Podcasts about so julie

In this episode, CEO of Julie Wiebe Physical Therapy, Inc., Dr. Julie Wiebe, PT, DPT, talks about running and pregnancy. Today, Julie talks about running/exercise and pregnancy, creating baselines, the research around female running form, and she busts some pregnancy myths. When can you return to running after pregnancy? What is Julie’s definition of ‘postpartum women’? She tells us about structuring exercises around their daily exercises and goals, pelvic health education, and she gives some advice to clinicians working with postpartum runners, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “Landing mechanics are affected by what’s happening north.” “Let’s understand what they looked like beforehand so that we have a better idea of how to help them find their way back.” “Just because you had a baby doesn’t mean you should be in pain and weak for the rest of your life.” “Listen to what’s happening, but learn to interpret it.” “If your 10 minutes is spent running and that’s your goal, you’ll do it. But if I say you’ve got to lay down on the ground and do rehab exercises that make no connection for you, you’re not going to be motivated to do that.” “Pelvic health does not mean that you have to be clinically prepared to do internal work. It just means that you’re treating the musculoskeletal of someone who happens to have a pelvis, which, last I checked, is everyone. You don’t have to be certified as a women’s health specialist, but you can get information, read books, watch videos, take courses so that you are competent in treating a woman postpartum that wants to get back to running.” “The pelvic floor is not the only gatekeeper that creates pelvic health. It is a component of multiple body systems, and we need to understand that those systems affect the way the pelvic floor acts and behaves. The pelvic floor itself needs to have attention directed at it, but when we talk about just the pelvic floor, it isolates it away from relevance to other areas of care.” “Learn to ask questions, and ask questions that make you uncomfortable. You will get more comfortable with it, and understand that what you’re trying to do is open a door of communication.” “When you read the conclusion in research, is there any other explanation that could’ve come to that same conclusion based on what you’re seeing?” “We need to start broadening our lense, and I think we’re broadening it to look at females as not just little men.” “Instead of thinking of learning as this linear thing, include and transcend. Instead of it being a linear line, let it be concentric circles.”   More about Julie Wiebe Julie Wiebe, PT, DPT has over twenty-four years of clinical experience in Sports Medicine and Pelvic Health, specializing in pelvic/abdominal, pregnancy and postpartum health for fit and athletic females. Her passion is to return women to fitness and sport after injury and pregnancy, and equip pros to do the same. She has pioneered an integrative approach to promote women’s health in and through fitness. Her innovative concepts and strategies have been successfully incorporated by rehab practitioners and fitness professionals into a variety of populations (ortho/sports medicine, pelvic health, neurology, and pediatrics). A published author, Julie is a sought after speaker to provide continuing education and lectures internationally at clinics, academic institutions, conferences, and professional organizations. She provides direct care to female athletes through telehealth and her clinical practice in Los Angeles, California.   Suggested Keywords Physiotherapy, Pregnancy, Research, PT, Health, Therapy, Healthcare, Education, Training, Postpartum, Running, Exercise, Pelvic Health, Conversation,   Use the code: LITZY for 20% off the following courses from Dr. Wiebe:   Treating and Training the Female Runner (or Any Female Athlete) Foundations + Running Bundle A Foundations + Running Bundle B   Running Rehab Roundtable Live Broadcast https://www.crowdcast.io/e/runningrehab   To learn more, follow Julie at: Website:          https://www.juliewiebept.com Instagram:       @juliewiebept Twitter:            @JulieWiebePT YouTube:        Julie Wiebe LinkedIn:         Julie Wiebe   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the full transcript:  Speaker 1 (00:07): Welcome to the healthy, wealthy, and smart podcast. Each week we interview the best and brightest in physical therapy, wellness, and entrepreneurship. We give you cutting edge information. You need to live your best life. Healthy, wealthy, and smart. The information in this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and should not be used as personalized medical advice. And now here's your host, Dr. Karen Litzy. