warrior divas to do what we can and do our part and be that resource for women. So Alright, so we're going to talk about families you know, we're kind of almost empty nesters. Now, every time we think we're empty nester, one bounce back. I don't know what it is for Allie and cannon and the twins live a little bit down the road but they were here yesterday and they and today doing laundry because their washer and dryers best. It's so kicked them all out of the house before we got on the call tonight and then set myself to a shop to do some what we call arts and crafts time. So mainly I just need a girl time. We all need Girl. Girl time we all get it. How are you? How are you planning to balance the family time with your work time or with your own? Your own sanity? Like Janet hiding in a closet. No, no. So who wants to go first on that one? Don't everybody speak it? Well, I will. And I don't really have I decided since today was my first like real day off in the quarantine and that I was gonna relax today and just enjoy the day with my family. And you know, we ran real quick to the salon. I grabbed all the essentials that I could do self care on myself. So when it's not podcasting I'm gonna do some micro needling and you know things to make myself feel better and look better to, why not? before you make before you make decisions, make sure we talk about the other procedures that we need to do because we need to put them in. Okay? Put them in the calendar. That's where I was going with this is I'm going to kind of create, you know, a plan each day, I'm like, we're gonna work out we're gonna, all those things I'm not doing right now. That's what we're getting. And I would really like to take the time, like even a family workout and you know, spend some more time doing yoga, which I haven't done in a really long time, but I enjoy. So and I get to do more cooking because I'd actually like cooking for my family and things like that. So all of those are, I'm kind of excited. I told my my kids yesterday, I was like, Hey, guys, I'm gonna be home for like, at least three weeks, you know, probably. And my younger son was like, yeah, you know, he really misses me but my older one is He's like, he could care less to be honest. He's like, I'm in my room playing video games with everyone else. So it's pretty much the same dynamic. I have a feeling that my, my spouse will be probably quarantined as of Monday I'm thinking because he works in Dallas County. And they've, you know, done the whole, what is it, um, shelter you have to stay in your, in your house, basically. So, um, I have a feeling they'll be closed on Monday. So then he'll be home and we're not used to seeing each other all the time, even though I love him and adore him. And we're probably gonna have to keep our space social distancing to know. Like you do your thing and go play watch your car shows and I'll go do my thing and work for a little bit. Because I plan on not stop working. I do have things in place for that. So maybe spend a few times a few hours a day working and a few few hours a day spending extra time with my family. The new normal right the new normal Yeah. Yeah. Well Scott actually started working from home last week. So with me being immunocompromised he had got special permission to already work from home once this kind of started blowing up the week before so um, we've had a week now to adjust and so I have you know, my office downstairs, we set him up, his office is upstairs and with the door he can shut and it's gone real well except, you know, the 10 year old who doesn't understand that you know, she's used to when Daddy's home he's played ad so he's fun dad. So he getting her to understand that daddy's actually working eight to five, Monday through Friday and and what those boundaries are kinda look at I think it's been a harder adjustment on Avery than it actually has. Me and Scott to be honest with you, um, one thing I thought was funny in our world is trying to leave God outside if it's sunny we we've gone for walks, we walked three days last week, we went outside and walked, walked to the park, trying to let her play and be a kid. You know, everyone's gone home school crazy. And we just decided, you know, she's gonna learn if she's not missing anything. You know, we did a couple of things, but we just sort of let her be at home and learn how to FaceTime friends like this, this whole environments different for her and I think it's harder on a nine year old, who's used to that consistent schedule. If I get up I go to school. I'm at school till this time and then I have my activities and then boom, it's like spring break, and then everything she does got canceled. So for us, I think it was just letting her have a week to just downshift and deal with that emotional impact without dumping. Now learn. Honor, you know, so I think this week will be an interesting week and how do we now sort of bring in to all this mix the homeschool thing and make sure she doesn't fall too behind? And I just don't intend on being too overbearing about it. And maybe I'm maybe I'm weird that way, but I figured she's ahead. She's smart. Let her just kind of enjoy what she can and do. I mean, do the things they're going to ask you to do but i'm not i'm just not I always said I was arts and crafts. Mom, not school mom. So, you know, like who which one of us can even teach Common Core math. Let's just be honest about that. Like, I can't. So there's only gonna be so much as a mom, I can do anyway because I know. I'm not trained as an educator. So I feel like you guys need to quit coughing I'm getting nervous now. Far away. We're social distance. We're good. All right. Yeah. Well, well, Stacy, what about your kids? You've got school aged kids as well. How are they have they hasn't even hit them yet that they don't have school. And yes, let me talk. You know, I have two sets of kids. So I have a kid that's 29 and 19. And then I have kids that are nine and eight. So and I'm still a mom to both sets. It's a kind of separate though, because the two the 29 and the 19 year old just moved in together in a tent. To an apartment in Bedford, they really like it. And so like I've been helping them I was there yesterday still unboxing stuff. They've been there a month but they have some boxes that they still haven't unlocked. And one of them I will not say which one was waiting for mommy to come by and not the younger one to help him get his stuff on. I mean I'm still momming them I'm still I'm telling them to stay home I brought some masks and some gloves and some Lysol to their apartment yesterday. It's two boys. So having to be mom still mom them even though they're older without being overbearing, and they have been staying home though I'm so excited for them. Because usually they don't listen. And I I kind of taught them the things that they need to do for cleaning. And if they do have to go somewhere like you're not supposed, like even touching the thing when you're done. Getting gas, you really shouldn't be touching that you need to put so that's why I bought brought them some gloves, throw the gloves away after you get your gas before you get in your car. So I have that situation. And then here at my house I have my two girls that are nine, about to be nine and eight and set I'm sorry, eight and seven right now. They have for the entire week. They have been doing homeschool. But kind of haphazardly, you know. They've been doing prodigy and Adventure Time and ABC mouse. But starting tomorrow, they go to a charter school international leadership of Texas. They're actually going to be doing the zoom meetings and they're with their teachers. And we had to do all the technology today. They both they both their school was giving out Chromebooks to the students that don't already have them. We have Chromebooks. They we got them for cursive missed last year. My husband's in it. He thought they needed to learn how to use a mouse. So he bought them Chromebooks. And so they're going to start their zoom meetings. I'm worried about my eight year old because she's dyslexic. And she really needs some extra care. But her dyslexic teacher is going to be on zoom meetings with her too. So I'm excited to see how it's gonna happen because I know it's a new normal for them, too. They have this charter school has 20 schools throughout Texas. So they're doing the zoom meetings with all the schools at the same time. I'm wondering how smooth it's going to do the first day we'll see. And I'm still going to be doing some work also. I'm still going to be on my computer. I have an internship program that I'm working on for the Chamber of Commerce. And then recently, we still have right you can we have time to work on that missing. And then Angie and I are also we are on the leadership Alumni Association, the same leadership class that misty is currently in. Angie and I have already been through the leadership program. And we are on this leadership, steering leadership alumni steering committee. So we're going to try to help put social media together helps steer our alumni helps steer our alumni, we can make sure that our alumni stay still engaged in the chamber after they've gone through leadership. We want our alumni to be leaders in the community. We want our alumni to be part of boards, board of directors in hcb area, and we want them to be the leader. So Angie and I are trying to figure out how to still work on that. A little foreign to them and and challenge them both a little bit. And so I'm going to be working on that and then I like I said, I don't know what I'm going to be doing here. busy. I don't I'm going to keep myself busy doing things I'm not sure how it's gonna go. It's It's my mind is like, do I set up a whole plan of all of these art projects that we're going to get done? Do I cook like so many meals? I haven't decided which things I want to be busy doing. I know. I'm going to figure out how to be busy though. Oh, yeah, yeah, I think we all figure that out really easily, don't we? Yeah, yes. What about you, Misty? Oh, how to how to figure out how to not be busy. Well, what about the kids? What are they doing and shifting through right now? How are they? How are they still on spring break. So they really are, and Burnsville has not figured out what they're doing yet. They're trying Monday, we're supposed to pick up Chromebooks for those who don't have access to social media or like tablets or internet and that type of thing. So we're we're just waiting for them to give us more direction. Right now they're just having a free for all to be honest with you. They're playing video games are eating all the snacks you know that a house in the home that have a 12 year old and a 17 year old boy and then a seven year old stepdaughter so she's here this weekend hanging out with us and that's really cool because normally we don't get to have her all weekend we only get to have our own Sundays and one one night during the week so this will be some extra time we can all spend with her too. Also, I just signed up enough to do the snap ology Lego daily challenge. You seen those but so he made the pirate ship today with his Lego so those are things trying to keep him busy, but they're bored already. I think. Yeah. Well Janet, you're kind of like me, you you've kind of moved on from the little kids at home but you also have grandkids that are around and I know I know Alyssa was doing homeschooling so but Alyssa is also expecting to So that's how I'm a baby in about eight weeks. Yeah, so you're gonna be probably doing some pitch hitting won't Yeah. So yeah, it's it's that new that grandma role which I have adult children, that's still the mean, which I can totally relate to. which is way, way more than I thought it would ever be. It's kind of interesting, but I will say it's just a blessing to have grandkids and we're expecting a new baby boy and I've been able to hear somebody come in here now that I'm talking about these grandkids. And I'm surprised they haven't come in yet. Honestly, I am too hot. And so I don't know. We're finding new things to do. I'm, I'm stealing all the ideas on Facebook and people are putting so many amazing ideas out there. We're doing all that we're just praying for some warm weather. So we can kind of get outside here in Kansas. It's still really cold. We have one nice day and then we have three or four bad days. So I'm waiting for that. But I think getting outside helps you guys. We're not we can get outside, we're allowed to go outside. It's like you can't get outside. I think sort of everybody doing the electronics, take a walk, do something get outside, it's healthy and mentally. And I know one of the small towns here, they were putting the bear the stuffed bears in the windows so that people could go around and find the bears the little kids, find the bears. But find something to do, you know, go on a scavenger hunt, and give them a list of things to go outside. outside. Is that your best bet for a while even if it's cold go outside. I mean, that's, we've missed having our kids outside, they're in school all day. You know, they go do things all day. Now you have an opportunity to kind of reset, like kimsey word, you know, reset, it was a reset, that we use that restart. We said, yeah. Yeah, we had to reset after 911 and we survived all that economically. And we you know, we lost a A lot of stuff after 911 My husband was a pilot that got, you know, furloughed and, you know, this too will all pass but go outside. I mean, family wise, mentally wise, you know, do something outside and you know, the sunshine is good for you the virus dies at 180 degrees I don't know. Right? It's vitamin D and vitamin C are anti viral and so mentally get out some put it on your list to go outside every day and take a walk, do what you have to do, but get them outside. I think it's important. Well, part of the arts and crafts Mike's doing is I bought a boat last summer that's my boat. It's not his boat. It's my boat. It's it can be ours but it's my boat. And so he was just doing some of the last minute touches to make sure it was boat ready because that's one thing we can do. We can go out on the lake we can go in that's socially distances you from quite a few people just being out on the lake. One of the other things that I'm glad you brought up the 911 thing because I've been thinking a lot about that this week. You know, there's a our kids Janet's and my kids and they see you've got one up there too. They were born. And they were in school when 911 happened, you know, so they, Janet and I have children that serve in our country and And me too. I'm a part of a military moms group that has paratroopers that are coming back to the states that are going straight into quarantine. They're not getting the big welcome home. They're not getting all of the pomp and circumstance that goes on with that they're going here's a tent and they're like, I just came from a tent. So the ones that go through the tent, they they're, they're putting them into isolation, barracks and things like that. But you know, Cody, my son is supposed To be leaving the country at some point this week, I was supposed to be in Orlando from Friday until this following this coming Friday, from last Friday till this coming Friday. And then I was going over to spend time with Cody at his duty station before he left the country for six months. And so I had to change tickets. And as I'm changing the tickets, I'm already having the emotions well up about 911. I came out of nowhere. And when the when the planes stopped flying, I didn't sleep for those three days. Because I was I've grown up in ulis. I'm so used to hearing the planes fly, that when the planes weren't flying, it was eerily deafening to me. Yeah, so when the first pilot took off from DFW Airport, I was one of them out there with the guy that had the big American flag and we were listening to the air traffic controllers, talk to the pilots and send them off. And, and so we knew when that happened that our world was forever changed. And we're already we've we immediately saw changes in how security was done and how things were handled security on the cockpit doors, TSA, all of that immediately changed. And one of my friends that's a writer and manages a lot of freelance writers for Thomas Nelson publishing, put out a suggestion the other day to start making notes of the things that you see that may be changing. And I thought that was a really good thing. So in the industry, you're in, in the in your child's life, what was something that was so normal, a week, a month last year, that is either not going to be around or something abnormal. Moving forward, we've been talking about putting Chromebooks and students hands in every student having a laptop or a tablet for years. And it takes a crisis like this to realize that we should have stopped talking about it and just done it. You know, so what does that look like? What are some of the things? I'm going to throw out? One of the things that I thought that I've already thought of with universal pushing movies straight to DVD, I mean, not DVD but DVR, straight to the streaming services, there may not be a major need for theaters anymore. Big Box theaters, wow. At least a drastically reduced number of them. So what's something that you can look at that you're looking at now and you can start thinking maybe it's going to shift medical supplies. Right now China makes most of our medical supplies and I was told by someone who their company, she's a salesperson for the company that that supplies hospitals. And before like, she was telling me Probably, I don't know, a month and a half two months ago. Make sure you buy all the needles that you're going to need for the next year by all the gloves you're going to need for the next year. She said, we're not even telling our hospitals this yet. But there's one ship coming from China right now full of medical supplies, and that's the last one for a while. She said it, it's going to be changed for an entire year. And because they're not working, they're not able to work. They're not making medical supplies. And so now we see here, we are incredibly dependent on China. medical supplies also they they do a lot of our medication too. They do a lot of our What is it called? The one that is not the brand name. Generic Jay did a lot of our generics. And we might run out of certain medications because they do a lot of our generics. They make most of our Tylenol Not the time, like the generic Tylenol, they make most of our generic generic Tylenol. So what I see 85% of her antibiotics, right? So like, we change that, hopefully we change it, we learned the hard lesson and we change it now, well, then I was thinking ramp up, you know, we just ramp up and we do what we do. You know, hopefully that's gonna happen. Well, and we the, the other issue is, are we willing to pay more for it, because the labor in China is much cheaper. And if we make it here, we're going to have to pay our workers enough. So that we can, it will have to pay a little bit more for it because we have to pay our workers so that they can live in the United States. So that's an issue. But I think that we were as a country, we're going to have to look at all the things that were dependent on other countries, and we're going to have to see what we can do to not have this happen to us again. Yeah, Misty Kim. What do y'all have to say? Something that Scott and I were talking about is how, like we had never done online grocery shopping. Like you know, I buy stuff from Amazon but I'm talking about like, ordering your food from like imperfect foods calm or like ordering all your meat from Purdue farms.com like changing the way you grocery shop like we have had, cuz I'm immunocompromised and it's not good for us to get out at all. I'm in that super, super crazy high risk group. So we've been having delivery, delivering all our groceries and like today, we got an email from one service saying that they've had to suspend new members because they're so overloaded right now with new people and I'm thinking wow, this this could come pletely change the grocery store industry because we're so used to going out to the grocery store to get stuff and how many of us will come to realize that we like having stuff delivered on Friday because I go so far, I think it's great. It's not much more money than you know, going to the grocery store. And it's super convenient to order your groceries over three days, and then wham, it shows up at your door. So that was one thing we really thought about how this could really just be a societal change of just like people ordering groceries online, and then maybe there won't be a storefront on every corner the way you see now. Yeah, I think Walmart pickup is the best thing ever invented. Yeah, I love it. Well, like even before, if you haven't done that you need to start. No way. Don't Well in our neighborhood, we live in a older established neighborhood. And it was built when the in the 60s when people were coming in building the airport here, so a lot of pilots and air traffic controllers and things live in our neighborhood. And on our street. There's like three of us that are new newly to the neighborhood. The rest are all original homeowners. So it's it's an older generation and older demographic. And they've kind of gotten into the Facebook group and mastered that Facebook group but some of them are starting to get out there and master that online ordering. It's challenging them to be technology savvy right now. But the beautiful part is is those that are younger in the neighborhood that are going to the stores will say, I'm going to go to the store on Friday. If you have a pickup, put my name down, I'll pick it up for you still keeping some of our older neighborhood neighbors from going out into getting getting out and Not being where they don't need to be so it's really interesting then you talked about the bear thing the other day while ago we did the Shamrock challenge in our neighborhood for a scavenger hunt. And then we we started seeing the kids doing the chalk art out on the on the driveways sending positive messages to people. So you know, it's it's finding different things. Missy What do you think about you anything you can think of that shifting or changing that? Well, I see to like two sides of it, you know, you see the people that are kind of going crazy and taking advantage of the situation but then I also see more people being kind and you know, thinking of others before themselves and like the you know, compromised or the older people that they can they can help them you know, and even yesterday I had made a video on Facebook just letting everybody know I had to close down and you know that we'll be back and and you know Kind of reassuring them, but I got more reassurance for myself is like yes, you will be back and you're going to be stronger than ever. So just that support of people is just pretty amazing. I really have found that and I think it was always there but people are so busy. Yeah, that we don't take the time to share that stuff. So good, positive, that's a good positive thing. You know, if we just come back together, we were divided in a nation, maybe we'll come back together a little bit more. Seems like in times of crisis, that's what we do. Right? And I'm just do you remember after 911? After how, one day, the next day everyone had a flag out? Right? Everyone had a flag out, come together. Everyone was coming together. And maybe that's what is gonna happen right now. Because I'm seeing a lot of people want to do things for others more than ever. Well, and we're seeing we're seeing bipartisanship. up like we've never seen since 99. I mean, we're seeing a lot of things. They may not agree on a lot of the other things still, but they're putting that to the side, they're pushing all that to the side to be able to take care of a nation right now. And the the beautiful part is what I'm seeing on social media is, like you said, people are sharing positive encouraging messages to people. Especially when they see that they've got the resiliency to come back. You know, there's, there's, there's a few people that I know of that have gotten on Facebook and light of messages of what's happening in their area and stuff. And they're blasting you know, and you can tell they're angry and they're bitter and they're in there getting all it'll be okay or it's happening to everybody. You know, you're not in this alone and they're they're getting better back. It's, I guess the beauty thing I want to remind people is in times of crisis is when your squeeze I can't remember if john said or one of the other people said that the virtual thing that I shared with you all today, those sessions with john, he allowed us to share publicly. But behind that we've got all the other trainers that are part of the organization doing live videos with us all day long for the next three days. So I've been watching a bunch of videos live this week. But one of the things I said is when you're squeezed in a time of crisis, what's inside of you is going to come out and so you're getting on and good or bad. Yeah, good or bad. It's coming out. And the What are you made of? Are you made of a I'm defeated? This happened to me mentality Are you made of a you know, pull your bootstraps up Rosie the Riveter we can do it type mentality. And, you know, I'm a Rosie the Riveter lover. So yeah. You know, I'm one of those that I don't think this happens to us. I think we find ways to reinvent ourselves in and reestablish ourselves and we find times during this time to, to be leaders in that dark world we shine that light, we say, you know, you may not feel like you've got a safe place to go. I've got a wing right here. You can take shelter here and bit here a little bit. I'm going to push you out of this nest because you are going to fly even if you have to grow your wings on the way down. You are going to fly you know. And that's, that's what I get from the strong women. I surround myself and all four of you are the strong women I've surrounded myself. Janet has said it to me before there was tell somebody, what was it a while back. The when the twins were born, they just turned what six, so six years ago, I was kinda in the middle of it. I was Sleepless in Seattle or Bedford or her Wherever I was, I was, you know, brain numb. And I think Kim might be able to relate to this a little bit to it. I didn't know enough to reach out and ask for help at that time, because I was just doing what was in front of me. Yeah. And Janet said, you know, I've told she told me flat, because I've told you before, and I'll tell you again, all you have to do is ask for help, and help will be there. But I was still in my own mind of will these people relying on me, so I have to be the stopping point. I'm not the stopping point. I'm a flow through point. Yeah, that's good. We have to be reminded that we are a flow through point of the Holy Spirit of our love of what we fill ourselves with so that we can flow out to those that we are feeding and and loving and nurturing. And we can't nurture something if we are not in a nurturing mindset. It's so I used to imagine that A bunch of people that walk around those little squeezy stress balls, eyes and the ears pop. Like everybody is this Yeah. Yeah, you know, even me, I know I I've touched him with cam quite a bit right when she first got home I went and spent days there and stuff like that. But then even this week I went, Oh my god, it's been a week since we've texted What is going on? Why has she not reached out to me? Is everything okay? And her well, why haven't we gone to? Lee? I'm like, Okay, first off, am I being a bad friend? Am I this? Yeah. But I have to put all those negative things are behind and not say Well, I didn't talk to her this past week. She's probably mad at me because then those mental games will play and then you won't reach out and then you're emotionally distancing and isolating. And they're over there. Just going. No, thanks. It's been good. I was wondering where you're at. I just knew you'd circle around when you weren't busy again. And I was here like, Oh, well. How many I know I'm not the only one that has ever done this? Because I have heard other women tell me this. So, um, you know, as we're talking through some of the some of these, you know, I want to start looking at what are some of the best you have seen in people through this. This scenario, we talked a little bit about how our jobs are changing through all of this already. But you know, what, what are some of the best the most positive things that you've seen in people? Through this? We were What was it? Stacy, we were on a call the other day for the leadership alumni. And, you know, we've got some people on our steering committee who were on the front lines of this and they're just exhausted, right? When they're being told and I'm not saying who they are, where they're from, but when they're being told to pack a bag to bring to work because they don't know if they'll be able to go home. Right. You know, And this is just the beginning of what we're expecting to be a bigger surge and you know, so you know, what are some ways that you could you see positive coming out of it? I know there's other people that are what is it one groups donating every you can go on and put your beer order in. But if you put throw in an extra beer, a four pack or a six pack to your order and donate it to the Fort Bragg soldiers that are coming. That's hilarious. I'm like, okay, that's funny. But you know, what, what are some? What are some of the other things that you you're seeing and hearing? One of the one of the things that I thought was awesome, is we talked about it earlier is when our leadership htb, pivoted, and decided that they wanted to start a group to help the HIV community by posting the things that are most needed. And nobody told them they had to do that. Nobody told them that since their