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I am your, Speaker 2 (00:39): The host, Karen Litzy and today's episode. I'm really excited to round out our month all about running injuries and running rehab with Dr. Julie Wiebe. She has over 24 years of clinical experience in sports medicine and pelvic health specializing in pelvic abdominal pregnancy and postpartum health for fit and athletic females. Her passion is to return women to fitness in sport, after injury in pregnancy and equip pros to do the same. She has pioneered an integrative approach to promote women's health in and through fitness. Her innovative concepts and strategies have been successfully incorporated by rehab practitioners and fitness professionals into a variety of populations, or at those sports medicine, pelvic health neurology, pediatrics, a published author. Julie is a sought after speaker to provide continuing education lectures internationally at clinics, academic institutions, conferences, and professional organizations. She provides direct care to female athletes to through tele-health and her clinical practice in Los Angeles, California. Speaker 2 (01:48): So Julie's amazing. And in this episode, we talk about some myths about running while pregnant and in the postpartum. And of course, the question that everyone always asks Julie is how can we return to run after pregnancy? So Julie answers that question and cause a lot of really helpful hints for practitioners to look for when evaluating postpartum women and those postpartum women, those runners can be anywhere from six weeks to six years, 16 years, 20 years after having a child. And she also encourages clinicians to think critically, to look deeper, to have a framework for evaluation, to try and, and, and get a baseline to ask your patients to film themselves while they're running or exercising so that you can understand what they look like when they're doing what they do. There's a lot of variables to post to running post-pregnancy and Julie really runs through all of them. Speaker 2 (03:01): So I want to give a big, huge thanks to Julie for coming on the podcast today and sharing all of this knowledge. And she also has a discount on the course. So she has a course on running a postpartum running. So she has a course for the listeners. So all you have to do is enter the promo code Litzy that's L I T Z Y my last name for 20% off treating and training the female runner. And just to be clear, this is for professionals, not for individuals. So this is for clinicians. So a huge thanks to Julie for that. We'll have all of the information, including links to everything in the podcast at podcast dot healthy, wealthy, smart.com. And tomorrow you can catch Julie live along with Dr. Ellie summers, Dr. Chris Johnson and Tom goom for our live round table discussion. That's tomorrow, March 30th at 2:00 PM Eastern standard time. Speaker 2 (04:10): If you can't make it still sign up because you'll still have a chance to get your question answered by the panel, and you will still get to watch the replay any time you want. And listen, this is a deal. It is $25 for four of, in my opinion, some of the best minds when it comes to running injury and rehab. So sign up today. If you're listening to this today, sign up today because you have until probably, I don't know, it starts maybe until like quarter to two tomorrow, which is March 30th to sign up for our live round table discussion. Again, that's with all four guests from this month, Ellie summers, Chris Johnson, Tom goon, and Julie Wiebe. So sign up to day. Hey, Julie, welcome back to the podcast. I think this is like your third visit to help you well, yes, thank you for sharing your platform with me again. Speaker 2 (05:11): I appreciate it. Of course. And, and this month, the month of March, we're talking all about running, running injuries, running rehab, and I know something that you're passionate about is caring for the postpartum woman that returned to running after giving birth. And, and we'll also talk a little bit about running while pregnant. Right. So I think that there are, there's a lot to cover. And so we are just going to, we're going to zoom right through this unintended since we're on zoom. But let's start first with running while pregnant. I feel like there's a lot of myths around running while pregnant. I don't know that it's understood very well by many people, including clinicians as well as the pregnant women. So I'm just going to kind of throw it over to you and let you just kind of talk about the, the running pregnant woman. Speaker 3 (06:14): Yeah. You know, and I think I think that regarding running and pregnancy, I mean, that's our focus, but really exercise and pregnancy. We still have, we are limited in our understanding of all things. Related to that I think we are started, we have information about things like cardiovascular response or, you know, some of those pieces of the puzzle. But in terms of the musculoskeletal, the neuromuscular, the response of the female host inter like how is that impacting the mom's body systems. Right. and I think that where we are struggling to have a lot of research there in part, because it's hard to find women that are willing to be participate in research. And then there's also a lot of, I, you know, we have to be protective of them. We have to protect them. And so, so it's