event was called closed down that they had to pivot, they just made a choice. And that's what happens whenever you start building leaders is they lead and that's what they did. So the first thing that I did when I was probably the seventh person invited in the group, and if you guys don't know, I am the, the sponsor of that group. So yes, I am the sponsor of leadership. So she's, she's a black, so I'm like, no, no. So I'm like, when I when I look at it, when I see them doing such great things, I get very excited because I'm invested into it right now. I get so excited about creating leaders and when whenever I get to help, and this is what they decide to do, I'm excited. So I was like, almost in tears, like, Oh, my God, look what, look what they're doing. And I immediately started texting. Rochelle Ross, who is the steering committee leader and said, Oh my god, do you see what they're doing? Like, this is great. Do you see What your Do you see what your what your teaching is making happen in our community? So that that's one of the biggest things that I've seen. And, you know, the last time I looked, I don't know how many people you have in the group now, but there was almost 1000 people in the group when I was blessed. Let me check Where's like under there was like, yeah, there was one I was looking it up 1.4. Okay, so what I mean, that's awesome. All of these people that all live in the HDB area, are able to look and they haven't categorized it into sections. So you can see restaurants you can see this you can see where you can get food, if you don't have food. You can see what food pantries are still are still giving you food. I mean, I just thought that that was so awesome. So that was one of the great things and if you look at the feeds inside the group, people that know nothing of what hcb leadership is are talking discussing. I invited one of my clients to the group who's been living in hers for like 30 years and she was very She posted something and she she got into message. Did you see how great my posts and to see all the people that were? So I mean, it's bringing people together. I thought that that was really awesome. And then and then I also see, like everyone is really trying to go to these mom and pop restaurants and buy food to go local. So I really love that I'm doing it also. But I think that that's great. Those are the things that I've noticed. Yeah. Here's another thing. You know, there's a lot of us who have diabetes, there's a lot of us who have high blood pressure. There's a lot of us who have asthma, those underlying health conditions that make getting the corona virus, you know, more dangerous for, you know, it's going to be more than a cold it could go wonky real quick. So what I've seen is just even after two months of friends and church ladies and just people rallying around my family through the heart stuff you know we didn't want for a meal for about eight weeks. Um we had more food and we knew what to do with we had friends cleaning our house take down our Christmas decorations. I mean you name it it was we had handyman come over and help Scott with cocking a tub. I mean, just you name it, it was done. And those same people now who know that I'm immunocompromised are texting me. Hey, I'm going to Costco. Hey, I have a friend run into Sam's Can I drop food off at your front door. So I just think seeing how humans are so generous. And kind and sweet and people are sending me, you know, we're still sending you extra prayers during this time. Just even that is just so touching and and you know, it just got me thinking, How can I reach out no knowing I'm stuck at home so now I'm with food delivery service. I've texted my neighbors and I'm like, Hey, we're having food delivered on Friday. I'm placing an order this day. Do you guys need me to order you guys anything so trying to help in the way I can. But just if you're able and be mindful of your friends who might be having to isolate more that just even going to a grocery store puts them at risk, right? Because I can't really leave the house at this point then, you know, my husband is stuck and because if he goes out and gets it and brings it in. So being mindful of the immuno compromised and how just if you're going to the store check in, or if a neighbor has run out of toilet paper or needs eggs, be willing to go put it at their front door, just be mindful of that stuff. And I've just seen it in spades more than I can even say, we have felt so blessed and just seeing God's goodness through human beings in such ways I never expected over these last couple of months. Well, and that goes back to those boxes that you're putting out to missing because you know, there's some people that may never ask for help or want to go to a place and get help but that they can go open that box nonchalantly get out what they need are, you know, I had somebody what say, Well, I only had some beans. So I went and put the beans in the box and I grabbed the the whatever Else it was that they needed, you know, and I was like, well, that's awesome that that what you needed was in that box, you know, and maybe somebody else needed those beans, you know. So finding a way to love on people where they're at, you know, with whatever skills or talents you have. Janet, I'm gonna come to you next, but I'm going to preface it with this because on Monday, we were hearing a lot of people, Mike's one of Mike's friends from high school took one of those blue rolls of paper towels, and he is he makes knives, homemade knives. And so he cut one of those rolls in half and he goes, look, I'm making toilet paper, you know? And Mike's like, Yeah, go ahead and do that. Because, you know, once they start flushing that down the drains it's

Connect with Curt online in the following places:www.curtderksen.comInstagram: @curtaderksenHosted by: Andrew Bracewell @EverydayAmazingPodcastProduced and Edited by: Justin Hawkes @Hawkes21Full transcription of this Interview:Andrew Bracewell: This is the podcast that finds the most elusive people everyday. Amazing kind that you know nothing about. I'm hunting these people down and exposing their beauty to the world. I'm Andrew Bracewell, and this is every day. Amazing.Curt Derksen: I don't want to give them what's left of me. I'm gonna give him the best of me.Andrew Bracewell: I am both nervous and excited. Maybe even more nervous than excited because of the individual who's sitting across from me today. Curt Derksen. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, Phil. It is absolutely my pleasure. I'll Ah, I'll start with that. I'd like to start things with confessions sometimes. And so Ah, the reason that I'm nervous is because you and I actually do this all the time. And the only difference is is today we're doing it with microphones in front of our faces.Curt Derksen: Yep, True that. And a whole bunch of people that might hear it.Andrew Bracewell: And a whole bunch of people that might hear it a little bit. And so, no, no, There won't be any editing. We're only doing we're only doing it in the raw. But what I have Thio say in admit and this is part of the reason why I'm so excited and and yet nervous at the same time is that there's been a number of times in the last couple years that you and I have spent late nights together Ah, out on the patio or the porch or in the backyard and I drive home from that experience where I walk inside my house and I say to myself, that has to be one of the best conversations in the history of mankind. Somebody needs to be recording this. That was amazing. That was life giving, and it was incredible. So, um, well, the feeling is mutual. You're making me blush a little bit. Well, I'm not I'm not trying to make you bless. So So this morning is that was getting ready. Ah, the nervous thoughts that came into my mind Where Andrew, don't screw this up. Just be natural. Let it flow, Do what you do And you guys are gonna have a great time. So I am truly excited to ah to have you sitting across from me and in keeping with our tradition that we've tend to have, whether it be through intent or not, we are sipping bourbon. Well, we Well, we talked to one another, and it should be noted for the audience that it's roughly 10. 30 in the morning. Won't say where we are. You know where that is. But we're not driving. We're actually in my living room, and we're Ah, we're gonna We're gonna do bourbon together because that's what we do. Brings out the best and the conversation seems to feel I have a question for you, actually on that on that topic. Good. Do you think so? Neither of you. Neither you or I has educated enough to probably intelligently answer this question, But let's try to do it together anyway. What do you think alcohol does to you in conversation? What is it doing? Your brain does it open you up? Does it shut you down? Speak to that a little bit because you and I have have had lots of alcohol into his conversations.Curt Derksen: Yeah, that's a good question. So I think about it often, actually, because it depends on a few things for me. Circumstances of my Dave, my own body chemistry, food that's on board. Kind of where I'm at emotionally, but often what it will do is it will help me come grounded in present in the moment. And then I can just be really some of my inhibitions or concerns of just being vulnerable out of subside. And then I could just be fully engaged in the moment. And it opens up some amazing opportunities for, like, we had some really cool conversations that you just feel like you're connected with somebody.Andrew Bracewell: So again, it's funny that we're having this conversation because we're probably not fit to have the conversation properly because we don't actually know what's going on in the body chemistry. Maybe we do a bit, but do you think that it takes us out of a current state of reality and allows us to get into a different space that therefore then opens up conversations that we otherwise wouldn't be ableto have, or how do you think that works? I thinkCurt Derksen: it's for me. Anyways. It's more just about some of the barriers coming down, like my own inhibitions, as far as like, maybe I won't say that right now, because he may be. He'll think something weird of me or whatever, and that is just kind of gone and then You just got to get into a flow. Almost. You just let it be. Some people can probably do it easier without alcohol. And I can definitely do it without I'll call as well. But I just find that regardless of what my circumstances are during that day, it will help the be present.Andrew Bracewell: Yeah, it goes without saying that this certainly isn't an endorsement of that. You course you need alcohol in orderto have real authentic conversation. Well, I mean, usually before nine. I'm onto my second little bit. Delete today. Yeah, I know. It just so happens that, you know, you and I have spent a lot of time together, but we have this great history of incredible conversations late at night. Well, while sipping on bourbon. So in keeping with our tradition, we're doing that this morning and, ah, you know, here's to us doing it one more time to choose. Um, So hey, I want to introduce you a bit to the audience, and I wanna give you the platform, and I want to let you know, tell us who you are, where you came from in a bit of your stories. So, um, I want to give you the platform. I'll I'll say that. You know, you're a guy who's married with three kids and you live in Abbotsford and you sell real estate. But maybe, um, I'll let you go from there. Take it over and away. You go.Curt Derksen: Okay. Not originally from atmosphere to grow up in Kelowna, just outside of Kelowna. And I was the oldest of three kids. Never thought that I would be anything to do with sales. That just wasn't my cup of tea. I volunteered in Cairo, Egypt, for a year, and I went to school in Alberta and went to school and Abbotsford and again, real estate was never on my radar. I had some experiences, met some people, read some books when I was in university at the University Fraser Valley that started just giving me a paradigm shift, challenging the way I thought opening up my mind to different possibilities and reading different perceptions, really, And so that led me to real estate, and I got to the place where I feel like it's actually a really good fit for me, and so it just I've grown a lot as a human and a lot of really great things have come as a result of had good opportunities to connect with and serve people and and create a cool life for my familyAndrew Bracewell: and your your family just to catch everybody up. You're married for how many years?Curt Derksen: So my wife, Michelle, we've been married since 2008. So 11 years at this 110.11 and 1/2 years we have three Children going. His eight. Thailand is six and Norris for. So we are in the full on chaos of all that is young families and loving it. We actually actually feel like we're kind of emerging out of like treading water, but mostly being underwater and coming to a place where I feel like I spend more time with my head above water than below. Which is a refreshing feeling. I think Michelle would say the same thing. I know she would.Andrew Bracewell: Oh, there'll be parents out there listening to this, nodding their head guy. I understand. Well, yeah, but I already meansCurt Derksen: once you're a parent, you you get it. You don't really know what chaos is until I mean, everybody has different levels are different kinds of chaos. But as a parent. The chaos that you deal with condense?Andrew Bracewell: Yep. I want to circle back to your You alluded it eluded to your university experience and how you're said your mind started to shift. You started thinking different ways. What were you What were you studying in university? And then what kind of experiences did you have that started to, you know, shift the way you were investigating the future of your life?Curt Derksen: I'd probably back it up even a little bit further before that, because I went to school and I went to three different schools. Three different postsecondary education institutions, one including a one in Calgary, then one in Abbotsford. And when I went in Kelowna, I was playing on the men's soccer team there, and my experience was mostly just about playing soccer. When I went in Calgary to that school, I was playing basketball, and my experience was mostly based around basketball. So what I was actually getting out of my studies was only what I needed to in order to keep their to this city there. But I didn't enjoy it. The studies that I was taking wasn't really for me. It was more typical like what you would do in high school. You just kind of jump through the hoops after both of those experiences. That's when I went to Egypt, and I just I went on a trip. Michelle, my wife is from there.Andrew Bracewell: Yeah, So this this was a FEMA female inspired this year. Go to ECurt Derksen: Exactly. She she lived there for 12 years, and so it wasAndrew Bracewell: a noble, noble reason. It's totally well, yeah, get in withCurt Derksen: the family, show that I'm actually good shit and then weAndrew Bracewell: can see where it goes from. ThereCurt Derksen: it was You got to go to Egypt and I fell in love with you. We're just on a tourist trip at that point were there for three weeks, and I fell in love with the opportunity and actually the opportunity that I sought to basically connect with and served Sudanese refugee kids. And so when I came back from Egypt, actually dropped out of school is supposed to be going for my second semester, but it was okay because the first semester was when we had soccer and the second semester soccer season wasn't going on so I could drop out. It was totally cool actually went back to the rigs at that point. Julian Reason, Northern Alberta paid off some debt, save some money and then went to Egypt. And so when I came back, Thio Canada So was in Egypt for a year when I came back to Canada. After that, I went raid in tow. Michelle and I got married, and then I wouldn't read into the University of Freezer Valley and started slitting kinesiology. And so kinesiology is the study of the human body in the human body in motion. And I always played sports and was active and trained pretty fit. And so getting into kinesiology at you, if he was a different like not only was I now older and mature and I was better because I was engaged in the studies and I kind of had a bit of an end goal and you where I wanted to be, Uh, But this this is what I was actually studying was actually fascinating to me because it was an application with stuff that I already at some core level, understood and new. And so the studies when I got to that position being a little bit older having some life experience studying something that I actually enjoyed. I started thinking differently. I just started, maybe even actually just thinking rather than going through the motions in life. And so I got to the end of my university studies, and rather than pursue kinesiology, I actually might last. I laughed one of my last second or third. Last semester, I started reading some books about investing in real estate. One of the fundamental books for me was the Robert Kiyosaki Bic Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and it's a really basic Michelle and I actually bought that book. We're driving to Remington for, uh, we're going to a family wedding or something out in Edmonton. We bought the book before we left. We read it to each other. At that point, I'm a student at you. If you were renting a condo and Michelle's and nurse just in her first year of practicing as a nurse working at the office for a hospital, we buy this book. We're driving a 2006 black Honda Civic, which was our first car that we got together. We're driving Delbert a reading this book, taking turns back and forth. Read it to each other. By the time we got home back to Abbotsford, we decided that we were going to buy a house. And it was never really on our radar, something that we talked about before. But there was some very simple principles that were like, We're gonna apply this. Our agent at the time was James Armstrong and poor guy. We just We're new to this whole world and didn't have any, like guidance. Really? So we're just like I thought it was the best thing to go and see every possible listing that there was. So we probably actually have a folder with all of the pieces of paper that Jim printed for us. We saw, like, 40 homes.Andrew Bracewell: You were the client from hell,Curt Derksen: right? Exactly. We totally he was just a happy go lucky love to just super social love to be with us and tell stories. And so we just saw everything that we could see anyways, So we go from living in a condo that we're renting to buying a house and within like, six months, you buy this house, I'm in university, still full time. Michele's working at this point. I'm working at Great West Fitness, that gym in town. I'm a personal trainer and or I'm studying to be a personal trainer on top of the other things that come along with kinesiology. And so I'm working at the gym studying, and we bought this house and I started renovating the basement. So we bought it without a sweet, renovated the basement, put a sweet and illegal suite, and then we lived in the basement and rented out the upstairs for the 1st 2 years. And so this was kind of like our problem at this point. I wasn't planning on being a realtor. I just had the idea from Robert if we use what we have, and we can actually make it work for us rather than paying somebody else's rent, and that's kind of where it all started.Andrew Bracewell: You were putting into action what you had read, and you were You were living it outCurt Derksen: exactly, and by time we actually got the living in that basement suite. We were little. We were living for less money. We're paying less money to live in our own house. Then we would have been paying rent it this other, and it was our own house. It was our own basement, soAndrew Bracewell: I want to circle back to something. Um I don't wanna miss over something. Miss out on something that could be good here, and I don't even know. I can't remember the exact dates. I know. You know, I have discussed this before, but when you were in Egypt, you were involved in a fairly significant accident. Was that Is that pre marriage or when? What does thatCurt Derksen: was? Yes. So that was March of 2000 and six, sort to March of 2008. And so Egypt was quite significant for me. Like not only was I in a situation that I would have never imagined before on several occasions I went to Egypt playing spy before Egypt had always played sports. Never got hurt, never broke a bone, never been in an accident. Never had anything bad happen versa. Master, I'm playing basketball against one of the students that I was working with. One of the refugees on the run. He was a moth, was like six foot nine, like he was a full grown human, like there's a whole side story here, if they often will when they when they come into, like so with a lot of the Sudanese living in in Cairo have refugee status, but they're not like in a refugee camp. They're just like in the shit mix with the Egyptians. And so there's a lot of differences between the Sudanese and an Egyptian like very, very different from the Sudanese air, not overly accepted in a lot of a large part, like they come and they don't have income potential. They can't work the speak different languages. They're not overly accepted. So there's like this massive problem of the Egyptians not loving the Sudanese and not I'm generalizing a little bit. But as a general rule, like the general person on the street is not overly excited that the Sudanese were there because they're just an extra burden, like we would be here like it was an extra burden on our society. Totally. It's not to the fault of the Sudanese. It's just the reality anyways, so I'm playing basketball games, this massive guy who says he's 17 but he's probably 35 he's probably older than I was just a monster. I drive the whole and I do a lay up and I came to the end of the Congo like end of the corpse in a concrete corner at the end. There's a little drop off when I rolled my ankle and broke my foot and I've never broken anything before. And so I walked. We walked everywhere. I was like a volunteer at the time, so I have $0 to my name. You could take a taxi everywhere you go, and it doesn't cost very much, but I don't even have enough money to do that. I'm just a volunteer. So I walked everywhere, so I walked for like, three days around Madi. That's the part of Cairo where we were on a broken foot before I went to the doctor and got X rays and sure enough got casted. So the first semester I was in a cast for like and Weeks came home at Christmas, proposed, went back toAndrew Bracewell: Egypt and then just fit in all the things that really all the things thatCurt Derksen: proposed Christmas. We're getting married that summer, July and go back. And then that spring break, Michelle came over to visit, to hang out with me there for a couple weeks and I got into a car accident. I was on a bicycle. First semester. I walked. Then when I had a broken foot, it was hard to walk. So I got a bike and was riding around. Well, trafficking Cairo is make noon. That's like Arabic for crazy, like it is mental. It's probably one of the least safe places in the world to drive. At one point, I remember hearing that there was something like 90 related traffic deaths per day in the city of Cairo. It like it's just absolutely traffic laws don't apply. They aren't there aren't any. And so I had this brilliant idea that I was gonna write a bike. I wasn't wearing a helmet, and I went to a soccer practice that I was coaching with a bunch of the Sudanese kids, and I'm riding back, and it's kind of like dusk getting to the end of the day, and it's the end of the week. So Friday's air the beginning of their weekend. So it's like a Thursday night at dusk. Everybody's getting out of town toe, go home or whatever. I'm trying to ride across traffic and I get to this mad Dan like a roundabout, and this should be like probably three lanes of traffic all the way around the Madan. But this was there's probably five, and so it's super busy. There's one traffic cop kind of directing, making sure that there is a flow. But it's just chaos. And so in the chaos, if you want to like yet anywhere you have to be aggressive. So whether you're walking or riding a bike or driving, if you don't go, then you'll stand forever and you're not.Andrew Bracewell: You're not going to Israel. You goCurt Derksen: where you don't where you stay. And so I decided to make a quick second approached the the Madden, and I made a quick decision that I was gonna give her. I was going to get across this Smith Dan and I got past the 3rd 1st 3 vehicles, and what I didn't see was that there was another vehicle on the inside that was cutting really tight, coming quick. And so I got past the 1st 3 you got to the fourth. I didn't see him and oh shit and right there he his I remember, and I actually nightmares about it for a while, but I remember the hood of his car hitting me on my left leg. And I always thought, being athletic, that if I got into that situation you like, I would Spider Man this shit out of thisAndrew Bracewell: situation. I would totally like, come out like his movies. Air rial. I know, right? I was complete.Curt Derksen: I would be like a cat. I would land on my feet. No issues. That's not what happened. I, um, cranked on front and rear brakes went up on the front. Well, the front wheel actually, like mangled completely, just from the my weight and the impact of the car and the bike went underneath the car, and I went over the handlebars and landed on the pavement. Luckily, just passed his car on and close enough to them center of the Madonna, where there is no other vehicles coming, have landed on my face first on my chin, then on my nose broke off. Three of my teeth, destroyed my nose, big cuts over my chin, and it was a bloody mess. I blacked out for a second, came through, came to brought up, grab my bike from underneath the car, and when sat down on the curb and my whole face was just on fire and blood was just gushing. And I looked up and I never seen a traffic cop being in front of the car. Traffic stopped and a couple people came over to see if I was OK. And by the time I looked up again, traffic was flowing in. That car was gone. He probably paid off the guard and was done. It was the end of it.Andrew Bracewell: Wow. So I had I had an equally traumatic accident in my life. I've heard yourCurt Derksen: story. It might be more traumatic.Andrew Bracewell: Yeah, well, I'm just different. Just different. And something I experienced Waas, uh, I had, like, significant nightmares for I want to say, intense at first for the first year yet where, On a weekly basis, multiple times was waking up in sweats, reliving what happened? Yep. And then, um, you know, doing my level best to control it with drugs in a healthy and unhealthy way. And then, uh, you know, it dissipated over time, but it probably years to completely, you know, leave my memory as I was trying to sleep. Yeah, is that Did you have anything like that. Yeah, probably.Curt Derksen: Why I never had. I was never medicated. Um, even being in Cairo, having those procedures done, there really wasn't a lot of medication that was given their very afraid, being an Islamic country, they're very afraid of, uh, drug dependency. So it was more tough it out and and deal with it. And so being that all of my primary care was there, I was in the hospital there for a few days at couple surgeries there. All my teeth I worked in my teeth was done there. There was no medication. But I do remember for a significant period of time having waking up in having sweats, being afraid, I was afraid. The first time I got back onto a bike. There's a lot that kind of came with it, but one of the best parts that came from that whole experience. And there's this one moment, this one, maybe evening. More than a moment is captured in my brain better than most of my time in Cairo. So my wife's mom, my mother in law Brenda, was living in Cairo at the time. And so after this accident happened, I actually moved into her place and she kind of was taken care of me. And one night, a boat, maybe a week where the even, maybe even less than a week after the event, the Sudanese kids that I was working with actually came to the apartment where I was staying toe to see me and take care of me. And just just to basically love on me like that was one of like, the most humbling and amazing experiences that I've had, because you're my this like, blond haired, blue eyed Canadian guy who's going over there to, like, serve the needy. That was kind of like my programming, and they came to, like, take care of me. They came to love on me. And so there was, like, 30 of them that piled into this little apartment like these monstrous kids that are like six toe six foot five and well ranging in age from probably 25 all the way down to 12 and they just it piled in the elevator. They came up the series. We're on the 10th floor and they just, like, came and just sat with me for like hours. And it was the connection that I had with them afterwards was amazing. And it was like, the for the first time, we connected on a different level. So really cool.Andrew Bracewell: So let's jump back to university now. Kinesiology? Yep. You've had an experience of smashing your body to pieces of an accident. You're learning about the body. You've You've told me many times you're fascinated with with the body and how it functions. What fascinates you? Why can you see ology fascinated? Well, how howCurt Derksen: much weaken accomplish or what we can actually physically do, and how training and preparation can actually expand your capacity. And so these traumatic experiences that I had breaking my foot or smashing my face or know any of the events playing sports, those kinds of things you become aware of, kind of like where your ceiling is and then learn that you can actually push past that house. Some of those traumatic experiences can actually make you better. And then the other part is like the accident was traumatic. But there is a hole like emotional psychological component to it that made me better. I'm better because of the pain that I went through. And so that's that's really intriguing. That fascinates me. That weaken actually learn from these experiences and you can apply that. I think you can apply the same principles of that kind of like growth. And if you apply the same principles to anything that you do, you actually have an opportunity to become better at. You know, any avenue business, for instance, like I've been in this business now have been in real estate since 2012 and I haven't done anything different than I've done in every other part of my life. Like I learnt your intentional you grow. You surround yourself by the right people that are doing what you want to do. You borrow from them until you can kind of make your own way and then implement and change and start to recognize kind of your own authentic voice and pay attention to that beast. That's been my journey. I feel like I've borrowed from others until I get to a place where I could be comfortable in my own skin and then kind of go on my own from there.Andrew Bracewell: So were you born with the Greek god body that you have or did you have to buildCurt Derksen: it, built it. No, I don't. I don't think that's entirely true. I think thatAndrew Bracewell: what? That you're a Greek god or that you have.Curt Derksen: Of course, Greek. God is true. ButAndrew Bracewell: you realize that I that I'm asking this question not for myself, but for the masses that are listening that want to know. Is that a gift from God? It occurred. Build that. And how do I get it?Curt Derksen: Yeah, I I I definitely worked hard at my body and I have my whole life and I've always been active, and I've been careful what I eat and what my nutrition looks like. And not to say that I don't have ice cream or, you know, my treats of choice. Those things happen. It's just a moderation. And then the majority of time, I'm intentional about it. But there is definitely a genetic component like my dad. I trained with my dad when I was 12 years old in our basement, like my dad was, he modeled something for me as faras being active and taking care of his body. And so that is something that is, you know, from a very young age I was playing sports. I was training and maybe my diet wasn't the best When I was a kid is here. I was a kid, but I still you know, at some level there is a genetic component where my dad's activity and it was imprinted upon me What he also modeled soAndrew Bracewell: well, that is. I mean, that's one of the things that I mean. I admire a number of things about you, but one of the things that I admire about you and have been challenged on it's your habits that you have in your life in the decisions that you have in place Speaking about, you know, specifically the body What you put in what you consume, how you train. I've trained with you before and training with you is not to be taken lightly. It's ah, it's impressive. And I would you know, I don't know. I never knew you when you were 56789 years old But But I've known you recently and I know that you know you you work your ass off for what you have, you can and the world the world thanks you for it because, you know, we get toe take you in it. It's a beautiful thing to take in.Curt Derksen: I was gonna say you could look at my son because my son, I think, is a pretty much like an identical. He looks a lot like me, but just the way he trains for baskets into basketball right now on the way he trains for basketball is focusing. Commitment to it is would have been the same for me. And I remember my mom telling stories about me sleeping with my soccer ball like I didn't have a stuffy like I slept with my soccer, but like that was what I did. That was my thing. I think that kind of mentality is that's just who I am. And that's who my son is. So,Andrew Bracewell: so a question that people would probably have is Where do you fit on the on the spectrum of the and it's a large spectrum. The physical fitness, the the diet, the food intake. Do you align with a particular philosophy, or has that shifted for you significantly over time, or what does that look like? I think it'sCurt Derksen: constantly evolving as I try things out, and as technology or science advances and we understand more. But as I trial things for myself, I'd like to just try different things for a while. I get bored, so I switch back and forth from different things. I'm just starting some yoga. I've seen that before, off last year, and I'm enjoying that. There's a whole element of, like mindfulness being aware of my body and exposing the supposing Some of my own kind of internal weakness is that I'm gonna find with yoga. I love hiking, so there's a whole outdoors element connecting with nature. That kind of comes for me from that CrossFit something that I is a kind of style, that I would train for high intensity interval training like condensing a lot of work into a short period of time. Really, it's just it's a lifestyle thing for me, like trying to be active every day, and and the reason that I do it is that I know what I feel like when I when I'm not, and I know how I perform with my family. I perform for work, how I feel about myself. All of those things come when I'm disciplined. When I'm on track and I'm eating well and I'm resting well and I'm training for equally. I can do better at life, and I wanted you will, though,Andrew Bracewell: so your physical routine has evolved quite drastically over time. What have you done with the food element and the calories you're consuming? Has that also drastically changed? Or what does that look like for you? I thinkCurt Derksen: it's It's definitely changed. I don't how drastic. Like my fares. Parents didn't feed me shit growing up like we had pretty ballistic recently, well balanced meals as a young 20 something youAndrew Bracewell: weren't raised on Froot Loops. AndCurt Derksen: oh, there was a capital wasn't every day. But we also don't have the money to have fruits. That's an expensive cereal. So we like. That wasn't something that was That was an extra. I would go to my friend's houses that had more money so that we could have those things. We were maybe Rice Krispies or something. So it's still cereal. But IAndrew Bracewell: had two of those friends. They were strategic partnerships. Yes, right. It was very important for the enjoyment of elementary school. Totally, totallyCurt Derksen: planning times to go and visit have sleepovers. I don't have a few too and I frequently went to their place will significantly more times than they came to mind. And that was orchestrated by this guy.Andrew Bracewell: That's intelligence. That's right. What that isCurt Derksen: right is adapting exactly next stage of evolution. So being married to Michelle, though Michelle has been instrumental for sure in having healthier, more balanced food, I don't ever have to think about going to the grocery store like sometimes all a go and help her out. But for the most part, like she plans meals there's always have are for fridges were very lucky. Your fridge is always full, There's always good choices, healthy options. And so a big part of it is just not having the shit options available. Lot of the stuff that when it isAndrew Bracewell: in theCurt Derksen: house, I still consume it. But having as little of that around, it's possible. But IAndrew Bracewell: find thisCurt Derksen: so this is probably comin from a lot of people, but for me, especially like there's a very big correlation when I'm active and I'm disciplined, you know, conscious about like doing the activities, having exercise, hiking, walking, exercising all those things, my diet, like I just tend to want to be more intentional about my diet. I don't take in as much crap because it just I want to make sure that I'm fueled properly. But I alsoAndrew Bracewell: feelCurt Derksen: good. And so when I feel good, then I want to keep that rulingAndrew Bracewell: totally. It's not chicken and egg thing, that that vicious cycle that has no answer to it. But when you when you're physically taking care of yourself, you're more inclined to put the right things in. And then when you get into a space where you're not, which it's important to have those those spaces to to to take a break, it's much easier to fall into a trap of all. Eat that bag of potato chips or I'll do that. I'll do that, which I think is also healthy to take time for for sure. But I I can identify that with that completelyCurt Derksen: for me, that the control part comes back when, like I can control it better if I was gonna say him off the wagon, okay? And I'm not exercising and I'm eating shit, and that maybe happens for Noah periodically throughout a year, a couple times where I have a week or two or three year a month When I'm just not engaged and not taking care of myself, I get back on back on track by exercise. And when I exercise intentionally, then I can. The food component just comes naturally for me, like it just it falls into line when I'm when I am working when I am training,Andrew Bracewell: that's an interesting thought. I would wonder if if a pole could be taken. I would bet that some people would be the exercise first to get back and some people would be the food first step. Get back, I think Absolutely. And I actually wonder now that we're talking, I think I'm a food first person because when I eat shit and feel like shit, there's, like, no fucking way. Yeah, I'm going out and, you know, lifting weights or whatever. So for me, I think it's the opposite. I think you know, if I get the right food and then all of a sudden I feel better. Confidence changes. Not so foggy in the brain. Okay? I wanna go left, right. We'll run.Curt Derksen: Yeah, I think anybody that has any kind of tendency towards a distortion on their food it's it's a it's a difficult thing. And if you are in a boat, a rut burn, extended period of time and you're you of food is distorted, then it's that much harder, actually, Turn it around. And those people would probably be the similar to you. ThatAndrew Bracewell: and that's me. I had my food journey in my life. You know what I was, um you know what? I was handed in terms of food, intelligence and habits as a child and then and then not to put the blame on, you know, how I was raised on my parents. But then even what I did for myself in my early adult formative years, I mean, I developed incredibly terrible habits and bad belief systems around food, and some of it was just ignorance, you know, lack of education. And so then when I made a change and I didn't want to be a diabetic in my twenties, it was the food thing where the battle was won and lost. I always I was an athlete as a child, you know, I played basketball, I played hockey, all of those things. But then when you feel like shit and you don't have energy. You actually can't even be athletic anymore. So for me, the battle is always won and lost in the kitchen and then even to this day, to get back on track. For me, it's a food thing before it's Ah, it's a physical thing,Curt Derksen: but that that probably makes sense compared to like your your family. It was modeled for you and for me, how it was modeled with my dad. My dad was training when my dad is 5 to 10 and when I was young, he was like to 40 like just a beast, just a beast. And he would consume like he'd sit down and have a dozen eggs like he just was constantly like in taking proteins and just intentional about lifting, benching over £300 squatting like ridiculous numbers and leg pressing £1000 that was that was that was what he did.Andrew Bracewell: Wow. And you had that model for youCurt Derksen: exactly. And I took part in it like, Yeah, I remember being 12 like we just sold our family home this last year, and I remember I have one of the some of the weight sets that we used when I was a kid and I would my dad and I would train that in the basement 23 times a week like that's what we did together. So that's obviously because that's ingrained in me. That's my default. And Michelle, my wife, who lives in the same house, is me. Would be food similar. More similar to you. Be food First exercise kind of falls in line when her food and nutrition is where it needs to beAndrew Bracewell: right. Let's switch gears for a bit. Ah, you've alluded to Michelle and your kids and your family a number of times and families. Big topic. But let's first dive into your immediate family, your wife and kids. How has being a father, a husband and a father? And as that's evolved, how is that changed particular philosophies in your life about how you approach work or how you approach this last topic we've been talking about, You know, the major topics in life. If you look at your life in last, say 8 10 years, what major evolutions have you come through in terms of the way you think, and how will you approach thingsCurt Derksen: before I got married. I would have told you that I am not selfish like I'm not a selfish human Like I'm other focused like I Mother Rish. Right? And then I got married and living cohabiting with someone When human makes you realize that actually, I was pretty selfish. And then if after a little while, I figured out like, you know, I I can do this, I could be married. I'm not that selfish anymore. I've learned I've grown and then we had kids and it was like, That's a huge time. Suck like you love those little buggers, but like it's a huge time. Suck on. I realized once again how selfish I actually am. And so now, three kids later in a wife, later that that I feel guilty for a while about this selfishness that I had. And I saw the pendulum kind of swing far from feeling like I wasn't selfish to then feeling like I was really selfish and that beating myself up and that's a common theme for me in my own head is beating myself really hard on myself. But feeling guilty about it being guilty and shame even around this idea that I was selfish. And then now the pendulum kind of swinging back, probably more towards center. And I'm realizing that, like, I can't Well, you everybody's heard this idea of you get on a plane And this flight attendant says if we you know, we lose pressure in the cabin, the masks fall down. You got to take care of yourself. Put yours on first. If you can't take care of yourself, you can't help someone else. And so the guilt and shame slid me into this pattern with young Children and a wife that was dealing with postpartum depression. And you know, her own journey, her own process for body being literally ripped apart him and trying to put it back together and not being able to do what she did before All all the psychological and emotional trauma that happens happens as a result of trying to raise these little humans being completely sleep deprived. We've kind of both now come to this place where it's like, Well, if I don't take care of me, then I can't be the best version of me for my family. And if I can't be the best version of me for my family than what am I setting them upAndrew Bracewell: for now we're into the meat of what I want to talk about. It takes aCurt Derksen: little while to get here, but we're here now.Andrew Bracewell: We've arrived. We worked into a lather. How does it go on? He needs more bourbon and he'll be good. So one of the things if not the thing that I both admire about you the most, but also worry about you the most is you are the most self sacrificing human in my life that I'm aware of which I love and admire about you. But then when I observe you in life circumstances, where others around you, whether it be family or not, family experienced tragedy. You are throwing yourself in front of the bus, metaphorically speaking, or people. And you and I have talked about this before. And one of the things that it doesn't me is when I've watched you, either in that, in your space is a father or a husband is Eiko. Holy shit. I'm not doing enough like I'm watching what Curt's doing, and that's unbelievable. And I just need to be I got to be more like hurt. Yeah, But there's two edges to that blade, and the other edge is that you're throwing yourself in front of that bus and you're getting run over and run over and run over. I want to hear you talk about that a little.Curt Derksen: You can only run over so many times, right? Like you kind of ball down and get back up and learn a little bit from it. And so I went back to my accident like I learned something from that event, like I got knocked over and life is like that. It continues to knock us over. And so the the Pro is that I care about people, and I do what I can in the people that I love. Know that I love them and I would do anything for them. But then there becomes a point where you also take on burdens beyond you take on. You start picking up people's burdens when they don't even want you to pick up their burdens, and it's actually not serving them the way I intend to serve them, like I'm trying to just help. But it's actually not being received like that. It actually comes across as almost being like this air against like you can't do it. Let me do it for you, Massa. Not my intention, but I kind of ran into this wall, and I think the business that I'm in is really great for that. It's helped me ro and become aware because my default and my mom is like This is well, my default is just to do everything for everybody. But then you burn yourself out. And so the business being coming into people's lives and seeing their circumstances and seeing that there is need and there's opportunity to help but learning of the line of what's actually appropriate and what's their responsibility and what you're actually have to constantly remind myself that doing something for someone else is actually robbing them. Often it can rob them of the experience or some of the experiences that I've had. And so in my brain, that's what I've had to do is actually like Helen myself. But I'm actually taking away from them, even though I'm trying to help them. I'm actually taking away from them and it's like a selfish thing, really, cause I'm learning toe, not pick up other people's rocks and put him in my backpack. Yeah, I'm learning that like it's their job to carry their rocks. And sometimes people's rocks there they're back back is so heavy that they need an extra hand but learning that line of like, what's appropriate and what's not for the sake of their growth, in their own development, in their own life, like their life, but also for mine, because it takes away from my ability to, like, get the most out of this life and beauty there for my kids and wife. Okay,Andrew Bracewell: there's a lot here that I don't want to miss out on this. There's there's two routes I want to go down and you you touched on one of them that I want to circle back to. And that's the how does this play out in your in your business? You're in the personal service industry and you're dealing with human needs Sometimes that are incredibly selfish. So I will go there in a sec, but I want to go to family tragedy. You've experienced a few things. We don't have to get into all of them, but I've observed you in your immediate family with with one of your brothers and your dad talk about either one of those circumstances, whichever one you want. Yeah, And in the context of this conversation and and what you've had to wrestle with it. So maybe give us some background.Curt Derksen: I feel like families like a different level for me. Like I I'm so in my business. I started off carrying everybody like they were my family, and I love everybody that I work with, and then I get to help. But I also need to draw a line somewhere of who I actually can carry stuff for and who I can't. That line is easily muddied, but my family side were going through. My dad has been 61. He's been diagnosed with dementia, and it's been going on for probably a handful of years undiagnosed. But we've been watching subtle changes, and it's really freaking hard. Man like this is heavy. Like, this is really heavy. This is not something that you, uh this is what I trained for. Actually, this is why I train. I train in life to be able to be in these kind of situations and be someone that helps and not be someone that's a burden by taking care of my own shit. I can help you situations. And so my parents are going through bar none. The hardest period of their lives. My dad's unfortunately, less his capacity and awareness is decreasing by the day, and there's nothing that we can do about it. There's nothing that anybody could. There's no a pill to take. There's not a lifestyle change. It's like the damage is done. And we're just like on this train to this point. And so there is a lot that my mom carries. There's a lot that my dad has lost, and there's a lot that I try and carry because my mom is. Her bag is so full that she's like she's treading water and having a hard time keeping your head above. And so I I have been for the last couple of years, probably longer than that, But intentionally right now and going forward, I'm going to be there with her in the water, helping her carry her back. And I could do that only because I take care of myself because I make sure that I sleep and I rest and I have time for me to do what I like. And I have time with my family where I can be engaged, and that gives me joy in life and exercise like those air. If I don't have those things sorted out, then if my mask isn't on, then I can't help my mom. Yeah, and so I I work on making sure that I have things put together in my life. And then obviously there's That's just one area of my life that's not that's just one thing, like there's still work and all the burdens that come with all these different people in their different situations and circumstances. But it for me fundamental piece comes back to taking care of myself. And so my journey this coming up this year into, uh, understanding myself better so I could be more authentic person of have a better understanding of myself, be more authentic in who I am, and then not have some of the extra stress is that come from trying to please other people or impress other people, take care of myself, be authentic? Then I can serve and be there for the people that mean the most to me.Andrew Bracewell: So as you're in this maze of dementia with no clear path it with your dad. What is the And you're in it. You're not through it. I mean, you're you're living it right now. What is the messaging that needs to be out there that you've had to dig and find on your own? But what people need to hear if they're in the space that you're in right now?Curt Derksen: Well, I think this is like all the things that I'm trying to practice right now is what I'm learning. Self care is of the utmost importance, like understanding your the way you tick, accepting who you are, not trying to please other people or perform to satisfy other people's expectations, saying No when you need to say no to something when you know that it's too much making sure that you get proper sleepAndrew Bracewell: because let me interrupt for a second because the need within the context of dementia, like with the person that's being affected by it, the need is so blind to other people's needs, right percent like it has the ability just to be the most selfish state it becomes, and it's not. The person's wrongdoing is a black hole. It's completely out of control so that if you're around that, everybody also have the barriers up. You can get sucked in, and before long, you know, there's nothing of yourself that that's accurate. 100% Yeah,Curt Derksen: but that's true of everything in life, right? That that is true, like especially for someone with personally like mine where you tend to. I want to be liked and I wantto do a good job for people. And I want I want to feel I feel fulfillment, and I feel significant when I feel like I've done a good job in somebody's a little bit better today or their financial situation's a little bit better because of on investment that I helped them with or you know they got really will take care of as we sold their home or whatever, no matter where you go. If you're not able to be fundamentally strong and who you are an authentic in yourself, take care of yourself, then you can easily get swayed. You lose your ability to be objective and then you get pulled into other people's shit. I want to be there to serve and honor my parents through this journey that they're on, not at the cost of my own sanity, nor the cost of my family. And but I'm also not willing to just I guess one way I could do it is be like, Well, no, hands off, like you deal with it and I'm busy with my own shit. I don't I don't want to be that person either. I want to be able to be engaged, developed that relationship, support them, love them, honor them as they go through this trialling Tyr trying time.Andrew Bracewell: I'll switch gears a little bit. Something that's been said about you is that Curt is one of the most playful fathers ever. And what I observe in you with your kid's eyes absolutely true. You know, I I agree with that statement. Where does that come from? Your desire to be engaged with your Children when given an opportunity?Curt Derksen: I think it comes from a couple of places. One. I just actually really love them, And I would just love playing with um, like I love it gives me joy to see them laugh. Like Nora is four and five times a day. Right now, she says, Daddy wrestle. Let's wrestle like a soon as I get in the door of the end of day. She's, like, wrestle first thing she said to me this morning when she came down the stairs. Danny, let's go wrestle like it gives her joy, and that makes me happy. That fills my tink. The other parties have a hard time even saying no to her like she'sAndrew Bracewell: okay, so I want it. I'm gonna I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate in this conversation.Curt Derksen: Give her because I see you sitting,Andrew Bracewell: I I'm a dad. I got three kids and not Devil's Advocate. That's the wrong way to structure the statement. But what I observe in you with your Children I have to work so hard, Tim Manufacturer in my own relationship. And let's just set the record clear on something. I love the shit out of my kids. I think the world rises and falls on the shoulders of my son when he's playing soccer or my eldest daughter when she's leading a musical or my youngest daughter, when she's just kicking ass in gymnastics like I think there unbelievable. But when I walk through the doors of the house and I compare that to when you walked through the doors of the house. I go, man shit. Like I don't have that natural instinct to wrestle. My natural instinct is I'm exhausted. I'm tired. I'm worn out. Shit, kid, give me space like a fuck. I can't. You know, I just can't. I'm not done yet. And so I wonder like, so is that thing that you have that I, by the way, fucking admire the shit out of you. Is that again? Are we talking nature nurture? Is this a d n? A thing? Is this AA thing that you've worked towards? What's your what's your take on that?Curt Derksen: I think it's the nature nurture question is complicated. And I think it's both, like, I think that at some level, that's just who I am. Like I remember being 12 and playing. We went to church as a kid and I remember, like playing with other younger kids and just making them laugh, chasing them, playing tag with them, picking up and running with them like I remember them like just howling with laughter and feeling like excited and joy filled. And part of it was that I remember how much it meant to the parents at that time that I was engaged with their kids and how much fun they're kids had and how much they're. Those kids looked up to me and how much fun we had together. Like I that that part just is that's just a part of who I am. I remember that. Yeah, I get home at the end of day and I'm tired, too. And as cute as my kids are sometimes chasing, I get home in. Nora Bellis is Dad chased me. Colin in Thailand will come and jump on me for hugsAndrew Bracewell: her pursue me, man pursued.Curt Derksen: So Nora will, like, come close and give me, like, a little bit of a little stare, little smirk, hide behind the pillar and then run away. And so sometimes chasing her isn't what I feel like doing. But when she gets laughing like I get home and I'm exhausted and I don't feel like chasing her, but she starts laughing at, I just kind of fall into it. I just give in. And I think at some level I just like, turn my brain off of what I actually want to do in that moment and just be who she wants me to be. Because I know that I've been away from her all day and I might only have a now hour or two hours or three hours with her before she goes to bed. And so I just kind of like gear down, find another gear and give them what I have left and try and make it the best of what I've given all day, even if it's for five minutes or 10 minutes. Because usually I can play with them for 20 minutes. Tops five minutes, 10 minutes and they're like they're good, They're tanks are full, they're ready to move on to the next thing, but at some level it's like it's inside of me. But another part of it is it's a choice. You're making an injection of choices so that I want to give. I don't want to give them the left of me. I'm gonna give them the best of me,Andrew Bracewell: and your window is only so big with themCurt Derksen: and they're so young. You're stages a little bit different to like where your kids were at. Like they make teenagers are different.Andrew Bracewell: Yeah, yeah, Oh, they're different. Teams are different. Let's just let that resonate through the podcast. Teenagers are different. Um, what's your go to space right now for, um, refueling and given yourself what you need in order to keep going. What's that? What's the thing? Or the space or the habit or whatever that you go to toe to fill yourself up?Curt Derksen: One of them is we have two dogs right now. Just a whole other conversation. But we have two dogs and IAndrew Bracewell: want to talk. About what? Just two dogs.Curt Derksen: Do you want me to getAndrew Bracewell: divorced? Maybe we should bring with shell into conversation. Ah, we, uh,Curt Derksen: wanted so one of the places is just getting out on the trails with the dog because we live up in Sandy Hill. He stabs her, and we have great trails that I can get on and just within a five minute walk. And so just getting away from everything and either listening to a podcast or listeningto quiet music or listening thio. My heart listeningto just whatever just being out there. So that's that's constantly something that fuels me. Podcasts are a huge part of my life driving. I spend a lot of time with her on the phone or driving, and so that helps me stay on track and keep focused with the direction that I want my life to go on, what I want to get out of this experience.Andrew Bracewell: And what's that? What's, Ah, current conversation that you're having in your head right now from something that you're listening to or you learn? What do you What is Curt telling himself right now? In this moment,Curt Derksen: I've been listening to a guy named Alan Watts, and there's some fascinating stuff that he has to say. But one of the most recent things that I've listened to probably 1/2 dozen times in the last month is talking about. Okay, so let me back up a business planning gold setting for 2020 and I look back on some of the intentions and plan that I put in place some of goals that I had in preparing for 2020. I look back on what I did, what I had set aside for 2019 and one of the things that I said to myself going into 22,019 was that when I wrote it down was that the struggle and the obstacles were going to make me better, that I was gonna become better as a result of those things. And I've So that was what I said the beginning. I started doing this business planning like End of October, which is the earliest I've ever started before. Then, in early November, I started listening to the song called Hell of a Year by Country Artist. I just heard him like, you know, he's an up and coming guy and singing this song, which it's a good listen don't necessarily his circumstances of what he's saying that song about don't necessarily apply to me. But application is in recognizing that it's been a hell of a year. Sure, my dialogue for a lot of this year was just that. It's been a hell for not a lot of this year. For a lot of November, as I'm business planning stuff was like, it's been a hell of a year now I'm gonna feel sorry for yourself. It's been a hell of a year and held the year fast forward Thio Alan Watts the last two weeks listen to this 16 minute, 16 minute segment a number of times, and it's basically talking about dream and how if you have thought, exercise and if you think about it, if you could go to sleep at night and dream absolute pure bliss and you could do that, you dreams in one night you dreamed 75 years like a full life 75 years of nothing but bliss. No hardship, no heartache talking like beaches in Hawaii like mountain Top moments your whole life. 75 years of bliss. This suggestion is you could probably on Lee Dream that dream with absolute pure bliss for like, four or five times of 75 years. Like that's a law that's like 300 years of experience over four nights, pure bliss. Then the next night, you might say, Well, that was really cool, but like a wonder what would happen if I wasn't in full control and some things happened that were a little bit out of my control, and maybe they were good and maybe they were bad, but I didn't really have full control. And so, as you did that for maybe 70 another dream, another dream, another dream like that and you get to the place. And his suggestion is at some point you would get to the place where you are right now and recognizing that you you actually don't have control. But this is where you would want to be if you had the ability to just live pure bliss all the time. And so I've often being in sales, talked and thought of, talked with Michelle and thought through myself, like this idea of what? Mountain top moments, Valley moments? Yeah, mountaintop moments, Valley moments. And when you're in the valley, you come out of it on the other side and you think, Okay, Don't really want to spend too much time in the Valley. But there's lessons that I've learned here, and it's gonna help me appreciate the mountaintop that much more. And so this idea of coming to like where I am right now some way, somehow if I had full control, I would probably choose to be here totally if I could live in pure bliss like some of some of the challenges, some of the obstacles. My child didn't sleep last night, you know, my physical bodies eking and I'm in. I'm in pain. My business isn't where I want it to be. I'm not doing some of things. You could focus on those things that you don't have or you could recognize that you should appreciate them, because those are things that you would actually choose if you had pure bliss all the time. Or this because you could only do pure bless for so much to appreciate where you are yet what you can from where you are and keep moving forward.Andrew Bracewell: We'll bliss. So by definition, bliss can only be considered bliss in relation or comparison to something that is not bliss. If that's all you have now we're getting deep. Okay? We're probably not acquit equipped to have this conversation, But let's go for it. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like you, we think in comparison. So So that that makes a lot of sense to me.Curt Derksen: Death in life. Yeah, you're alive, and you appreciate being alive because you're aware of the absence. Or like the opposite of young. This being a life,Andrew Bracewell: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.Curt Derksen: That's what I've been fixated on her have been thinking about a lot lately. Like last little while is just as I'm preparing now for this next year and making sure that I really I kind of, like, screwed myself over in the sense that, like I set myself up, I wrote it down. That I was gonna be the obstacles were going to make me better. And as a result, I feel like I had a handful of obstacles and in relation to a lot of people that go through a lot harder stuff than me. This is, you know, this is minor, but this is my journey. This is my process. And so there has been 2019 had quite a quite an unraveling for me in a lot of senses. And those three unraveling has made me more authentic. I just help me have a large desire to be more authentic and identify more clearly who I am and what I want. And then just be that more often, let go of some of this stress and anguish that I create from trying to be something that I'm not be something to please somebody.Andrew Bracewell: It sounds like one of the takeaways. From what you're experiencing, this conversation you're having in your head is that you have a higher level of contentment about the space You're in 1% and it's funny cause contentment in some circles or in some contacts, people say contempt. Shit. Don't be content, you know, strives, drive, drive, drive, drive. But I think that's actually false messaging for the most part. And that contentment is bringing you something that you didn't have before. And I thinkCurt Derksen: it's It's that this idea of, like, contentment in striving it's a pendulum again, like I feel like in so many areas in my life. I've seen these pendulums where you can go one way or the other, and contentment is different than settling and striving can actually burn you out like striving can, actually, if you're okay, So I'm a do er like I do like I fill my time with doing things, and to this point, I'm I am where I am as a result of my getting shit done like I I I commit. I focus, I get after it and I make it happen. But I've also learned the double edge of that this year, that trying to do all the time and not taking time to appreciate and be in the moment and yet from the moment, and be content and express gratitude for where I am will burn me out. So I I read a book earlier this year and I can't think of the title of it right now. But it talked about the idea that there's different kinds of people. And so there are people that are intent or settlers. They'll just stay at the base of the mountain and they'll set up camp and they will get all the amenities and they're super happy just to be there. For sure. This is like the average person average, not in the sense that one's better than the other. Just that things are different. Yeah, so you're you're at base camp and you're happy to be there. And then there's another group of people that will, like climb a little bit above base camp and they'll set up camp, and then that's their home. They're happy to be there. And then there's another group of people that are climbing their whole life, and they spend their whole life trying to get the topic Everest. And so they've climbed to past base camp. They've climbed past the next level past base camp, and now they're like perpetually climbing. Mmm. And it's a matter of figuring out some kind of balance and figuring out what's right for you and for me. This is it's for immutable. Figure out what's right for me, like I default to being a climber who's constantly striving and trying to make things better for me and better for those around me. But I've also learned that climbing all the time, without rest and without, like appreciation and gratitude and and being content with what I have and who I am creates turmoil. Intention that living attention all the time is not not effective. Way to live like we actually only have this minute right now, like this is all we have. And so if this is the moment that we have, being here is what's important.Andrew Bracewell: That's a great metaphor that that mountain climbing metaphor resonates. Lemme all Shayera on anecdotal thought from my own life. Using that metaphor, I would suggest that to your point earlier, one is not better than the other. Whether you're the settler, the person who has a tendency to go halfway 3/4 the way, all the way life has got all types, and we all fit in somewhere in that. In that spectrum, I think in the current context of our world, there's certain people that get worshipped more than others, right. They fill the spectrum of our social media mediums and outlets. They get presented a particular way in Hollywood or on the news or whatever. And unfortunately, we are often times comparing ourselves to these people on a global level, no longer just comparing ourselves to our own tribe in our own backyards and our own, you know, cities. But we're now comparing ourselves to people who live half

Is abortion justified in the name of “medical freedom?” I’ll be answering this and a few more questions today for MailBox Monday—but here’s a preview: if it breaks God’s heart, it should break ours. God is pro-life, from conception to natural death. I’ll also be answering a question about a difficult (imagine that!) toddler and talk about criteria for choosing a church. Join me! Transcribed version of podcast is below. Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse * Isaiah 54:10, 17 All Things Heidi * See all events here * MomStrong International * Sample Bible Study Week and Cursive Copywork.  * To see the Manuscript of the Copywork and the Scripture Writing schedule, sign up at MomStrong International  for a FREE account to gain access! * Bible Study kicks off the first Monday of each month. * Scripture Writing kicks off the first day of every month. * Speaking Requests * Submit your questions to MailBox Monday * Essential Oils * Shop my Amazon Store * My Books: Becoming MomStrong | MomStrong Bible Study | Prayers for the Battlefield | Bible Promises for Moms | Becoming MomStrong Journal Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing! Submit your questions to MailBox Monday. Don’t Miss These! TRANSCRIPTION: This podcast is brought to you by our friends at Teach Them Diligently. Hey, everybody. This is Heidi St. John. How you guys doing? Today’s Monday, December 2nd, the most wonderful time of the year. I hope you guys are excited to be here. I am excited that you’re here. And I know you’re going to love today’s podcast because it’s Mailbox Monday. I’m going to jump right into answering your questions.  Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged. All right, so, wow, you guys. Thanks everybody who continues to write to us here at the podcast. Couple things going on. First of all, I am doing my Christmas card Palooza. I really, really, really want to hear from you. So send us your Christmas cards (address is at the end of this transcription). Please write to us. Send us a picture of your family. If you can include a year-end donation to the nonprofit organization, which is Firmly Planted Family, that helps us keep this podcast on the air, and we would love to hear from you.  I am excited to be coming to Newbury Park, California for a women’s tea at Godspeak Calvary Chapel this coming Friday. So Friday evening I’ll be there. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/heidistjohn/support

Friday the 13th is, without a doubt, one of the most notorious movie series of all time. When it made its initial run in the 80s, the movies not only drew the ire of parent/teacher groups around the world. It also was the red headed stepchild in the eyes of Paramount executives. How did the series develop from its inception all the way to the modern day? That is the question myself, Matthew Goudreau, and Mik Duffy will explore in this podcast series. After Friday the 13th Part 2 made $21.7 million off a $1.2 million budget, the writing was on the wall that another sequel had to be made. But this time, executives wanted to make sure they took full advantage of a rejuvenated phenomenon known as 3D. So Friday the 13th 3D was released, once again to a slashing from critics but a massive success among audiences. But if the movie wasn't in 3D, would it be remembered at all? You might be surprised at the answer. We then look at Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (keep the snickering to yourself. We'll handle it). Getting their makeup maestro Tom Savini back for what executives promised would be the series coup de gras. Of course, we know that to be a false presumption. But is it worth a look? Listen in as Matt, Mik, and myself answer that question, and also point out the exact moment this franchise found its identity. Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982) (?/10, ?/10, ?/10) Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) (?/10, ?/10, ?/10) CLICK ABOVE TO LISTEN NOW! Subscribe to Binge Cast on iTunes

Here's what's really cool about freelancing...what it looks like is based on your needs. The ideal set point and type of clients and projects that you work on will vary from one freelancer to another. So it's a really great, customized way to build a business that works for you. It's why there's no one size fits all solution for a lot of the issues that advanced freelancers face. Now, when you're first starting your business, there is general advice that applies to helping you get established find clients, and stay consistent with your marketing. But as your business grows, your needs might also change and evolve.  One of the common sticking points for a lot of advanced freelancers is scheduling. So in this episode, we're going to talk a little bit about some of my favorite scheduling tips. But you've got to keep in mind that what it looks like for you might be different.  I've probably changed my schedule at least a dozen times across the course of owning a freelancing business. Even as that company has evolved, as well into incorporating things like public speaking, writing a book, or coaching other freelancers, that has meant that my freelancing schedule has had to change as well. So when I first got started, I would basically work any pocket or window of time that I could find. I balanced my freelance business for a year while also holding down a day job. So that meant that nights, weekends, and early mornings were the only times I could freelance. When I jumped full time into freelancing, one of the first things that I did was basically try to work as normal a day as possible. So eight to nine hours a day of doing everything that was required within my freelance business. And a lot of what helps make that scheduling transition relatively effective was the fact that I had been doing it for an entire year on the side of another job and knew about how much time it was going to take me to complete various things in my business. So I knew how much time I needed to spend marketing. I knew what proportion of my time I need to dedicate to client projects.  And I simply had to make some general adjustments to now allow for a whole work day. Now, what's interesting, and I've heard this from a lot of other advanced freelancers, is that we're actually more effective with our time when we have a day job. I don't know why that is. But I have found that to be true. I'm still relatively productive and effective with my time. I've been freelancing full time for six years at the time of recording this podcast. But I definitely had better time management skills when I worked another job because I was limited, very limited, with my hours. So there was no time to get into my head, there was no time to question things. So it became more difficult to schedule as my business grew and as I added more components to my business as well. So what you're “fully booked point” and what your schedule looks like will be different from other freelancers.  Someone who's only able to work 10 hours a week can still be an advanced freelancer because perhaps those 10 hours are really focused and truly leveraging that freelancers abilities. And what you think fully booked is, will also be very individual. So for me, that's no more than 20 hours a week of freelance client work in order to balance the other projects that I have going on. For someone else that could be 30 or 40 hours. So that's a really good starting point to begin with.  You need to know what your fully booked point is.  What is the maximum amount of time that you want to be spending, creating and delivering client projects? Now, that doesn't include your marketing. So you've got to keep that in the back of your mind too.  Maybe you don't want to do any more than 30 hours of client work per week. But you aren't going to neglect marketing, of course. So you might have to say, “Okay, well, what am I going to fit in five or seven hours of marketing, so I'm really working closer to 35 or 37 hours per week?” So my scheduling tips for advanced freelancers, these are just different ideas that you could potentially try as your business grows. The first one I have is to block out creative time. This is time when you're doing things other than working on your business. It could be hobbies, creative projects, like writing a book.  You could be diving into a different creative talent or hobby that you'd like to have. But maybe you're brand new to journaling or meditation.  I kind of consider as creative time too, because it really sets the tone for what the rest of your day and even week is going to look like. So start by blocking out creative time. This is your non business time when you're not even doing things like listening to business podcasts, or reading books. This is truly your creative time when you're able to express yourself. And maybe that's only 20 or 30 minutes per day. But that should be built into your schedule first.  Because guess what?  If you don't put it in there at the outset, it is far too easy to overlook it and not have any of it in there at all. My second tip is to block out your marketing time as separate from your work time. I'm a huge fan of batching your work as a freelancer. And that includes putting all like minded activities into the same sectors or blocks of your day as possible. I do not market when I'm working on client projects or when I am in a period of doing phone calls or responding to my clients over Voxer.  My marketing time is separate. It is individual..  And it is focused time when I am only working on that particular task. And blocking that out and thinking about how that's different from the time when you're working on client projects is very important.  Because they're different ideas.  They're different concepts. And we don't want to try to ask our brain to be doing multiple things at the same time. I often see freelancers trying to do this because maybe it worked when you first started your business. You'd have several different tasks open and you're doing marketing on LinkedIn, you're reviewing job boards, and then you're also like half working on this piece or project for a client. Making these separate helps you be much more effective with the time that you are focused. So being distracted and pulled in different directions can really slow you down and impede your progress and productivity. So make that marketing time separate from your work time.  Block out an hour or even 30 minutes per day, when you're specifically doing marketing and not working on things for clients or answering clients. My third tip is to play around with your schedule and find your most productive time. This is another personalized aspect of scheduling for advanced freelancers. Some people work better in the afternoons or at night.  That is not me.  I am never as productive during those times as I am first thing in the morning. So since we have the benefit of being freelancers and setting up our own schedule, adjust your work hours to reflect what works for you. All it takes is letting your clients know what to expect. I tell my clients don't expect responses or edits from me after 3pm.  I'm just not doing it. I'm normally not even in the office, I'm in the office earlier than most people, because I do typically work pretty early mornings when I am most focused. But that means I can get a lot more work done in 4 focused hours then trying to say, “Yeah, let me work the traditional nine to five.” Even though that's not my most focused period, I'll actually get the same or even less done, trying to take that approach of working someone else's hours. So allow your body's natural rhythm and ability to help dictate when you're going to work the most. If you're really inspired and focused from 7 to 10pm at night, use that time for your brainstorming, outlining of projects, and thinking about how you're going to write your next blog for marketing purposes. Another tip that has really helped me a lot is to put all of my phone calls on one day or on certain days of the week.  By doing this I’m holding other days sacred for client work or focused periods of work when I'm doing things like marketing, brainstorming new classes, and responding in depth to some of my clients.  This has helped tremendously, because there's not those phone calls that disrupt and sort of punctuate the day and throw me off from what I was doing. So I've done everything from no phone calls on Mondays to Fridays to phone calls only on Thursdays to everything in between. You need some level of flexibility to be able to speak to your clients. I find that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays are the days when most people are in the office. Holidays tend not to fall on those days. So it's easier to schedule phone calls during that time. I try to put as many of my calls on Wednesdays as possible, so that I can have Mondays and Fridays as my more creative days when I'm doing in depth focused work for me growing my business and other projects. And then Tuesday through Thursday are pretty heavy client days. So I keep those open for phone calls, consultations, and responding to pitches and follow ups.  I keep those very client focused because that works. My next favorite tip for scheduling tip for advanced freelancers is to stay out of your email inbox as much as you can. Email sometimes is the bane of my existence.  It never seems to go below 50 messages that I need to review and respond to.  It can also become very addictive and non productive to be in your email inbox a lot. I used a tool called Rescue Time back in the day, and discovered that I was spending 12 hours a week at that point in time on my inbox. Now very few of those hours were making me money or were working on things that were imperative for an immediate response. For more tips on dealing with email, check out this blog post. I try to check my email no more than three times per day. And I use a tool called Boomerang to push off things that are not imminent. So if someone emails me and says, “Hey, I'd love to collaborate with you.” If I don't need to respond to that immediately, I'm going to push it off towards one of those Mondays or Fridays, when I'm doing a lot more catch up work and non client specific things. And I'll respond to all of those together. So I will try to set them to come back all at the same time. So let me explain a little bit more about what that looks like. If I get 10 emails in the morning, then some of them are from people who want to collaborate on things for freelancers and some are from prospective clients. Some are things I need to follow up with immediately. I want to push off the non imminent things.  So I tell Boomerang send the collaboration requests back into my email on Friday at 9am. I'll take a look at all of those together, review them all, and respond together.  I might immediately respond to the things that require my attention. And then I might have other things set up to Boomerang back into my inbox a Friday at 10am. Like perhaps all of my follow ups from everyone that I've pitched or written proposals for. So that way I've got similar emails coming back into my inbox at a similar time. So Friday is my email catch up day.  Maybe at 8:00, I'm getting those collaboration requests. At 10:00, a new wave of the things I boomeranged for follow ups have come back in. And that way it doesn't seem overwhelming or get confusing because they're showing up as new in my inbox during that time. My last scheduling tip for advanced freelancers is to think specifically about when do you want to take vacations. So many of us are completely guilty of not taking vacation. We kind of fall into this trap of thinking, “Oh, well, I can take a vacation any time. So I'm not going to plan it in advance.” One thing that I have found really increases the chances of you truly taking that vacation, enjoying it, and giving your clients plenty of notice that it's coming is putting that on the calendar at least three months in advance. So you're listening to this in the fall. I'm looking ahead to November and December.  What weeks am I taking off? And what days will I close my office? What time periods do I not want to have as much freelance work? Let's say that I close my office for the two weeks around Christmas.  I'm going to need to put reminders in my schedule, either Boomerang or on my calendar, around mid November to tell my clients,  “Hey, your work is going to have to be turned in early. Edit requests need to be turned in by this date. The last time I can schedule phone calls is X day.” I'm going to let them know that about a month in advance whenever I can. So if I wait until it's the first of December, and then realize I don't have enough lead time to get caught up on work that might otherwise be delivered. At the second half of December, I might not be able to accomplish that goal of letting my clients know that a vacation is coming and I'll just end up overwhelmed and behind  Whenever I go out for vacation, especially if your trip is two weeks or longer, it usually takes me three solid weeks to get ahead. Most of my freelance clients are on retainer. So that means I am working ahead. If you're in another phase of your business where you're drumming up business, you're going to want to make sure your follow ups and your automated marketing efforts to go out while you're gone are still present and there. So it's still will take at least two to three weeks to lay that groundwork and work ahead. If I know I have to turn in two weeks of blogs for the second part of December in advance, I've got to kind of backdate and reverse engineer everything. So then in November, I pick those topics, get them approved by the client,  I draft them, edit them, send them in early, and all those different processes.  I kind of have to back up and make sure that it doesn't fall into the normal schedule so I can truly take that time off. So that can really help you when you look ahead to the future and know: When am I going to take my vacations? And what steps do I need to take in advance to make sure that my clients know and that I'm fully organized so that I can step up my office? Where do I need to tell my VA… Here's the blogs to post, the LinkedIn things to monitor. And Here's what I'm asking you to keep an eye on in my email inbox while I'm out. There's a lot of different steps that need to be taken to really protect you and make you feel confident about truly closing your office. So I'd love to know your favorite scheduling tips that might help you to grow your business more effectively. These are some of my favorites.  But remember, it's going to look different for you. My best recommendation is to play around with your schedule, stick with your new guidelines for two weeks, and see if it works for you. If you find it unbearable then some changes are needed.  But it's always good to test things out and try switching things around to be more effective. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the advanced freelancing podcast. For more freelance advice, get a copy of my book Start Your Own Freelance Writing Business—available now! Buy it from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and more.

So Friday night I will upload two new episodes and also Sunday night as well. But this weekend I won't be available --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/positivegaming/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/positivegaming/support

There’s a new chapter in the history books for Kentucky Peerless Distilling Company. A thriving distillery that had been lost during prohibition is now reemerging right in the heart of downtown Louisville. Corky Taylor, CEO of Peerless, joins the show to share his story. After being bored with retirement, Corky decided to risk it on building a distillery and fighting with a team of lawyers to reclaim their original DSP-50 designation. We talk more about their rye, the recent bourbon release, and some stories from when he was roommates with the Allman brothers. Show Partners: The University of Louisville now has an online Distilled Spirits Business Certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry. Learn more at uofl.me/pursuespirits. At Barrell Craft Spirits, they explore whiskey in an entirely new way. The team selects and blends barrels of whiskey into something greater than the sum of its parts. Find out more at BarrellBourbon.com. The 2019 Kentucky’s Edge Bourbon Conference & Festival pairs all things Kentucky with bourbon. It takes place October 4th & 5th at venues throughout Covington and Newport, Kentucky. Find out more at KentuckysEdge.com. Central Kentucky Tours offers public and private bourbon tours for groups from 2 to 55. Learn more at CentralKentuckyTours.com. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: Denny's Bourbon Menu: https://vinepair.com/booze-news/dennys-bourbon-menu-pancakes/ Sweet spot for aging bourbon: https://www.winemag.com/2019/08/12/ultra-aged-spirits-ripping-you-off/ Can liquor go bad?: https://www.bustle.com/articles/99585-does-alcohol-go-bad-yep-so-heres-how-long-you-have-to-finish-off-your-favorite This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about marketing to children. Tell us about growing up in Hawaii. Where does the name Corky come from? What is the history of Peerless? What happened during prohibition? What made you decide to bring the brand back? Why Louisville? Tell us about getting your original DSP number back. Was it hard to make such a big investment? Why was it important to wait to release your own product vs. sourcing? What differentiates you from other brands? What systems are you investing in? If you were younger, would you have focused as much on quality as you are now? Tell us about the bottle and the price point. Why does rye age quicker than bourbon? Is the price of the rye going to go up when it is older? Tell us about the small batch and single barrel. What is your definition of small batch? Were your recipes trial and error? What other ryes do you like? Who are you teaming up with for barrels? How did you chose your Master Distiller? What's your connection to General Patton? What about the Allman Brothers? 0:00 Hey everybody. Are you interested in looking at the distilling process and pairing that with key business knowledge such as finance, marketing and operations, then you should check out the online distilled spirits business certificate from the University of Louisville. It's an online program. It can be completed in as little as 15 weeks. It's taught by both of you have all business faculty and corporate fellows. So you're getting real experience from real experts at the most renowned distilleries, companies and startups in the distilling industry. And all that's required is a bachelor's degree. Go to business.louisville.edu/onlinespirits. You know, 0:35 you play League baseball or be three core keys on two teams, you know, so to be so everybody's name. 0:43 It was the new john back then. Yeah, they will. Everybody says, everybody looks. 1:00 Welcome back. It's Episode 216. of bourbon pursuit. I'm Kenny, and we've got some news to run through. And we've got some exciting news that's coming from old forester there. 1910 old fine whiskey we talked about on the show with Jackie's I can before and it exceeded the expectations that old forester ever would have known about. It was their fourth and final expression of the old foresters, whiskey row series, and it's sold out across the nation, but it's now being announced that'll be back on shelves at the end of the month. You know, the idea of pairing bourbon and food and even infusing bourbon and food is nothing new, but some might wonder, have we gone too far? Well, the commercialization of bourbon continues as a Denny's. You know that place with moons over my hammy is announcing a new bourbon themed menu for fall. It's called Big bourbon flavors. The menu features a range of bourbon inspired dishes to enjoy throughout the day. So for breakfast, you've got the apple bourbon pancake breakfast that has two flaxseed multigrain pancakes with a caramel apple walnut bourbon sauce. And for lunch and dinner. You've got two classic bourbon dishes, the bourbon bacon burger, which is topped with a bourbon sauce. And then you've got the bourbon chicken sizzling skillet, which sees a grilled chicken breast coated in a bourbon glaze. And as with any rare bourbon release, this is a limited time offer and you can read more about this with a link to vine pair calm in our show notes. What's the sweet spot for Bourbons age? You know if you follow along with the podcast you would know after hearing all kinds of master distillers and master blenders that ages and everything and heck, we know that when we go on barrel pics, and we have this notion that higher age is better but there's a reason why you're gonna end up seeing barrels of stuff that has been rejected for last year Craig 23 that just gets dumped into standard Evan Williams tanks. And there's a new article by wine mag calm that interviewed four roses master distiller Brent Elliot, about that sweet spots, and bread said that the majority of barrels speak and around the fire 10 year range. And in this range is when all the immature character of the white dog is gone. And there's a light and bright and delicate balance of the flavors from the grains and the fermentation that had developed in the barrel. And with the barrel to create that perfect balance. And beyond the 12 year ranges, we're going to start seeing fewer and fewer of those actually, quote unquote improving each year. You can read more about bourbon rum, scotch and army sweet spots, which surprisingly, Armagnac was at 50 years old, with the article from wine mag in our show notes. Do you have an old dusty bottles still sitting on the shelf? And more importantly, have you opened it? Well, I guess this kind of goes for any bottle of bourbon that you have open. And you're now wondering, how long do I have to drink this before it goes bad or maybe just changes completely. According to researchers at Bacardi they presented their findings at the annual Tales of the cocktail convention in New Orleans, and everyday factors such as temperature fluctuations, light exposure, and oxidation can lead to rapid fire beard aggregation. And this can really severely alter both of the color and the flavor of alcohol stored in glass bottles. Bacardi flavor, scientists conducted a series of experiments on the effects of temperature fluctuations on its rum and found that temperature changes can degrade an organic molecule called Turpin. And this alters the flavor of the alcohol to by exposing various glass bottles stored to UV radiation. It actually intended to try to simulate the effects of sunlight. And researchers found that over a period of 10 days of exposure, bourbon lost 10% of its color while scotch lost 40%. But color is never just color when it comes to alcohol color changes are indicative of flavor changes to and researchers concluded that whiskey has an almost indefinite shelf life if you leave it unopened and stored in a cool space. However, once you open it, the rules of the game start changing in order to best protect the flavor profile from oxidation. If you have a bottle that is less than half, you should drink it within a year. And if you have less than a quarter of a bottle left, you have about three to four months before it starts to get questionable. You can read the entire article from bustled calm in our show notes. Are you a Patreon supporter of ours. But we had recently launched a new Discord server where everybody can come and chat daily in real time. There's a lot of talk going on about the podcast on a daily basis. And for me seriously, it's almost hourly because I'm giving updates of what's coming in through email and other kind of news that we necessarily don't always talk about on the podcast, but there's just loads of bourbon talk. So come connect your discord account to your Patreon account, and you can join in the fun with us. Now for today's podcast, you know we look back and peerless has just been a fun distillery to watch when they first launched their two year ride at $100 or more across the country. It's a major push back from whiskey geeks know until they tried it, it gets better and better every single year. This whiskey is just one aspect of the story because Corky talks a lot about how they rebuilt this brand. It's just a fantastic story here. It's always appealing to hear kind of how someone fights hard to restore history by fighting to get their original DSP. And no expense was spared when it's actually coming to the bottling and really what the end result of their whiskey is. So this is going to be a fun distillery to watch as they grow. And if you didn't know they just released their first bourbon to the world at four years old. All right, now here we go. Let's get in a quick word from Joe over a barrel bourbon. And then you've got Fred Minnick with above the char. 6:38 Hi, Joe from barrell bourbon. Here, we explore whiskey in an entirely new way. My team at barrel craft spirits, selects and blends barrels of whiskey into something greater than the sum of their parts. Find out more at barrellbourbon.com. I'm Fred Minnick, and this is above the char. I'm going to say this now and repeat it a lot. In this episode, do not market to children if you're an alcohol brand. Now with that said, we live in this beautiful bourbon lifestyle and sometimes friends by friends, baby gifts that have bourbon logos on it. Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago, a good friend brought me a baby bib with a distillery logo on it. It was for my than seven month old son and it was quite cute. And I really appreciate it. It was It was lovely. My wife laughed about it. Even my son thought it was cute. But I didn't really think anything of it from a marketing perspective because my friend actually made it this was not created by the distillery. My friend made this special embroidered baby bed. And then I started reviewing some cigarette testimony from the 1990s. You know, that's what I do. I like reading old transcripts and lawsuits to find nuggets of history and factual information. Well, this was a time when the anti smoker leagues were really dissecting the tobacco industry for having built in their schools and creating cartoon characters as the mascots for tobacco. Now the alcohol industry has always done a very good job of avoiding this, you know, marketing to children and they've really enforced that heavily within the trade. But in recent years, whiskey fans have actually gifted one another bourbon related things to celebrate newborns and even make you know, children t shirts with whiskey logos. For the most part, these are innocent homemade gifts from one friend to another. When a friend has a kid the natural instinct is to buy that friend a gift. And if your friend is a bourbon fan, you might be inclined to buy or create a bourbon one z. We may like it and think it's cute, but the rest of the world could see it as marketing bourbon to a child, which is very bad. You see, we are in this weird place in our society with how we perceive alcohol. Many of us look at bourbon as the great bourbon lifestyle and our children see our bottles all the time. And here is talking about master distillers. So for this audience, you and I, getting a bourbon baby bib is one of the greatest, most thoughtful gifts you could possibly imagine. But this is potentially a very slippery slope. If the wrong person sees my son wearing that bib, they may think it's from a brand and report it to the federal authorities. It could lead to an investigation and severe consequences and social media circles which are already cracking down on alcohol and tobacco related posts after all advocacy groups will go to the ends of the earth to protect children and they absolutely should, again, do not market to children at all, especially if you are a bourbon related brand. And nobody wants to market to children in this industry. Nobody. So as we give to our friends and celebration of their children just be cognizant of what it might look like to an outsider. And while bourbon is a long way from Joe camel, we don't want to portray our lifestyle and the wrong light. And that's this week's above the char Hey, did you know I have a second edition of my book bourbon curious coming out soon. You can find it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble search bourbon curious again that's bourbon curious until next week. Cheers 10:20 welcome back into a another episode of bourbon pursuit and here we are the second time at down one bourbon bar doing our live streaming podcast. So Happy Monday to everybody that's out there. You know hopefully we're starting to shake things up to start the beginning of the week because a lot of news kind of happens on Monday so 10:38 yeah, especially after spring break, you know, the wall everybody's having a case of the Mondays today. 10:45 I don't want to do anything 10:46 but every every comes back looking super tan though. Oh no. Yeah, 10:49 not me. I still got white farmers tan. You don't Tandy Corgi I do 10:55 if I'm in the sun. Yeah. I hear either more. Yeah, 10:59 well, yeah, this is our room now you know the Kenny and Ryan. This is our studio 11:03 so it's slowly turned it into that we got the the phones are going off the hook if anybody can hear me Yes. Good. I've got a telephone going. Yeah. So 11:12 all in for your sport. We have one a day bourbon will take your questions live. Actually, that's not a real number. Please don't call. Yeah. But you know, today is going to be a pretty fun and interesting episode because we are sitting here with Corky Taylor Corky is the chairperson, CEO as well of, of peerless distilling company. You know, this is something that you know, honestly for us it had taken a while for peerless to kind of get on the map for us even though it's kind of in our backyard. We all the time we have people that say oh, we want to go on the podcast, we're going to podcast but they don't really hit a national awareness and I think it's time now that peerless is started to break that ground and they are starting to kind of venture out and away and make themselves a nationally recognized brand at this point. 11:57 Yeah. And internationally as well. I was just talking to Cordell my good friend corps de before the show and he was telling us and tell me that how port peerless is now in 45 states and it just one like I think the British craft Producer of the Year and, and globally so I mean, that's pretty big stuff you know, coming out of you know, peerless. So I'm I'm super excited being Kenny actually Corky pride. I remember we came there last year for my birthday. We had a group of 10 and you gave a great tour. It was actually a pursuit undercover Volume One Yeah, yeah. Exactly. We were we're behind the scenes, I brought my own whiskey thief. And you know, and I was it was a lot of fun. It's a very cool place if no one's been to but excited to revisit the story and share with our audience you know, Corky background and the whole peerless brand and what they're doing to make their name in the whiskey game. 12:50 Absolutely. So I guess we should we should probably introduce our guest so today we do have Corky he is the chairman and the CEO of peerless to ceiling company so Corky aloha haha. Right. Yeah, that was one thing that I learned from you at the last Legends Series is that you grew up in Hawaii. I did. My father was in the military. So we spent I spent the first 13:13 eight and a half, nine years growing up in Hawaii. My dad was stationed over there. So actually, at one time live right on Waikiki Beach. So surfed on Waikiki Beach. And then we moved to Schofield and chapter so and then when I was older, I served 13:31 was that a huge lie down? It was 13:34 why I went 13:35 straight from Hawaii to military school now lived in Tennessee. Oh, that was a major lead. And you know, I used to serve the North Shore, Sunset Beach where the big I wouldn't serve from the 25 foot waves. But I still surfing the 10 foot waves. So but now, our family moved back to my dad's hometown, Henderson, Kentucky. 13:57 Well, what what can give us a time frame of that like the when you were growing up in Hawaii? Like what age? What age range was this? 14:03 I was about five years old. When we moved to why my brother was actually born in Hawaii on Maui. Then we moved back when I was 13 years old Henderson so 1314 right in there. 14:16 Was he given when your brother was born? Was he given like a an official like Hawaiian name that you didn't get because 14:23 he was actually named after my great grandfather? He's 14:25 not Hawaiian. 14:28 Polynesian name. Yeah. 14:29 Yeah, no, no, he was named after actually my great grandfather that started peerless. So he was he was Henry, they call it we call the man but he was Henry named after my great grandfather. So 14:42 we'll kind of talk about your name a little bit too so Corky Taylor, and this the name Corky, because it is a little bit different, right? So kind of how did this name of offer what does it come from? And I'm going to just guess it's not your actual given name, or no, it's not 14:53 okay. No, I'm, I'm Roy M. Taylor. The third course my grandfather was you know, always Roy My dad was Roy to until and then general Pat named my father a so he went by aces, you know, the whole time and I was with him. And then since they that they didn't really want to call me Roy. So I, I got the name Corky day one. So the only time I was ever named Roy was first day of school. So they'd say Roy Taylor, and I'd kind of raise my hand up, you know, no, it's Corky. So that was I could go into the year by Corky so it's I've always gone by Corky. 15:31 That's a great it's not too bad. 15:32 It was a military name. I mean, there was a lot of visit. He's something about it. I don't I don't know. But I had I had played darn it 15:39 the neighbor. 15:40 No, not really. So it was you know, you play Little League baseball and or be three core keys on two teams, you know, so it'd be so everybody's name. 15:51 It was the new john back then. 15:53 Yeah, they will. Everybody says Korea everybody looks 15:58 good. So I kind of want to kick it off and start talking a little bit about the story in the history of peerless. So before we talk about the whiskey and the bourbon that you're producing now kind of give the story of your family and how this really evolved. 16:13 Okay, how it had evolved, was obviously through my great grandfather. He was he was born in Poland. He was a Polish Jew. He moved to New York City to Manhattan. When he was five years old. He was selling papers on the corner when he was seven 810 12 years old. And when he was he saved up some money when when he was 19. He said I'm going to get on a riverboat. When I run out of money, that's where I'm going to get off. Why didn't get off in Louisville, Kentucky. I have no idea he got off in Henderson, which was a good thing. Walk up top of the hill head zero money. And he asked the bar up there called buckets. Can I sweep the floor and can I live in the attic until I get myself squared away. And about two years later, he ended up buying the bar. But what he really wanted to be was a banker, and that's what he was. He went from Henderson to St. Louis, for a short period of time because there was a lot of Jewish people from St. Louis. So they kind of took him under his wing. He became a banker and st move back to Henderson open First National Bank and an 1818. And he bought a small distillery from the worship family Mr. worship and passed away he bought a distillery. They were making about eight barrels of bourbon a day. And within two years, he was he had some weeks he was making 200 barrels a week. So he took it to a pretty good at one time, he was probably two or 222 stories in the state of Kentucky. He was probably in the top five or 10. during that era. 17:43 He looked as it purely investment or was it like something I enjoyed? 17:48 Now I think he looked at it as an investment. Yeah, I think he was pretty money driven. He built one of the largest breweries outside of the Mississippi, the Henderson Brewing Company, and a way to distributor just beer during that era was all by river boat. So your head his own river boats and went to Cincinnati to local down to St. Louis and he built that into a pretty good says brewery. But his love was Chicago. That's where all his buddies were. He couldn't do this today. But back then he said on the board of five different banks up in Chicago, but he owned the Palmer house up in Chicago is probably one of the most famous some people never heard of it. But it's the longest running Hotel in the United States first hotel to have a light bulb. Telephone elevator dishwasher. and air conditioning. 18:33 No iPhone, not the first off 18:36 iPhone. No, I think it's but but they invented the brownie. So that's what they were famous. Okay. I like brownies. Yeah, yeah. 18:44 So I guess kinda helped me through the the timetable here now was your great, great, great or great, great, great grandfather. Okay, so was this last during Prohibition or like it was okay. So you want to talk about like, how that that sort of 19:00 had it. He headed up to prohibition and he had about 63,000 barrels of bourbon he had to get rid of. He was having if you had 50,000 oh man owns borough, because they had huge warehouses or some big distilleries and, and owns burn, they had big fences with Abby on him. So he was able to had a lot of barrels. And it took him about three years to get licenses to distribute alcohol during Prohibition. So 19:26 so nobody was coming there. Day one trying to bring cameras. Yeah. And Whoa, I 19:30 think they probably were, I mean, all he is, the distillery and Henderson was pretty wide open. And that's reason why he would sneak at night over on 17. train cars don't want to keep barrels over and keep them hidden. So the government, you're right would have gone in there with access, crack them open, pour them out. So he thought he could get a license eventually. And it took him about three years to do so. So then he got a license of sable to distribute, where he distributed a lot of his alcohol and we found sad, Rocky words up in, in Chicago. It's worth distributing. That's breakthrough. But they were that it was a I guess he knew about my great grandfather. And before I got up there, he told us that my great grandfather sold the Walgreen or buys from a with Walgreens got one on every corner, right. But he sold them a little less than 40,000 barrels of bourbon during Prohibition, which was a big deal back then. So they partied pretty hard in the Palmer house. For years, not his quitting one of these two week parties. This went on for like 10 or 12 years term, prohibition but he was able to get rid of all his and he shut the distillery down. He shut it down before that. 20:44 So it was more like a like a liquidation sort of thing is what he was trying to get out of. 20:48 Yeah, he was he'd already sold his skills and 1917 probation came along in 1919. So he must have known something was coming on. So in 1917, he sold his still united distillery up in Vancouver, British Columbia. And what he did, he hired Mr. Sherman here in town that owns Vendome. They're the largest still building in the United States, probably the world hired Mr. Sherman brought his family, the Henderson his wife and four kids stayed there eight months broken down, went up to Vancouver, about a month on the train, set them up, spent eight months up there came back here. And that's where they got some of the money to continue and to build Vendome with. So I went in there and 98 years later, and they told me was your great grandfather that helped put our great grandfather and business. 21:38 So they were like, well, you need to still so we're gonna go ahead and just bump you up near towards the front of the line. This is this is your repayment 21:43 dad wouldn't really it. 21:47 So talk about the the idea now, you know, the family legacy of distilling, and having your own whiskey had been lost for a few generations. And and now you were at the point of just saying like, screw it. Like, let's let's start making whiskey again, like what was the what was that real determining factor that wanted you to start pushing towards that as 22:09 he had a legitimate story? Yeah. People are like my great grandparents. You're like, You're not even related. 22:16 It's not even clay. 22:17 Yeah, exactly. I'll tell you what, I had a big company and I had a financial services company. I sold it group at a New York fifth floor Rockefeller Center. I walked on a beach in Sarasota, Florida for a year and a half most depressed I've ever been in my life. I said, I've got to go back to work. So I came back. I had a home here in Lowell. And my youngest son Carson was a builder. And so let's let's do something I don't care what we do. Let's do something. So we had a lot of history with my great grandfather and my grandfather, running a distillery. So he said, Let's build a distillery, we went down to Vendome and walk through the door. And so we want to order a still and started looking for buildings here in town. And Carson was a builder. So we found this building, down on 10th Street did kind of lend itself to do what we wanted to do and or distills. And he started the building took us almost two years to the day to build the building or to convert the building to a distillery and 23:15 YG to that building, and that location. 23:18 Well, I just felt like that if I kept the building, and maybe when our bourbon came out in six to seven years part a little bit would be heading that direction. It was pretty pretty much gone news greatness, but there's not many places left and that into town. So I thought in 678 years, local would be heading that direction. So it was in a kind of a rough area and then it's starting to get better as we go along. And I'm going to get the park built in on river to be better yet, but I just thought it would it would work out and it had a loading dock he was about to write says we wanted so it's worked out. I think it's worked out very well for us. 24:00 Why not up? Sorry. 24:01 No, no, I was about to say I mean, do you see that as more of like, like levels having a Renaissance period because you had a choice you could have you could have gone to Bardstown you could have gone back to your hometown. 24:12 Why not be the ones bro because you know, those the dollars making a great name for themselves? Sure they are there? 24:18 Yeah. Well, Henderson, Henderson, my hometown. I mean, that's, you know, I feel like it's where everything started in Henderson. But I felt like that I like global I knew local was coming along with the bourbon Renaissance with bourbon ism and what was going on, and that was be even being talked about four or five years ago. So I felt like, you know, with brown form and being here and, you know, just a lot of things going on at downtown local, I just felt like that, I'd go ahead and take the chance. And in 567 years, it would kind of hit our direction. I'm not too far off. I mean, a lot of it has to do with luck, you know, you have to have a lot of luck doing it. But as luck would have it, I think that we're in the right place at the right time. And we made a decision that we're making our own product, I don't source anything at all. So I knew our Bourbons not even out it won't be out till June 22. So we're actually, you know, waiting a little bit over four years for it to come out. I'm holding off, I can bring it out today if I wanted to, but I'm bringing it out on my dad's birthday. That's the only generation we skipped. We skipped the third generation on the fourth, obviously Carson's a fifth. So an honor my father, I'm bringing it out on his birthday. Very cool. 25:41 So I mean, back to the global thing. I'm assuming that you are as I mean, you're going to pay a little bit more money up front to actually sit here and have your home base and being headquartered in Louisville, then then trying to go and you know, be in Owens borough or be in Bardstown or something like that, you know, did you look at this and saying, you know, this is the this is where the population is going to grow. This is where the tourism is going to expand more argument. We don't have to convince people to come like we're already just like, another.on, the map of the Louisville bourbon kind of experience, if you will. 26:11 Absolutely. I mean, with the convention center, right here, I mean, you know, you know, what's going on here with, you know, the farm machinery shows the big shows are here in local, the convention center. At that time, I didn't know it was going to be torn down and start all over. But that's okay. We got through though that two years, so did everybody else. But during that era, they were building like an unbelievable amount of hotels in this town. I think when I started, they were building like 10 hotels, and then it come with another couple years and there's 20 new hotels. So those people are going to do something they're going to go places and I wanted to be in local so people could come in and take a tour of our distillery and know the family the history because I really believe we have about as much history in the bourbon industry is any distillery in the whole state of Kentucky and it might be a might be saying a mouthful, but when you go back Red 27:09 Nose gonna have a sponsor that when you 27:11 said, 27:13 Right, right, no or any names. Well, okay, well, 27:16 Jim Beam is known as DSP number 230. We're number 50. So Oh, 27:23 I want you to I want you to also tell that story too. Because I know that you were you also thought to have your original DSP back as well 27:31 fought fought it in the word for I spent, I spent a year and a half. Getting that number back. I mean, we started from my great grandfather. I can't tell you how many attorneys in this town I went through and, and what we had to do to get that but I was bound and determined that we had DSP number 50. It took us a year and a half to get almost to the day, a year and a half to get that number. First time in history. The government's ever gone back to give a DSP number back a family. So we were able to get it and finally I called the fella when it when we got an asset. Okay, what would my number have been if I could just fill the paperwork out the way you want me to? 20,232? I said, 50 looks better up on 28:18 the building. It's hard to market out there like I have all this history. But we're DSP to 1000. Like, yeah, right. 28:25 Yeah. So the new numbers in the 20 2000s. Yeah, you know, and there's a number of them in this town that are 22,000. So, but no, I mean, when you mentioned Jim Beam there to 30 were 50. When you mentioned buffalo there 113. wild turkeys, 139. makers is for 44. I know them all. So number 50 is a big deal. It doesn't it's not such a big deal sometimes in the United States, and we do tour center. Okay, we're number 50. But you bring somebody in here from Japan, you bring them in from Scotland, from Ireland, and they see number 50. There are like, Oh, my gosh, you have got to have a lot of history with your family to have DSP number 50. 29:07 When you're going through that process at a point where you just like this is this is too much. Yes, we've we've dealt with TTP, we've dealt with the laws we've we've gone through and I don't even know, they know all the laws and all the restrictions. So at some point, did you ever think like, let's just give it up, it's going to be it's going to take way too long to get this 50 back? 29:26 You know, I did, but you have to keep in mind, we were going through the construction era, that time we were we started and it took exactly two years to go through it. So I started that process. Even before we started, when we first bought the building, and we had to get some thing we had to get permits, you know, it takes time to do. So I was I was working on 50 from day one. So yeah, I I just felt like that I'd finally get it. So and we are severe. Yeah, yeah. So we never really, you know, 30:03 I just thought I'd get 30:04 you're a financial guy. So like, when you're looking at a bird, you know, starting a distillery in in the investment it takes and the return on investment and like, like, were you like, this is this is like, what was your mindset going into this? Like, I know, you want to bring your family's history back and like that. But talk about pulling those triggers like even though your brains probably like this doesn't make much sense. Like 30:29 now I did. You know, when I first we weren't going to be and we're not we're not that big. Today, we're we're a small distillery. But when when Carson and I got into that we were thinking along the lines of a smaller about half the size we are, but then I guess my financial background kicked in, and I started figuring, you know, I've got to do X amount to make this many barrels to make this many bottles to be in so many states, this is what we need to be. And then we wanted to make it where we had complete control of what we were doing. So my mindset was, we've got to make it a certain size, we have to make it this way. And I think we had it down to a pretty good sense. People asked me Well, were you aware of the construction costs? Well, Carson having a financial background or a business background on on building, I pretty much knew what it was going to cost us to build. And you know, putting barrels away, you know, where we waited, and we waited for a rye whiskey to come out and a little over two years. And now we're waiting over four years for our bourbon. So people don't do that, you know, they go and they source it, they put it in a bottle. This is my product, you know, same old game everybody plays, but I just couldn't do it. I just, I had to, I had to do what I wanted to do and keep it and make it keep it and hold it and put it out when it's ready to go. 31:56 Why was that so important to me. 31:59 Because I'm building a distillery to stay. I'm not I'm not building this distillery to sell. We're building it. As a family. We're building it for people who work with us. And we call them family. So you know, I'm the fourth generation Carson's a fifth, he's got boys, it'll be the six. I don't do that anymore. You all know all the distilleries in the state of Kentucky, you know, so there's only one or two owned by the family. Everybody else is owned by this one. That one, we can go all over the world and talk about that. But I think in order to have respect from the big distilleries, a big what I call the big seven and to be have the respect from other distilleries around the United States, I had to do it my way. And that's make my own product. When it's ready. It's ready. And as luck would have it, that's kind of what's happening to us. 32:54 So So talk about how to say you say what you want to do it your way and your own product. How did you define that or come up with like, this is my set of these are my standards these are? This is my ethos. And don't give us some like, Oh, we source all our corn from you know, 50 miles away 33:10 else's story. You know, I think there's there's gotta be a what 33:13 is what makes when you look at a bottle of peerless What do what, what do you tell people to see in that bottle like What's in it? Well, not just whiskey. 33:24 Whiskey, we, we understand, everybody makes it the same run through the same stills I put it in a barrel, they still at 160, they put it in a barrel at 125 they watered down they put it in a bottle at 92 proof that wouldn't we we wanted to have complete control over everything that we did. And in order to do that, we had to have the right computer systems, which we did our it all our own software, we had to have a right drain opera, we had to find out what would make it the best product, it was a 1964 change from from going into barrel at 110. Proof 225 proof. So they did that for cost. But going into barrel, and 110 proof actually makes a better product. So I put it in a barrel at 107 proof because it might creep up a little bit. And then I take it straight from the barrel right to the bottle, we don't add one drop of water to it. When you take it from the barrel once its age to the bottle. So the bottles that you see right here are probably 100 and 808. Point 108.2. We wanted to give it the best flavor profiles we could possibly give it. The other. The other main reason why I think that we're making as good a product as we are is we're sweet mash. everybody's familiar with sour mash, you hold the mash back, you pull it forward, you know, that didn't away we're a military family. I want it I want this place clean up. The joke is I want a battleship clean. I want that place spotless when we when we make a product, we steam clean, we clean everything, you won't see a hose on the ground, you won't see a pressure gauge spewing, you won't see any of that everything we have is control we could cook Exactly. It was a certain temperature we ferment exactly at a certain temperature, everything is controlled. And I think that's reason why we've received accolades that we have, since we started and we're going to continue, we're not going to be cocky enough to think that we're doing it exactly right. We're doing it better every day, everything we do, we're going to we're going to get better equipment better systems to make sure that we're on top. 35:44 What kind of those better systems are you investing in? Today? Well, 35:47 we're we're, we have a continuous still. But there's you know, there's just so many ways to make that still run better run hotter, run faster. So basically pumps and gauges and things like that, that we have just exactly. complete control over so you know, we're we don't make a lot of product, we only make 1012 barrels a day, that's probably all we'll ever going to make. I don't have any aspirations of building a distillery that's going to be line up to Jim Beam or Maker's Mark and making 1000 barrels a day we're going to make, you know, we might make 1215 1618 barrels a day someday, but not today. So we just want to have control. If you can have control if you're the size distillery we are today, when you get way up there. You just you're just making product. Yeah, and don't miss it. And all bourbon coming out of Kentucky is a good product. We just want to have the best. 36:52 Do you think, you know, the decision to you know, like you said stay small, like really focused on quality? Do you think you would have made it that same decision younger in your life if you were like, start the distillery like younger and like oh, we gotta you know, make this as big as big as best, big, fast and best as possible and turn over like, like whereas this is more like a passion project. I'm sure it's giving you returns but it seems like more like you know, this is really 37:18 you know if how to stay down in Henderson. We're all my buddies are and where the some of the big buildings are. And maybe I would had aspirations of building a bigger distillery and coming out of my great grandfather's buildings or done something. But, you know, coming into Louisville, Kentucky and wanting to do it in in the city where I could I could benefit from from people taking tours and visiting us. I think and then in the timing on bourbon bourbon, it's only been hot for the last probably 810 years. I mean, you go back 20 years. I mean, everything was vodka. You know, Jen was way before that. So vodka was so hot, how the flavored vodkas, bourbon really hasn't been that strong for the last I'd say 10 years. 38:09 Now, no one cared about it. 38:12 Now they know that they care about Yeah, but they make great stuff in Bardstown. Yeah, 38:17 so I think that you know, I talked to the all the big guys and they say that the bourbon industry will be good for the next 14 to 20 years. So that's good to hear because every business has a cycle. My father was in the head of Ford dealership and every five years you know is going to go down is going to come back. So at least bourbon industry I think will be good for the next 1520 38:40 Why do they think that? 38:45 The 2019 Kentucky's edge bourbon conference and festival pairs all things Kentucky with bourbon. It takes place October 4 and fifth at venues throughout Covington in Newport, Kentucky, Kentucky's edge features of bourbon conference music tastings pairings tour and an artisan market. Kentucky's edge 2019 is where bourbon begins. Tickets and information can be found online at Kentucky'sedge.com. 39:10 If you're making plans to visit the bourbon trail, the one thing you're thinking about is how do I get around to all these distilleries? 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Use code pursuit for $25 off your first box. 40:39 So at least bourbon industry I think will be good for the next 1520 Why 40:43 do they think that? 40:45 Well, I think it's a lot of reasons i think i think they feel like that it is because it's getting to be a war worldwide drink. I mean, the Japanese love it. They even they even in the UK, they like it Australia likes it can it is drinking our product. So but the main reason is, I think women like the flavor of bourbon. They they like it. They're getting away from vodka. And I think and then I think you've got a mixologist and all the big cities are getting back to mixing the drinks. The Manhattans, you know are made with. They were made originally with rye whiskey. Now they're coming back and making with Rasul that helps us in the big cities of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, LA. So I think there's a lot of reasons but I'd say number one would be that women like bourbon, they liked it, they liked the flavor of it. And it'll hopefully it'll be a good thing. It's number one drink in the world today. 41:44 Let's keep it number one. 41:45 Yeah, it will if it's, you know, obviously we do we do our part. 41:50 Yeah, keep writing keep keep keep keep it going. Great. So the other kind of question I want to kind of talk about is is the bottling and as well as the price point, right? Because this is something that most consumers out there if they've never heard of it, they might see it on the shelf and they're gonna be like well what's that's really up there for for two three year old products are kind of talk about the cost of the bottle that goes into it because I know that you put a concern amount of effort that goes into the shape the topper and everything like that, and how that kind of falls into the ending retail price as well. 42:21 Yeah, so probably the craziest thing I've ever done, but I'll explain. We're here for what we what we, Carson and Chris Edwards and are they designed the bottle we wanted to have what we thought was one of the best bottles made in the United States and again, I wanted this bottle to be made in the United States we found a company down in right outside of Atlanta, they only make perfume bottles, they make our bottle when you pick it upside down and says Made in USA. So we wanted to have the right bottle the cap actually cost more than the bottle. So it's we wanted to have the heaviest cap, the heaviest bottle. One it has a design on it. And then the label we actually won. On December 5 repeal day in New York City, they have a contest who has the best bottle who has the best label and who has the best cap in the United States. And last year we won all three It's never happened before. So we feel like we have the right and then to put the pot product in or to put a two year old product in there. And and and retail it out for 119 or hundred and $20 was a push. But we don't make much product. We felt like it was a good product. Evidently whiskey advocate thought it was a pretty good product too, because we're ranked the 15th best whiskey in the world with a two year old product, but the number one rye whiskey in the world. On April the 18th of 18 we're ranked the number one rye whiskey in the world jack daniels Rakim and second whistle pig came in third. So it was a big gamble on our part. We have won the accolades, accolades January the 30th check and I went to New York City and whisky magazine gave us the award for the number one craft distillery in the United States out of 900 Caleb Kilburn our distiller master distiller just got back from London March he went to our March 28 we got that we want to have the number one craft distillery in the world so we must be doing something right we are getting but now we do have different price points so a lot of our rye will be more in the $89 our bourbon will come out about 1600 dollar it's still a high end but we don't make much 44:38 well oddly enough I don't know if people know that that rye whiskey actually is more expensive to to mash and to create than it is to actually make a bourbon whiskey. So 44:47 kind of talk about comes up the tanks Glen all that fun. Yeah, 44:50 it does anyway in rotten rice, you know, it's 1313 $14 a bushel and corns $3 and 68 cents so, you know, it just costs a lot more money to make Yeah, 45:02 but why is it that that rice seems to age a lot quicker and have a better approachable taste to it at a younger age and say a bourbon does what really think it counts for that. 45:13 You know, I that's probably a question more for Caleb than it is for me. I don't know why it why it ages that much faster, but it's twice as fast. I mean, so to have our now we're going to have we have a three year old out. We're going to have a four year old out probably in the next three or four months. So on a go forward basis. We won't be a two year old raw. All of our Robbie for four to seven years old and then we'll come out with a Henry Craver eight year old so it'll be hitting on a four year old here probably in the next three or four months. So we'll be strictly over for four to five year old right. 45:53 What's this Henry Craver thing you just brought up that that kind of piqued my interest that you're talking about that? 45:57 Well, we're going to honor my great grandfather we're holding about 20% of what we make for Henry Craver bourbon. So we'll have a deer will always have the peerless product out. But we're going to have a Henry Craver eight year old product and probably an eight year old rye whiskey as well hold a little bit for him for an eight year old. So we're it's more an honor my great grandma. It's all about our family, our heritage, what we're trying to accomplish here as a family. But I think our eight year old bourbon should do well for us. 46:36 Yeah, that was always one of the things that I remember. I remember when this when the two year old ry first came out and yeah, it came out with $100 price tag and I know people were talking to like, oh man, like how can they do $100 on a two year rye whiskey? And I think one of the big things that was the question that was came up was well, when the rise three years and that's four years and as five years so on and so on, like, is the price going to keep going up? Is he gonna go down as gonna say the same? Like what's what's your the long term game there? 47:04 Well, I'll tell you what the short term game was for a long time. Okay, let's go the short term, the short term, if I had to ask $39 and 95 cents a bottle, I would have just been everybody else. I'd have been Jim Beam Maker's Mark, you know what we'd have just been? We've gotten lost in the shuffle. So in order to get everybody's attention, which I think we did, we were getting $129, which everybody went Holy cow, I've got to try that. Yeah, I got I mean, $129 for two year old bottle. Let's try it. And it just so happened to taste good. So was it a gamble? You damn right? It was God. But, you know, as it turns out, the way there's come down the pike, we do realize we've got to get to a four year old, then you don't have put an age statement on the bottle once it's four years old. So it'll be five, six years old. And I think it'll get it'll get better every year, our three year old is better than the two year old. But it's, it's hard to say. I mean, if you're number one in the world at a two year old, what the hell? 48:09 Where do you go from there? 48:10 Where do you know where do you you know, 48:12 what, how much close up shop. Let's start off. 48:16 But now we know. We want to make things better all the time. We want to do a better job. We want to be proud of the product we put out. Can we want to be more cost effective? It was it was a big deal to come out over $100 with a two year old but it got people's attention. We would have never, ever gotten the accolades we got if we hadn't asked $129. Right. 48:39 Who was who was the biggest like, advocate and then like the person that was against it, like with inside of the family or inside of the company that was like this, the price point we're going with, and then somebody was like, I don't know about that. Or you just kind of like headstrong with it saying we got to do this. 48:55 You know, I don't I think everybody pretty much agreed. I mean it. We don't make much product, where I'll make it real simple. We go where the money is. The money's in New York City. The money's in Chicago, the money's in San Francisco, la Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami. So, London. So if you only make 1012 barrels of bourbon a day, 49:23 you don't need to Henderson 49:24 you don't think 49:26 we got it in Henderson but only bet three places exact, you know, you don't we're not going to go down to Bardstown and put it in the bar down in Bardstown. You know, 49:34 they'll bitch like, they can't even pay for a $40 bottle. Yeah. 49:38 So So I mean, you know, if you if you if you have the history that we have, and we go to the places where the money is it and they like it, they have to like it, then we're taking a gamble, but not going with its it's going to work? 49:57 No, absolutely. And I think it seemed to work. So the doors are open, the money's still coming in, you get product and would you say 48 for how many states have 45 states the five states across the country. 50:08 And so that was kind of like the one of the big reasons we kind of want to talk to us because yeah, you're starting to get this this national presence around you. And I kind of want to also talk about like so what are the difference in the two bottles we have in front of us today? You have the two years small batch and we have a three year single barrels that would exactly and it's it's a three year single barrel and we we've, I don't course all the distilleries have a reputation of selling single barrels but for the size that we are I think it's kind of hit pretty good for us to where we are selling quite a few single barrels. I mean, last year we I think we sold over 50 which was big for us and this year we anticipating selling well over 100 and for a small distillery that's that's a good thing and that's how it helps marketing when you're 50:54 it's almost like it's almost like a month worth of inventory at this point. Yeah. 50:59 Yeah, you know, so you get in some of the big bars and you get in some of the big liquor stores in the country and they've got 30 cases your product in the center out you know, they see it and so it's kind of help us with that as well. 51:13 What's the Nashville on this this route these rye whiskey? 51:16 we don't we don't I can't tell you. 51:19 That's that's so good. 51:21 So everybody Asad now, you know it just we just we don't want to do that. Because everybody else to school disclose their we're not going to disclose our How do you like it? 51:32 I love it. 51:34 It's it's great for two years, or 32 or three? That's the two years. 51:39 That was about three. Okay, cool. This is 51:43 nice weather. 51:44 No, I mean, both great. I mean, to me taste. It tastes like a Kentucky right, like more of a lower. Rob. Like a closer to 51%. Rob, but I'm not going to prod you to give us that. 52:00 Drink the rest of it. I'll get you some of this three. 52:02 No, but I will say you know a little bit about what you said about the mash bill. No matter where we go in the country. They basically call it a bourbon drinkers rye whiskey. Yeah. So we do have enough corn in there to gives it a little bit sweeter, sweeter taste, and I don't think you quite get that burn that you would within different raw. And then we have the three different profiles. We only blend six barrels. 52:29 Three. What's 52:31 your definition 52:33 six barrel? Yeah. So we take try to take three different flavor profiles, fruits and florals, Carmine vanilla. And in the obviously the oak and pepper is the original rice with we blend those and we do it, you know, we pick our barrel. So if we can continue doing that, it's not ready, it's not ready, we put it back for another three months, six months or whatever. So we want to make sure that the barrels we put out again being small, we can do that. Obviously, we're not going to blend 500 like the big ones stood. And the other thing it's really important to to try to stay. What we feel like will be a quality product is all of our Rick houses are just going to be one floor five. So the temperature from the top to the bottom is that four degrees, you go in these big warehouses could be 40 degrees temperature from the top floor to the bottom floor. So we like the idea one floor, more control better product. So the things that we do on a continuous basis, we hope will be a better product for us. 53:45 Where did you so when you're developing, you know, Corky thing your own way whose whose recipes? Are these are like was it just trial and error? Like we're waiting on someone else to like figure it out? Or? 53:58 You got it? trial and error? Yeah, we you know, a year 54:04 trial. That's the fun part. Right. 54:06 Yeah, you know, sorry, we knew, you know, kind of what we wanted to do with flavor profiles. We had a pretty good idea what some other products close to what, you know what their mash bill. So we just came up with a magic pill that had enough corn in it that people would still think it's a good quality bourbon. And a lot of people that drink this still think it's bourbon. 54:29 It I mean, it could I mean, you can taste the right of it. It's very close. Like you said, it's a bourbon drinker bourbon, it's like you're not a barbarian bourbon bourbon drinkers. Right? We'll get there. Yeah. So talk about like, what, what are some of your favorite products that kind of like, made you determine that this is what I like, you know, some similar similar products out there that were like, this is kind of a whistle, whistle pig. 54:55 And when when we, when we looked at it, we knew who who our competition was going to be. And it seems like since we came out, whistle pig, no matter where he goes, God is going to be our competition. So, you know, but but there there's is 810 1214 years, right? So and, you know, so we we had pretty good idea that that's, that's our competition, but we wanted to make it our flavor, flavor profiles. So we couldn't sit around and wait 14 years. So we had to figure out what what we could do. And Caleb Kilburn is a is our master distiller he's been with us since day one, and he does a great job for us. But we got Chris and Tommy and Aaron Carson. So we're, we're kind of all on it trying to figure out, you know, what we can do to make it better. And obviously, going from the two year to three years better than when it come out with a four year it's going to be better and five year and then kind of hold it about two. I don't think Brad needs to be with some pig does a great job. They've got a great product, but we're not going to be up at 1214 years. Yeah, we're just not 56:10 well, who knows? That 20% you're holding back save another 2%? And then you know, you'll you'll find out later on. 56:16 I am afraid here. Yeah. 56:18 Yeah, that's me tough sell, sell, sell, 56:21 sell the other about the the flavoring aspect or not flavoring. But you know, how you how you embody and invoke the flavor of the whiskey is all done a lot through the barrel itself? It is and are who are you teaming up with to get your barrels? Or is this another? I'm not going to tell you? 56:37 No, no, no, you know, we we strictly do business with Calvin Cooper each. We like the quality of their barrels that they make. Personally, we like them. They're there, they become good friends of ours. They, you know, when we got in this business barrels were hard to come by there was a barrel shortage. So we went to some of the big barrel places and they'd say, Well, you know, we can help you with four or 500 barrels, we can give you 1200 a week, you know, we can do this or, you know, and we went to Kelvin and, and talk to them. And they said, we'll take care of you. And I'll be with Calvin Cooper each. As long as there have to always be with them. I'm not gonna I won't, I won't leave. I won't 57:20 leave. It's amazing how rich these barrels are. I mean, for three year old property, it's crazy. I mean, talk about how did you get hooked up with Caleb and why did you choose him to be your master distiller? 57:34 Well, there's, there's flavor man, the epicenter has a school, that that only lasts about six days, but it helps you gives you an idea how to become a distiller or to build a distillery. Caleb went through the school, my son Carson went through the first class. Caleb was in a second said, Mike. So we've had a number of them go through the school. And then they said, somebody said, you got to take a look at this young man, he's still a junior in college. So he came over and talk to me said, you know, I'd like to, you know, work with you. And this is even before we laid out to the story, and I said, Sure, you know, once you start shoveling gravel over there, and oh, by the way, I got a bunch of nails in his would pull nails. And he did that for the first summary was their second summer. I think he he shoveled gravel, and helped us pour concrete so and then he was able to lay out the distillery the way he wanted it laid out the kid, I say he's a kid. He's not a kid. But he's, he's literally a genius. I think he's he's very, very smart. He understands the mechanical. He understands the whole system all the way around. He's gone into big distilleries. He's followed him around, he went to the school. He's sharp, and he does a great job for us. He's helped work with Tommy and, and Nick, Chloe, and help them along. So we we have three people that can really do what we want to enter. But Caleb is the he's the lead lead pony there. So 59:07 is he like another son to you? 59:08 party? Emily, he really is. Yeah, no, he is. And you know, and I feel like a lot of men are there. You know, we're basically a big family. We don't we only have about 20 employees. Maybe we got a few part time that are you know, working in the retail part of it. But you know, we're most will have is 22 employees in there. So we're always going to be that's us distillery. 59:30 So before we kind of wrap things up, I know that I kind of want to touch back on the the history of you and your military background, because I know there was you have a title to General Patton as well. 59:42 Is that correct? My my father was General patents chief aide. So if you saw the movie Pat and the man at work was right with General Patton in real life was my father. I've got general patents gun and he carried all through the war. You saw the movie Pat, and he said pearls were for women and average for men have got to go the average handle 45 that was his shoulder harness. So my father owned it for 30 years. He passed away young and have a heart attack. I've owned this gun for 43 years. My sons alone and my grandsons, they'll own it. So the gun that General Patton carried all through the war will never leave the Taylor family. 1:00:19 And then and then so you also have like I mentioned that that military tie. When military officers or personnel come through the distillery I think you've had a few of those kind of moments as well with with some of those individuals, have you not? 1:00:33 Oh, yeah, they do. Because if you go down to the patent Museum, down in Fort Knox, there's, there's a picture about a 10 foot tall picture general Pat, and that's my father standing right next time. So all the army generals, McCaffrey just just retired two star General, he wanted to have his retirement dinner darkness story. He brought eight of the top army generals and United States Army we're in our distillery that night. So he wants us to bring the gun in so people can see the generals in the army. And the Colonel's. If there's a general or a colonel down at Fort Knox, or somebody visiting from Leavenworth or from other places, they come see me and they want to know the history about my father. And which is, which is a pretty interesting history. I mean, the story that everybody likes to hear is when I when my father sent me to military school down in castle heights, and my two roommates were the Allman Brothers. So Greg, and my roommate started that in military school. And it was a wild damn time. I'll tell you that. So we every time I've listened all in, but brother, yes. Wild. So we, we, and that's to back up just a little bit. You mentioned Freddie now. Yeah, well, Freddie. Freddie and I spoke at the convention center one time and Freddie's father Booker sent him to Castle heights. kind of straighten your career and dad, my dad said me to Castle, I straighten my rear. I work for Fred. It didn't work for me. So, so Freddie for all these years, he said, you know, the Allman Brothers went to Castle heights. So I'm 70 years old. Freddie's probably 62. So he'd been telling these people that the Allman Brothers went to Castle i. So we're speaking here to Convention Center. So Friday, you didn't know this, but I went to Castle IT can imagine what he said. Yes. No muffler. Yeah. So as I said, And oh, by the way, the Allman Brothers were my roommates. Well, he busted a good on that when he said my goddess, but Freddie, you never saw the Allman Brothers. I'm 70 year like 62 they weren't a said no, they weren't here about God. But I knew they were there. I said, I know they were to they were my roommate. So we laughed about that. And so when he does see me, so I know you're the only brothers roommate. 1:02:53 That's pretty awesome. They didn't initially I try to get you to pick up another guitar. You start playing with them or anything. 1:02:59 You know, that was that was when they were 1415 years old. They were they were Yeah, they had a guitar in the room. But they never know. I mean, they might on Sunday afternoon they play the guitar you'd sing but I mean, I didn't know what the hell's going on. You know, they weren't writing Jessica 1:03:13 they know they know they weren't they weren't a ramble man. 1:03:17 We we got a little trouble we we found out the first day we were there The girls were to Dairy Queen on Sunday night so we come busting out of there for the Dairy Queen Sunday night come back at one captain's always standing there raising like we care we want to get kicked out Yeah, exactly. 1:0

Hello, and welcome to Warrior Divas: Real Talk for Real Women, and I am your host Angie Leigh Monroe. I'm excited about connecting with you today to talk about all the gritty things that impact us, women, every day. Today, I want to take a little bit of time and share with you some of the personal walks that I've come through to lead us to where we're at. But the reason isn't to talk about myself. It's to build a connection with you, see, my focus with this show is not to have a place where I just talked to you when you sit there and listen, but for us to connect offline and online, and really build those relationships together. I'm going to share the hats that I wear, I'm going to share some of the trials and tribulations I've had, and I'm just going to open up and be transparent with you for a little bit. So like I said, I wear many hats. I'm a wife, I'm a mother, I'm a business owner, a boss. Let's see, Diva to my grandkids - Yes, that's my grandma name. Fake Mom to several kids that we've helped raise over the years. There's a lot that I've done. I'm a military veteran. But there are several more hats I'm sure I wear that I don't even realize it. But I bet you as I listed off some of those things, you wear some of the same hats I do, don't you? You know, that's one of the things is building relationships starts with finding commonality. And that's what I'm hoping to do today. I'm hoping that we can build relationships starting right here, right now. You know, some of y'all might be thinking this sounds a little beautifully utopian and very unrealistic. But hear me for a little bit, okay. I've been through some stuff, to know how devastating it can be not to have the right people in your life. How walking through things alone can make things seem 10 times, 100 times worse than they really are. So that's why building relationships is so important to me. See, I was raised in a little hometown, it's a little town called Euless. It's halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth literally 20 miles to downtown Dallas, 20 miles to downtown Fort Worth. My mom and dad met in the local post office. They said they played post office together. And if you don't know what that is, I’ve dated myself, and you need to go to Google it, yes, Google it. So later on, my dad became a police officer. My mom stayed home with my brother, my sister, and me for many years and then went back into the workforce. And when she did, she worked for the government. So, she, they both had their own lives. They were living, I had my brothers and my sisters, and it was a normal raising. My husband, when I met him and he came here he basically called us the ‘Leave it to Beaver’ family. You know, we played outside until dark or my mom whistled. We got spankings or whoopin’s as I call it here in Texas. We played sports and we were at church every time the doors opened. And yes, I was raised in the church. And from time to time, you'll hear me refer back to my Christian faith, my belief, my system that I go back to for my own personal walk. But more than that, you'll hear me talk about my missteps in life and in business, and how I was able to find my way back to my true self. Now, why is it important for me before I go into the next part of the story, I want you to know that I'm not sharing them from a point of shame. I'm not sharing them from a point of bitterness, or victimization. What I'm sharing them from is a point of victory. And that's what I want to help women get to, is that point of victory where they can share their story, and not share it from a point of pain. But from a point of significance, and helping others move on. You know, these are things I didn't use to talk about. These are things that were so painful to me that I had shame surrounding them. I thought everybody else's life was perfect. And mine was a hot mess. And what I found out is as I started sharing my story, other women had the same story. And they had felt alone and they had felt disconnected from others. And so, my hope is by me sharing my story, it's not for you to listen to me, but for us to find a connection. Now, I'm going to start off with high school because it was really the turning point of where I was at. I had been at youth camp I'd had an amazing word spoken into my life that I would have a voice that would reach the nation's and you know, my favorite Christian artist was playing the keyboards. His name was al Denson. It was great. But then life happens. And I was in drama in high school. I was super excited. I had a very tall, very eloquently spoken teacher named Mr. Blankenship for drama. And you may hear a little bit of a Texas accent in my voice today. Do not be alarmed. It is authentic. Okay, so what happened back then, as it was so much worse than it is now. And I came running into the drama room Mr. B, Mr. B, Mr. B, it's about that third B, with the 16 syllables that made up the letter B. That he turned around. And what happened next shook me to my core. He turned his very tall features. Hands clasped at his diaphragm. Feet in perfect third position dancers pose. Come on girls, you know the one I'm talking about the one that everybody stands in for pictures and everything else. He's standing there lips, pursed jaw set and says, “Young lady! as long as you sound like a hick, you will never amount to anything.” Then he quickly turned back around and engaged with the students that he was in class with. I was left there standing speechless, shell shocked. All my hopes and dreams in that one sentence had gone up in a debris cloud that was now left, falling on the ground right in front of me. Along with the shattered image that I had put this man on a pedestal in my life served for so many years. All of that was gone. Now, I'm going to be honest with you right now, back in the day, I didn't see that as very helpful. Today, I know what he meant by that was to encourage me to work on my accent to work on the way I was speaking, didn't even possibly protect me from harm, because there are a set of people out there that will hear my Texas accent and discount my intelligence, because I sound like a hick. Well, that's their loss. But back then, I was just a kid in high school. And the man that I had looked up to had totally wrecked my world. So the next day I marched off the stage into the counseling office and dropped the drama. A few weeks later, I joined the United States Navy, as an aviation electrician. After all, aircrafts don't care what my accents like, right? Now, I bet there's a few of you listening today that may have a similar story. Maybe you've had someone that you respected, you loved, that said something negative and devastating to you. Maybe it gave you the drive to push on. And maybe it defeated you for a minute like it did me. Either way, I would love to hear your story. Because it's these stories that help us climb out of the pits of despair that we often find ourselves in when these things happen. It helps us articulate our feelings and our emotions around those moments so that we can dig deep into who we are and who we are called to be. Now, while I was in the Navy, I got stationed in Rota, Spain. Yes, I was trying to roll my R's there and it totally fell flat. But, Rota, Spain is a beautiful place in the south Mediterranean. You've heard about it on NCIS, you've heard about it on Pitch Perfect three, even though that's not the real base in that movie. I'll tell you that right now. But it was the best and worst time of my life in Rota, Spain. See, when I met my husband there, I like to say it, say it this way in the best Scarlett O'Hara voice and I know that's Georgia but not Texas. But here we go. “I met my husband in Spain just after the war”, doesn’t that sound romantic. Well, it wasn't. So what really happens was the night I met my husband he was falling down drunk in a bar. And literally falling down. He leaned up against the wall next to me, went to put his foot on the wall and leaned over to ask me a question and fell completely face down onto the floor. I have people go “Oh, that's so sweet. He fell for you.” I'm like, Yeah, okay, whatever. Now, not long after that, I was set up on a blind date, my roommate and her boyfriend connected me with this blind date. And who would walk in the room but falling down drunk Mike? Well, a couple of months later, after a few nights together, I got to tell him that I was pregnant and expecting our first child. He asked me to marry him. But I wasn't quite sure that that was the right next move. I really wasn't sure of anything. I headed back to Texas for leave. He headed back to West Virginia. And California, where his main base was, but he was going to West Virginia for leave and I just needed some time to process what was happening. To see what had happened before Mike, as I had been engaged before, to a Christian guy, a marine. And that marine had beaten me, raped me, and left me for dead. And, so, if I could not trust this strong man who sworn to defend our country and be a Christian, to hold up with the values of family and livelihood that was going to leave me feeling like a trash receptacle. How can I trust a man that I've only known a few months with my heart? You know, after that experience, I guess as Joe Diffy said best, my give a darn was busted. I became very promiscuous. And my low had me feeling like a trash receptacle. I had a hole in my broken and battered heart. I had already trusted, had already been defeated. But here, I went to West Virginia to meet my husband, my soon to be husband and his family. So it's Tuesday evening, I landed at the Pittsburgh airport. He and a buddy picked me up and drove me the 40 miles to a small, one light, six bar, four church town. And it's not too long after I walked in the front door. His mom says “so you gonna marry my son?” I said, “well, we're talking about it.” She says “good. I've got the church reserved for Friday at the three o'clock." A bit taken aback but sad to say, I knew my husband well enough to sleep with him. But I didn't know him well enough to say what my feelings were about getting married. And neither did he. I called my mom. My mom said something she'd said to me many times before “you made your bed and now lie in it.” So Friday at three o'clock, I met my maid of honor on the way to the church. I met the guy that walked me down the aisle at the church. And we were married. After a short reception at my husband's cousin's house. We went to his mom's bar. Oh, this is where the party began. Remember falling down Mike, falling down drunk Mike. Yeah, that was him. He was at the bar hanging out with all of his high school friends having a good time. I sat at the end of the bar having Coke, some water, being ignored. And at midnight, my mother in law slammed her fist in the middle of the bar, said “young lady, Grab your husband. I'm closing the bar in two hours. Y'all need to go have your honeymoon.” I ignored her. So she went and told him, Hey, grabs my hand and I walked and he stumbled the two blocks down the street to his mom's house and up to the room and we're getting ready for bed. And by this time, he's starting to realize I'm not real happy. So he asked me “what's wrong with you?” I said, “Well, this isn't exactly how I expected my wedding night to go.” He looked at me and he said, “Well, maybe your next husband can do better. I just don't see us being married in seven years and then rolled over and went to sleep.” I laid there that night. Why he slept and snored. And I accepted the challenge. I'd already walked away from being told that I wasn't enough once, I'd already been beaten down. I'd already had so many other people try and dictate what I could and could not accomplish. This marriage was going to last seven years, whether it killed him or not. So, I want to tell you about the year that I was in the running for wife of the year, it was 1999. And the running was so close right up until May 29th of 99. That was the morning that I jumped up out of bed as soon as the light hit the window, stood over my husband, shaking my finger in his face and telling him, “you said it wouldn't last seven years and I made it last out of spite.” For some reason, they didn't give me wife of the year that year. I don't get it. You know, I repeated that several times over the next several years. Just to remind him how bad he had wounded me. It wasn't a bragging right for me. It was more of a reminding of how bad he had wounded me with his words. Our marriage was falling apart. Several years later, I'd worked many jobs around Mike's job, and he was moving off to Florida, I wasn't even sure if he was coming back, I needed a job. I'd put out over 400 resumes, not one single bite. Finally, I get a call from a company. They had two positions and they were both part times I've got three mouths to feed. You know, a part-time job was not going to cut it. But I do know two things. One, somethings better than nothing. And two, it's always easier to find a job when you already have a job. So, I went to the interview. As I sat in that interview, I use my best negotiation skills that I didn't even know I had, right? So, I'm sitting there with this person, and he's telling me about the mailroom that bills I'm overqualified for the mailroom. Well, yeah, I'm overqualified for the mailroom, duh! But, there's this administrative position that would really fit me nicely, but he feels that might even be overqualified for that because I'm really full, full-time potential not part-time. So I said, Give me both jobs. Let me prove myself. If I prove myself then what's the harm? What's the foul? The little while you can hire somebody else for the mailroom? Because I can guarantee you, you will want me helping out in other areas as well? He did. And that's what happened. While I was there, I had a girl that I got pitted up against for a job position, right. Have you ever worked with a bunch of women I'm up until this point I had steered clear of working with women? I worked in male-dominated environments. I worked aviation, I worked construction. I worked everything around men, I steered clear of women. And I didn't even know why. Until this happened, I was offered a job, given it. It wasn't one that I really wanted. It was kind of like, well, “you'll do” type thing. And I was really like, I really don't want to do it. And they decided to interview this other girl. And then they took the job away from me and gave it to her. But have you ever been around office politics and gossip? Oh, that is just feed for the fodder with them. Boy, that turned ugly quick. And next thing I know, Jill and I are being pitted against each other. So, I asked Jill to lunch. She told me later that she was terrified to go to lunch with me because she was afraid that I was going to beat her up or chew her out or something like that and to be quite honest, I probably would have back in my older days. See, when I worked in the Navy as an aircraft mechanic and aviation electrician. When women came into my shop, I was their worst enemy. They were not going to come in there and just be willy nilly little girl and worry about their nails getting broken or other things like that they were going to do their job better than any of the other guys were or they were going to get out of my shop. I was much tougher on the girls than I ever was the guys. I really saw the women around me as less than. I saw them as being weak. And until Jill told me this, I didn't even realize that I had that vision of them. Now, Jill's the one that opened my eyes to let me know what I was missing out on the most. And that was friendship. Who knew friendship was so important. I'd been busy raising a family, married to my husband doing all these crazy, crazy things, and I needed friendship. A couple of years later, I'm working at my church and lo and behold, another situation. My boss is getting promoted, another assistants, bosses getting promoted, they're getting promoted to like what we call it the inner sanctum. It's a C level suite type of situation. And normally at that point, if your boss was getting moved up, you moved up with your boss. But that position was the position of a personal assistant. I was not a personal assistant, I was administrative, get stuff done girl. Right? I did not know how to play nice with others. When I started at the office, I was already having a problem because they put me in an office with 12 women. I had just started working with women at my last job and now I’m with 12 of them. Do you realize how many personalities we had going at one time, not to mention perfume smells and baking smells and candles, smells, and all sorts of stuff. It was like sensory overload, right? While I was there, and we were going through that transition, I learned something amazing. Gossip just doesn't happen in the workforce. It happens in church offices too. So, I did it again. I took Kim out to lunch. And we were the couple in our offices from that point forward that knew where all the bodies were hidden. We knew all the things that were going on, we knew how to handle things. We were the ones that when things needed to get done. We were the ones called to get them done. But what happened even more than that was Kim and I started hanging out outside of work. Our husbands and I got started getting together for double dates. We started attending our kids' events together. We started building relationships together, we saw the joys, joyous highs, the devastating lows of each and everything that happened in our lives for 13 years. So this is going to bring us to our spotlight today. Our spotlight is called Everyday Divas. And each episode we're going to highlight a woman who's made a significant impact. She may not be a household name, but her impact leaves an indelible mark on each of our lives. And our Everyday Diva that I'm going to talk about today is, Kim Yates. As I said, Kim Yates and I work together, we had an opportunity to be enemies of each other. But we turned that opportunity on its tail and became friends and sisters and connected. Our husbands are friends. Our kids are friends. We loved, challenged, and supported each other throughout many, many years of ups and downs, pregnancies, marriages, deaths, and so much more. And she was my biggest cheerleader for starting and doing the things that I do here with Divas Impact. See, Kim's the one that taught me to see people not just tests, Kim's the one that taught me to look beyond the surface, and to look for what people needed to feel connected. See, Kim has about 40 other kids, as we call them, I call them fake kids, she calls them other kids. And of those 40 kids, they all loved and adored her. And I say loved, because this past Saturday, we laid my friend Kim to rest. You won't ever get the chance to meet her face to face. But in everything that we do from this episode moving forward, our work with Divas Impact, our work that we hope to build for the future. You'll see Kim's touch because of what she has taught me, how she connected with me, how she was willing to reach out with me. So, I want to ask you, what is your touch? What is it that you are doing to make an impact on the world that you're in? Because that's what we're going to be challenging with each week? What is your impact? Where are you going? How are you doing it? Now we have our Divas Impact Inner Circle, and we would love to connect with you there and be real with you there. It's a closed group, you can talk about whatever you need to talk about in there. We're going to be real with each other. We can continue the conversation from this podcast in that group. But you have to be willing to be open and transparent so that you can get the relationship that you so desperately don't even know that you need a lot of times. Wow. So I'm ending this on a bit of a solemn note because I am a little sad about my friend Kim, but I'm so happy that I had the great opportunity to get to know her. Because she pushed me, she challenged me, to get us started on what we're doing today. So thank you for joining us today and stay tuned for our next episode where we’ll share more about Divas Impact, how it started, where we are going and join us in our deepest impact Inner Circle and until next time, this is Angie Leigh Monroe, reminding you to be a diva and make an impact.

The fastest way to knock off 12-18 months of your company’s growth in less than 7 days. On today’s episode Russell talks about having Brandon and Kaelin Poulin trade consulting with him, and how that turned into a CEO swap. Here are some of the amazing things to look forward to in this episode: Find out why swapping consulting turned into swapping CEO’s and how it’s beneficial for both companies. Find out why a CEO swap could actually work for your business as well. And hear how the CEO swap made it possible to quickly implement things that would have taken months to implement without it. So listen here to find out how a CEO swap could be beneficial for your business. ---Transcript--- Hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about the CEO swap. Alright everybody, so it’s a beautiful Sunday, I’m walking home from church today by myself. It’s kind of a long walk so I thought, what better could I possibly do than to jump on and hang out with you guys for a few minutes, so I hope that’s okay. Anyway, this last week was kind of cool. I think I told you guys before that Brandon and Kaelin from Lady Boss, and I decided to do a swapping consulting days, right. So what I wanted to work with them on, they’ve done a really good job structuring their company, their meetings, their employees, just their whole everything. They learned a lot of it initially from Alex Charfin and then they went and as Brandon typically does, went and perfected and added to the system, made a bunch of stuff and then has been beating on it for the last year and really fine tuning the process. It’s amazing what they’re doing. What I found out is that they only have like 5 funnels and they don’t do any new funnels, and they want to go cold traffic, they want to do funnels, so I was going to swap consulting, I was going to walk them through what I would do in the funnel stuff. So it was cool, so Thursday, we spent the whole day going through all our stuff, and I’m not going to lie, this is the part of business that I don’t love. If anyone is wondering how Clickfunnels has grown so big, it’s two reasons. Number one, actually three reasons, number one, we have an amazing product, number two, we have an insane team who is super talented, and super passionate, and love what we do, and number three, we’re really good at marketing and selling stuff. So we’ve done that in spite of our flaws, and that’s how we’ve grown to over a hundred million dollars a year in sales. But the down side, we’ve never been good at the business structuring and planning and meeting, all those kind of things we just haven’t been as good at. Mostly because as the CEO or leader or whatever you want to call it, the head dancing monkey, I don’t necessarily like those things or I’m not good at them, and because of that the whole culture doesn’t have them. So it’s just been a lacking thing. So as Brandon was going through it all, at first I’m getting really excited, then I’m getting all depressed and stressed because I’m like, “I would rather die than do all those things he’s telling me to do. I know they’re essential, but I’d rather just go sell something else.” So I’m kind of feeling the pressure and the stress. First I felt like a little bit of hope, followed by despair I guess is probably the best word. You mean I have to stop building funnels for like two months to get this thing to work? Anyway, fast forward to the next day. So Friday we come in and we start going into funnels, I start geeking out, I start freaking out and jumping around and having so much fun. And I feel like Brandon was feeling something similar, like, “Man, how am I going to get my team to understand all this? I get it conceptually, but how do I get them to do it?” Anyway, so we’re going forward on our consulting/swapping days, and then it’s probably like 3:00 in the afternoon, almost as a joke I was like, “You know what we should do? We should just do a CEO swap, where you become the CEO of Clickfunnels for a week, I become the CEO of Lady Boss for a week, and then we just switch roles, implement all this crap, then we’ll switch back?” And then we’re like, “Wait, what if we actually switched roles for a week…” and then we started going crazy about it, and I was just like, “Wait, that means you could come in and literally just do all this stuff for me, all t he stuff that you love to do anyway, and build it in, build the structure, run the meetings, all that stuff, until we have the process in, and I could just go and work with my funnel builders and build an amazing funnel, which is all we really want to do. And at the end of it, you end up with the funnel done, I end up with the structure and the meeting all done, and we both end up a million times better.” So instead of just swapping ideas and consulting, swapping our super powers. So we called it the CEO swap. So Brandon and Kaelin they bumped out their flight a little later, yesterday was Saturday, we went in and worked, I was there until 2:00 last night working on their funnels, they were there with my entire team working on other stuff, and it’s insane how much we got done in such a short period of time. Where literally for me to implement this process we’re going through, probably conservatively would have taken me from now to the end of the year, and it would have not been fun, it would have been a lot of pain. Now it’s like, it’s going to be, by this time next week it will be completely done, implemented and installed and running. And their funnel should be done, completely ready and handed off for them to start driving traffic to, which is the coolest thing. So I’m telling this because, you guys should do SEO swaps, not SEO, CEO, CEO swaps. Find somebody who has the opposite of your super power. Let’s say you have a company and you built it off Facebook ads and you’re killing it, find another company who’s killing it and they’ve done everything on SEO. Swap, CEO swap with them, or whatever. Or marketing department swap with them, or whatever, and figure out the other side of it. OR maybe you’re someone who’s gotta a call center that’s crushing it and another guys got a VSL that’s crushing it, swap. “Hey come build out my call center, I’ll come build out your VSL.” Boom, swap skills and now you just duplicated your super powers inside another person’s business. So powerful. So consulting days, first off, are awesome. You should be doing that anyway. But if you want to go to the next level, do a consulting day and then if it’s like, this is good, let’s do a CEO swap. Boom, then go deeper and if you have half the experience that we’re having right now, it’ll be amazing. Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you guys because I think a lot of times we get too caught up in how to do the thing, and the biggest problem with the how is you have to learn how to do the how. I did an episode here probably three or four months ago where it talked about, it’s the “who”, not the “how.” What I learned from Dan Sullivan, and his biggest thing if you listened to that podcast, the biggest problem with entrepreneurs, we see our vision, what we want to accomplish. We start moving towards it, but as soon as we get stuck in “how do I do something?” Then we instantly…if it’s not our super power, if we don’t know how to do it, then we will start procrastinating because we don’t know how to do it. And his goal in how to get out of the procrastination, is not to go learn the how, it’s to go find who already knows the how and get that who to do the thing for you. So sometimes we’re consulting, and it’s like, that’s awesome, but that’s not my super power. It’s like, cool, who’s the who that can implement it? So you find the rockstar who can implement it for you, or find a person who can coach you on how to do it, who’s done it a million times, have them actually implement it for you, and you’re going to pay them or swap them. Again, the swapping idea is super cool because if Brandon was to pay me to build a funnel for him like this, I wouldn’t even consider doing it for I don’t know, probably at least 500 grand or so for me to like stop the opportunity costs to go and focus on it. And now he’s going to have it done and completed within the week, and for him to stop his whole business to come set up my whole structure, meetings, order chart, score cards, all this insanely annoying, boring part of business stuff that we have to do that we’re not doing, how would it charge him, he’d probably charge me half a million bucks to do it. So it’s not realistic for most people to pay half a million bucks for a funnel, or to pay half a million bucks for someone to set up your meetings, but in this situation, we both value the other person’s super power, so we just swapped. Anyway, I hope that gets you guys pumped as you start looking at that, look at the other businesses around you, look at your friends, look at your colleagues, look at peers, look at all that kind of stuff who have what you want and do a CEO swap and swap for a day or a week or whatever you need to do. I remember Rand Fishkin, he used to be the owner of moz.com, which was SEO Moz before that, he used to write a book called Lost and Founder, which if you read that book, you will realize that I’m completely right about taking Venture Capitol money, so there’s a story for another day. But the books really good. One of the things he talked about in there, as he was growing his company, he was the owner of this software company to help SEO’s and it helped agencies. And he had a friend who was running agencies and needed software, so they CEO swapped. And Rand went and actually, they swapped houses. He lived in the dude’s house and that lived at his house. I don’t know how the wives were okay with that, my wife would kill me if I was like…. Anyway, that’s beside the point. So they did the swap and it was cool because Rand was able to go down into the trenches and see what it was actually like to run an agency again, and see the experience, and try to use all his tools and realize there’s all these gaps. As an actual owner, my people can’t do these things because of the gaps in our product, and he was able to make the product better. And then the other dude, who was in the agency went back and started, became the CEO for the SEO Moz for a while, first off had empathy for them now,  but second off was able to work with the team and be like, “Why are you prioritizing this? We would never actually use this. You should be prioritizing here.’ And the swap changed everything for them. Anyway, I think it’s valuable and I think it’s worth most of us all doing. So find someone with the super power you want, where you have a super power that they want, and CEO swap them, and you will jump yourself forward, six months, a year, two years in your company, literally overnight which is totally worth it in every case, every scenario. Thanks you guys, appreciate you. I’m home, I’m going to go get something to eat and I’ll talk to you soon.

Here’s an update at what happened at Grant Cardone’s big event. On today’s episode Russell recaps his experience at Grant Cardone’s 10x event. He shares some of the hiccups that happened as well as the successes. Here are some of the cool things you will hear in this episode: What some of the things were that went wrong at the beginning of Russell’s presentation. How many sales Russell made with only 4 sales people taking orders. And find out why Grant Cardone and his team said Russell had the best sales pitch they had ever seen. So listen below to find out how well Russell did at the Grant Cardone event. ---Transcript--- Hey good morning everybody. This is Russell, and it is a little bit rainy and kind of nice today. I’m heading into the first Inner Circle meeting of this year, actually. It’s kind of cool. And it’s the first Inner Circle meeting from the new office, which is even cooler. So I’m definitely looking forward to that and it’s going to be cool. I just got back from, if you’ve been listening to the podcast in sequential order, you know that last week we went to speak at Grant Cardone’s event, which was pretty cool. So I’m just going to give you a quick recap on that because it turned out pretty awesome. Basically, I was doing an event out there, but I couldn’t go the whole time because I love my kids and my wife and I wanted to be with them, but also there was a whole bunch of buyers in a room. I was like, “I want to go speak to them, ask them for money and get them into Clickfunnels.” So Friday morning we jumped in a plane, flew all the, it’s crazy going east. From Boise to the East coast, we flew all day long. We left, we almost missed our flight actually, but then we left here at 8am I think and we landed on the east coast at 7 or 8 pm. You lose all the time, and the layovers and all that kind of stuff. So the whole day is shot. So that was then, then the next morning I woke up and I was, there was one person speaking before me and then I was up. So that night before, I always get nervous until I see the room. So I’m freaking out nervous, and I go see the room. The room was huge, it was really long. Funnel Hacking Live we do it width wise, so I can be closer to everyone, this was long. Anyway, super long room. There was a little over 2200 seats that were there. So I’m looking at the room, this is going to be awesome, so excited. So I went there that night, worked on my slides, made tweaks and changes. To make this match more stuff for his audience. I went to bed and woke up in the morning and it was game time. So I went down there to the event. The room was packed, tons of energy, tons of people. It was so fun. Obviously, slightly nerve wracking as well, it gets me nervous. What’s kind of frustrating is we had all these things for them, this is how the room needs to be set up, we need to have tables, sales people and all these things. I don’t think they believed us. They didn’t give us any sales people to sell. We had luckily, two of our inner circle members, Alex Hermosian, Layla were there. So they came to help us sell. Dave Woodward was with me, so we had three people and they were trying to find other people from the audience. So we had 2200 people and basically 5 sales people. They didn’t have any tables, so we kind of brought some tables in to take sales from. So it was not an ideal situation at all. But whatever, you do what you do, right. So I get on stage, it was fun. Grant got up the first morning he spoke, and I’d never heard him speak before. It was fun to see him, he’s all exciting. Then they had a lady spoke right after me. Then I got to introduce him on stage, it was nuts how big the room was. I felt kind of nervous at first, I started speaking, and I got, kind of a jumbled mess at first if I’m completely honest. Then I started going through my slides and I realized they were using the wrong slides. These were not the slides that I gave them. These were not the slides I spent four hours on the day before on the plane and in the hotel room, getting it tweaked for these guys. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what do I do? Do I just keep going, or say something.” So I’m even more flustered and I’m like, “These are not the right slides. Can you change them real quick?” I was freaking out. But luckily, pretty quickly they changed them out. I was like, “Thank heavens.” So I start going on my presentation, and as I’m doing it, again at the very first it was kind of weird. I switched one thing around, I had put Garrett White’s testimony, if you guys have seen the webinar, I moved it up earlier in the presentation, but it was too early.  So I showed the video and usually at that point in the thing people are laughing, but I showed it and it was kind of flat. I was like, “Oh crap.” I jumped a little too early. I changed it after I got back in the plane, for the next presentation. Shifted some things around. But by the end, I started getting into my pitch and Grant Cardone is sitting on the front row. And I see him, every time I’m doing something he’s taking notes as fast as he can. Taking notes, taking notes. I’m like, “This is kind of cool. The dude who teaches sales is studying my sales pitch.” It was pretty cool. So I do my whole thing. Boom, we get a table rush, people running to the side. I finished the presentation and I go back behind the stage and Grant came up to me, “Dude, that’s why I’m not able to sale on stage. I’ve never done it the way you just did it.” And then all his team were like, “That was the best sales pitch I have ever seen.” Over and over and over again. I was like, this is coming from these guys. It was very flattering. I was patting my own back, not going to lie, which was pretty cool. So then, when all is said and done, I went outside and took a bunch of pictures with everybody and then our guys, our four people in there taking sales, with an audience of 2200 people, four people taking sales, which is crazy. After the break, comes back and I walk over to Dave and he’s got this huge stack of order forms. I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” At the same time, we had to check out of our room, we were passed our check out time. And we called for an early checkout and they told us no, and we’re like, well we’re going to be down there anyway, sorry. So we went back to the room, Alex and Layla came up with us and started counting order forms. I’m packing my bags and trying to get ready so we can leave. This is crazy, and this is considering the fact that we only had four sales people and not things ideal for selling. Had we had like 20 or 30 sales people, I think we probably could have doubled this. If we would have had  a couple of things tweaked around. But regardless, the number of sales we made were, and I was selling a $2000 product. It was 300, I can’t remember. When all is said and done, actual money was about $750,000 in sales. So three quarters of a million dollars, from the activity. Remember two podcasts ago I was like, “Basically I’m going to be flying down to Florida and picking up a check and flying back.” And that’s kind of what happened, which is cool. The way it works, so you guys know how the event seminar world works. The promoter gets half, so we’ll be processing orders this week and then we’ll send them a check for half of that, then we get the other half, and we get a whole bunch of members and hopefully we inspire people to use Clickfunnels, even those that did sign up, it was cool. The funny thing is in presentation I talk about how we used to charge people 100 grand to set up a funnel and 10% of what they make, but we stopped doing that, because I don’t have time for those right now. I had two or three people, I had two people for sure and one person in between that came up like, “Okay, I want the 100 grand deal. Where? Do you want a check? You want me to wire the money?” We’re like, “I don’t really do that anymore.” Anyway, it was kind of funny. But that’s about it. So there’s a recap of what just happened. And it was fun and thankful for Dave Woodward, and Alex and Layla for helping get the sales, making it happen. Those guys closed more sales in a 20 minute period of time than probably anybody on planet earth. It was awesome. I’m at the office now, I’m going to go get things set up for the Inner Circle, I will talk to you guys all again soon. Bye everybody.

Despite the fact that my family has been gone, here’s how I’m really feeling… In today’s episode Russell talks about how his family has left town and why it’s not good for man to be alone. He discusses why you need someone around to celebrate your success with. Here are 3 cool things you’ll hear in this episode: Russell dives into a freezing cold pool and why having no one around to witness it, was a little sad. How the same concept of having someone around to celebrate victories in business is also important. Why Russell loves Friday Marketing meetings. So listen below to hear why Russell realized it is not good for man to be alone and why having someone around to celebrate with can make you more successful. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson, welcome to Marketing in Your Car. Alright, my friends. I’m just leaving Fred Meyer right now, with a bag of grocery store sushi at 9:15 at night. While I was in the grocery store a thought came to my head and this is the message for today. The thought was, it’s not good for man to be alone. It is true. Man, I’m almost getting in a wreck in the parking lot. So this is what I mean by that. Oh crap. Sorry,  late night parking lots is like bumper cars almost out here. So this week I was really excited because4 my wife and kids were leaving as you know. I was like, “sweet I can finally get some stuff done, this is going to be amazing. I cannot wait to catch up and get some stuff done.” So they left yesterday as you know, I was at the office til 4am, when you guys got my message about getting choked out. I have no idea if that was even coherent at all. Today, I passed out, had an alarm, my alarm went off at 5 minutes to 8, jumped up had a call at 8 o’clock, then went and passed back out again. Actually drank some ketone, then passed back out again. Woke up at about 1 o’clock today, got to editing my book. Spent the next 5 or 6 hours editing the book. Then I was so excited because I got all this stuff done, it’s looking amazing, I’m proud of it and everything that I wanted to celebrate, and I got up and I looked around and nobody was there to celebrate with me. I was like, crap, what good is doing something awesome if there’s no one to celebrate with. So I voxed my wife and told and she voxed me back and forth, that was fun. Then I voxed my friends, then I voxed everyone who might even care a little bit. I’m celebrating with them because I’m so excited something cool happened. And that was good, at least there were some people that would give me some feedback. Then I was like, “I need to get out of here for a little bit.” So I went in the backyard, went in the weight room and just threw some weights around, had a good time out there. Then our pool, we opened our pool, even though it’s way to cold to open the pool, we thought, you know what, why not? Let’s just do it. So we opened up the pool and the heater is trying to warm it, but I don’t know if it’s warm or not. So I looked and it said 76, I’m like, “Dude that’s amazing.” And I opened the top and I put my foot in the shallow end, and I’m like, “it’s warm water, I’m going swimming right now.” So I opened the pool, go to the diving board, dive off, and I found out that like the top two feet of the water is 76 degrees, and everything below that is freezing, freezing, freezing cold. I jumped into this nice warm, hot pool, and then it turns into sheer freezing-ness, stabbing my whole body. Which is probably good from a bio-hacking stand point, I’m guessing. I don’t know. But I immediately jump out of the pool. As I’m jumping out I come back through this warmth. I’m like, I don’t know what to do, it’s cold, its warm. It’s really confusing, right. I get out and I’m laughing and all this stuff, looking around and there’s nobody there. And I’m like, dangit. So I voxed my wife, “Hey, I just jumped in the pool.” I’m telling people, I’m making podcasts. I’m trying to get other people engaged. It’s just thing after thing, after thing. I realized that as excited as I was to have my own alone and get stuff done and be home alone and be able to have time to work and focus, all those kinds of things. I’m so so so grateful that it’s just for a finite amount of time. I was sitting in the pool like, I wish my kids were here. As I was celebrating my book, I wish my wife was there. As I get every step along the way and the thing going through my head is it’s not good for man to be alone. We need people around us to celebrate. Otherwise, what’s the point of anything we’re doing? If you can’t, I mean, It’s not much fun. So I was thinking about that, it’s true in life, but it’s also true in business. I was solo entrepreneur for a long, long time, I think when I started surrounding myself with other people on my team, my employees and my friends and all these kinds of things. And my partners and all that kind of stuff, that’s when business became more fun for me. It wasn’t just me celebrating, “Look at this amazing stuff that I did.” It was “Look at this amazing that we did, that we accomplished.” It just changed it. So for you what I’m thinking is, I know we got a lot of solo entrepreneurs on here, but you’ve got to find someone to celebrate with. It can be a spouse, it can be a friend, can be a family member, can be an employee, can be a partner, can be a something. But if you don’t have that around, I’m guessing that that might be why you are struggling a little bit. Because today, it’s 9:20 at night, I haven’t had dinner yet. I just barely showered. People around you is a good thing and it moves you forward and keeps you doing amazing stuff. That was my message for today. So anyway, it’s not good for man to be alone and I’m excited my wife and my amazing kids will be back tomorrow, and I cannot wait. I miss them and it’s going to be a lot of fun. Then next week, I’ll be back on with the team and we’ll be able to celebrate all of our victories and our wins together and it’ll be amazing. So that’s what we got. In fact, one thing we started doing is Friday’s we do Marketing meetings. We have different divisions right. We have programming, our support teams, all these different things, and I kind of focus on the marketing side. So Friday at the end of the day we have a marketing meeting, we kind of, “Here’s all the cool stuff that happened this week, and here’s what I’m doing next week.” So we all have a focused motivation and a focused effort for that coming week we’re running towards. And it always gives us a chance to talk about it Friday so that all weekend long your thinking about how to make that better and cooler and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, that’s one of my favorite parts of Friday. We all get together and brag about our wins, celebrate a little bit. It keeps us all going for another week. Find someone to celebrate with. If you don’t have it, let me know. I can celebrate with you. Message me on Facebook and I will celebrate with you. But we need to be celebrating because otherwise what’s the point? Seriously. Alright, I’m home and back in the garage. I’m going back in. I’ve got another 10 chapters of my book or so to plow through tonight before my kids get back home. Then I’ll get back to normal. I gotta teach at church tomorrow, so I got to plan a lesson tonight still as well. But I just drank some caffeine ketones so I may be up for….till church tomorrow, who knows. We will see. Alright guys, have an amazing day. I’m out of here, I’m going to have my grocery store sushi, my ketones, I figures carb and a ketone, just negates itself and makes me feel good, we’ll find out soon. Thanks everybody, have a nice night and we’ll talk to you soon.

Late night ramblings about business and Jiu Jitsu. On this special late night episode Russell talks about what he got done during his late night and what’s coming up. He also talks about what it feels like to be choked out. Here are a few cool things you will hear in this episode: How Russell learned about Jiu Jitsu from a friend and why it isn’t the same as wrestling. How Youtube played a role in teaching Russell how to do Jiu Jitsu. And why Russell had to tap out during his first Jiu Jitsu match. So listen below to hear about Russell’s experiences with Jiu Jitsu and how it taught him that he’s not invincible, and people out there know stuff that he doesn’t know. ---Transcript--- Well, well, well, this is Russell Brunson, and we haven’t done this in a while. Welcome to a very, very late night Marketing In Your Car. Alright everybody, how are you doing tonight? It’s probably not tonight for you right now, but for me it is 4:20am, and I’m just leaving the office. It’s raining and cold out here. Dang. Anyway, I’ve had a great night; I’ve gotten so much stuff done. This doesn’t happen very often and it’s not something I want to happen very often, but every once in a while, it’s kind of nice. My kids had school off on Friday, but I had a coaching call on today so I couldn’t go and play with them, and my wife wanted to go down to her family’s house a couple of hours south from here, so she packed up the kids this morning, and she went down there. And she’s going to be down there today and tomorrow, and then she’ll get back on Sunday. So Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So Friday was today and I worked a normal day, and then she booked a massage for me. What a great wife, she knows my birthday is coming up and she knows I love massages. So basically they were gone, I got done working the day, I went and got massaged and the lady who gave me the massage was amazing. One of the best massages I’ve ever had ever, and I’m a pretty picky, high maintenance massage dude, so that says a lot. And then I got done and then I slammed a big old thing of Ignite, which is one of our supplements that makes it so that you don’t have to sleep. Oh man, I’m seeing Jack In The Box and I’m craving Jack In The Box. I can’t believe they are open at 4 in the morning. Do I go or do I not go? The voices in my head want jack in the box. Anyway, I passed it, I didn’t do it. There we got, we’re going home. So anyway, oh yeah, so I drank my Ignite, got back in the office and boom, put in another 8 hour shift. That’s awesome. So that was cool so I was working on finishing the new Clickfunnels sales letter, which is I’m so proud of. It’s amazing, I think, I think, I think. So I’m excited for that, it’s going to be going live next week. And then worked on the Clickfunnels affiliate program, redesigning all the pages, the affiliate platform the whole thing there. Then I worked on the Funnel Script affiliate program because everyone’s been begging us. And then got a whole bunch of pre-stuff done for copywriters, got 20 banner ads designed, a whole bunch of really, really exciting, amazing things. So yesterday, I think I told you guys, I had the laziest day where I did nothing, today I’ve already worked two 8 hour shifts and both days crushed it so that was nice. 4:23 right now, heading home, going to pass out. I have a call with Jim, my partner in Funnel Script, Jim Edwards, at 8am, so we’re at like 3 and ½ hours from now. Gonna pass out for a couple of hours, wake up talk to him, pass out again, and wake up. And then tomorrow, I’ve got a really exciting project, well I’ve got to finish a couple of things first. The Funnel University affiliate platform, and what else is happening? Funnel University affiliate platform, oh, and then a couple of front end offers for Clickfunnels, gotta get those all keyed up and working better again. Getting ready for affiliates. We’re trying to, I think I told you guys before, but we’re trying to get a whole bunch of ways affiliates can promote Clickfunnels, that aren’t Russell doing a live webinar. So that’s what’s happening. Anyway, so that’s kind of what we’re working on, and then tomorrow, some of you guys know Expert Secrets first draft has been done, it’s been done about a month, and I’ve been slacking because there’s so many things happening, and I have not had a chance to go through it. But tomorrow I’m going to try to go through the whole thing for a couple of reasons, one of the big one’s is, I was trying to get the book done before the live event, but it’s physically impossible now, but at the live event I’m going to be teaching most of the core concepts that are in the book. I’m going to be showing the 7 different expert funnels, the progression between them and how it all works. So by getting the book done, it’ll also, in return help me get all my slides done, because I got to get all the sketches and all the doodles done, just like the Dotcom Secrets book to match all the chapters. So I’ll get all those done which will be the majority of my slides. Then I just got to get tons of examples and case studies for my presentation. So It’s going to get me propelling forward, which will be really, really good. Anyway, that’s what’s happening over here. I don’t know about you guys, but I love it when I can just work hard like that. It’s so fun. I was going to try to go all the way until my call at 8am, but then about 4 o’clock, things started getting a little hazy, a little blurry. I was like, okay, it’s time to tap out. It’s  kind of like, for those of you guys who have ever done Jiu Jitsu, and you get choked out. I remember the very first Jiu Jitsu tournament I’d ever been to, I didn’t even know what Jiu Jitsu was. I was literally flying home from a speaking gig in Las Vegas, and on the plane was one of my wrestling buddies from Boise  State, and I  was like, “Hey man, what’s going on.” It was Southwest, so we got to sit by each other, so we’re sitting by each other. We’re flying and I’m like, “so what are you up to?” and he’s like, “I live in Vegas now, I do Jiu Jitsu and I fight,” I don’t remember if it was UFC, he was one of my JV wrestlers at Boise state, he wrestled behind me. I was like, “Really? That sounds crazy, I can’t believe you do fights and stuff, a lot of it’s just Jiu Jitsu.” And I’d heard the word Jiu Jitsu, but I didn’t know what it was, I assumed it meant kicking and boxing and stuff and I was like, “I could never do it man, I can’t take a punch to the face, I’m kind of a girl.” And he’s like, “No man, Jiu Jitsu is like wrestling for old fat guys.” I’m like, “What?” and he’s like, “Yeah, it’s really laid back and slow. It’s really, really easy to do, doesn’t take a lot of energy.” And I was like, “Are you kidding me, I’m in.” I got home and one of my friends I knew who did Jiu Jitsu, I’m like, “Hey, I want to Jiu Jitsu, because I heard it’s like wrestling for old, fat guys.” And he was like, “Oh, well there’s actually a tournament this weekend, you should come to it.” I was like, “alright, I’ll go wrestle a bunch o fold, fat guys. I have no idea what Jiu Jitsu even is. So the night before the tournament, I went to one practice, where I learned that Jiu Jitsu is not wrestling, it’s similar, but it’s definitely not wrestling. And that was my experience before I did my first Jiu Jitsu tournament, was like one 2 hour practice. And the guy that was coaching me, during that practice had learned Jiu Jitsu from watching Youtube, he’d never actually practiced it or done it either. Looking back, it was a really bad idea, but I had no idea. I don’t know if this is actually really funny, or if I’m just so tired, I’m delirious. So my Jiu Jitsu coach/youtube expert teaches me some Jiu Jitsu that he learned, we go the next day to the thing and they’re like, “you need a gi.”, and I’m like, “I don’t even know what a gi is.”, and they’re like, “It’s those white things that look like pajamas.” I’m like, “Oh cool.” So I didn’t have a gi so I went and I found some dude, I’m like, “Hey can I borrow your gi.” And he’s like, “Sure.” So he gives me this gi and I put it on. I can’t figure out how to tie the belt, which becomes a big nuisance later, when they won’t raise your hand until your belts been tied, which I didn’t realize at the time, another long story. So I go out there, all I know is its like wrestling, but I got to try to choke the dude afterwards. So I go in there, I double leg this guy, pick him up, boom slam him down. Then I pick him up again, and boom, and I’m just thrashing him. I also learned a knee on belly, so if I put my knee on their belly, I get three points. So I’m doing knee on belly, let him go, pick him up slam him down, over and over. So I’m destroying this dude, I think it’s 9 or 10 points to nothing. And then all the sudden he grabs my gi and folds it across my neck and everything starts going blurry. In wrestling when you get pinned it’s frustrating, but the ref looks at your shoulder blades and says, “Oh you’re pinned.” and he slaps the mat. And you’re like, “No way, you screwed me.” Or whatever, you get all mad. And that’s kind of what we do in wrestling. In Jiu Jitsu, there’s no ref that slaps the mat, the ref sits there and looks at you and watches as your face turns purple and your eyes starts bulging, and the ref thinking, “You moron, it’s time to tap or you’re going to die.” Now for me, I’d never experienced being choked out before, so I didn’t know what it was like. All I knew is that all the sudden the lights start going dim, everything is getting confusing, and I’m getting….everything is kind of blurring out, and it’s just like….it’s not pleasurable. I’m like, you know what, I can fight this. And I remember thinking that and then things started getting blurrier and darker, and I was like, I don’t know if I can fight this. And then It got to the point where in my head I’m like, I would rather die than tap out. And then about one second later, I thought I’m about to die, so I tapped out. I just remember that was a horrible, horrible experience. I would much rather have a referee pin me, than me tap out, because it’s basically when you tap out, it’s you saying, “I’m a wuss, this dude’s tougher than me, I give up.” And it’s literally the worst feeling on planet earth. So that was my first match. So afterwards, my youtube Jiu Jitsu buddy is like, “Hey when they grab your collar, you gotta do this thing.” So I try to learn this thing, go to the next match and I think I beat the next two or three guys, and I end up taking third and I got a big old medal. Then they had no gi and so I call me wife, I’m like, “Hey, I won a couple of matches.” And at this point I think I’m invincible right, because I learned how to not get choked in the gi. So round 2 now, is no gi. I call my wife, “You should come check it out. I’m really good at Jiu Jitsu, it turns out.” So she comes and watches me, first match I wrestle this guy. Same thing, I go out there, beating him, doing really good. Then I pick him up, double leg and I slam him down in the ground. In wrestling, we take someone and we cover their body with your head and neck and everything. In Jiu Jitsu you don’t, that’s how you set up a triangle lock. So I do this amazing take down and it ends up with me and no oxygen to my brain, tapping out once again. I tried to fight it as long as I could because once again my pride is saying I’d rather die than getting tapped out, until you realize you will die unless you tap out. It was pretty awesome. So I tap out then, and then the second match same thing. Beating the guy, beating the guys, Boom double leg him, sets up a triangle, locks me out and I tap out. So that was my very first Jiu Jitsu experience. Prior to that point in my life, I assumed that I could hang with most people, from my wrestling background and career. And at that po9int I realized there are people that know things that I don’t know and they can kill me. So that’s when I started to learn Jiu Jitsu and spent the next couple of years learning that. Anyway, that is my Jiu Jitsu story. I don’t even know why I told you that. Oh, I remember why, because I felt like I lost oxygen to my brain when I working tonight. Just like I did in Jiu Jitsu. That’s how all these stories come together. Anyway guys, I’m home. I’m tired, I’m going to go to bed. I hope you guys have an amazing day. Work hard, have some fun, remember this is a game. It’s not that important when all is said and done, it’s just a lot of fun. But what really matters is your family. So I’m excited for my family to get back here in a day or so. Next week’s my birthday, so I’m taking a day off to just play with them. It’s going to be awesome; I’m really excited for it. Alright guys, peace out, have a nice night and we’ll talk to you soon.

Today we wrap up our Multiplied Series. I know I said that we wrapped it up last week but I could not wrap the series without dealing with the area of debt—a killer of the multiplication that God wants to work in us as we bring him the first and best of our time, talent and treasurer. As I writing this message I decided to entitle it DEBT: MULTIPLIED SUBTRACTION. Now I told you a number of weeks ago that I’m not very good in the area of math. So Friday night as I was discussing the title of the message with my daughter Jasmine (who is somewhat a math scholar). She said that my title did not make any sense. Being the tenacious person that I am I tried to explain what I was getting at and yet she didn’t change her mind about my non-sensical title. She said dad what you are talking about is not called Multiplied Subtraction. What you are describing in Exponential Decay. Can you see me shacking my head having never heard that term in my life? So for all you math enthusiast out there when I say Multiplied Subtraction I mean Exponential Decay. You can see the formula on the screen. It might as well be german because i don’t know what it means. So today I want to discuss debt and the effect it has on our ability to live lives of Kingdom Multiplication. Debt is a symptom, not the root MULTIPLIED SUBTRACTION problem. Materialism is the root problem. But if it's only money these leaders are after, they'll self–destruct in no time. Lust for money brings trouble and nothing but trouble. Going down that path, some lose their footing in the faith completely and live to regret it bitterly ever after. 1 Tim 6:9-10 (MSG) Speaking to the people, he went on, "Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot. Luke 12:15 (MSG) DEFINITION OF Materialism: seeking happiness through the accumulation of material things.