this, you know, we want to honor that stage of life, but we also need to research it. Speaker 3 (07:13): So so I think we are struggling to, to understand all that, but we're starting to get more and more attention on it, which is awesome. As far as pregnant runners go there's only a few studies that I'm aware of that actually look at the pregnant runner and and of those one is a case study and one is on five women. So we have very limited understanding of what exactly goes on, but there were some themes. So I'll just share some themes. One is that in, in both the studies, they were, they were followed, the women were followed throughout the pregnancy changes were seen in all of the women on how they continue to run through the pregnancy meaning. And particularly the one with the five women, they all did something different, which is the variability is what we're seeing now. Speaker 3 (08:07): Everybody's bodies individually adapted differently. But the through line for them was there was a loss of pelvic and trunk rotation. So when we think about that pregnant runner, this is the way I've started describing it. The belly covers a ton of joints. Like it goes from the thorax to the pelvis. It it's basically, it takes all of these reciprocating joints and it turns it into a unit joint. Like it's one big joint, it blocks motion. So it reduces pelvic and trunk rotation. And so it limits, and then it forces them to rotate elsewhere. All of these are adaptions to help them continue to move through space appropriate for pregnancy and running. But when they go into the postpartum, they carry it with them. And that was what happened in both of these studies. They found that at six months for the woman who was the case study, and then at six weeks postpartum for the women, the five women in the other study, they held onto these, these some of these variables into the postpartum period and where that's significant is that women are given that okay by their doctor at six to eight weeks. Speaker 3 (09:19): This just like, you can just start doing your thing again. But their understanding is I got to just lose weight and get a flat belly. What our understanding needs to be is we need to understand what's changed for them. Biomechanically neuromuscularly emotionally, you know, fatigue, stress, like all of we have to understand all of those pieces and help them restore their interrelationships. Neuromuscularly biomechanically to be more like their baseline in order to prepare them for return to run. Like it's not just, okay, let's get him stronger. It's how do we help them restore that efficiency in their patterns that they lost, but no one realizes they lost it. So six years later, they show up to an orthopedic office and they have some of these running injuries, but how much of it is related to the compensations that they carried into their postpartum. So that's sort of a, an entry point into our conversation. Speaker 2 (10:17): Yeah. And that's, that is so interesting. And it makes sense that they would carry that over because our brain has is plastic and it's going to adapt. And our our sense of where we are appropriate susceptive sense is going to adapt to that. And it just doesn't end because the baby's not inside you anymore. Speaker 3 (10:40): Correct. And you're pulling it off, like in your mind, like you're still pulling off running, like you're actually running. So it, the understanding of what has changed is not understood globally. And I think like, I mean this, the running study related to the five runners that I mentioned, and that was from 2019. So this is, you know, relatively hot off the presses in terms of clinical understanding. So our job clinically is to help restore reciprocation that's really, and we understand the reciprocation is so important for all sorts of pieces of the puzzle for running. And one of those things is actually reducing ground reaction forces, getting our center of mass over that lead leg. Reciprocation is a huge piece of that. And so understanding just that, if that is all you walk away with today, understanding that you're a female that has a postpartum is postpartum, meaning they have a pregnancy in their history when you're working with them related to it, running injury. Speaker 3 (11:39): If it has a ground reaction force components like a knee or anything, you should be looking North of the border, not just foot strength, not just cadence, not like you have to look North and understand, are they actually reciprocating? Where's that reciprocation coming from? Because when you have a unit joint of the lumbar spine in the lower, the only thing that's left is like TL junction and above. So that's where they're reciprocating is way up high at the chest. And if you watch Fumo runner, that's what they're doing. They're punching the sky, it's all up, up, up, up chest high. And it's, that's the pattern that they partially developed during the pregnancy to continue running and pregnancy. There's nothing wrong with that. It co it's an appropriate compensation, but it does. If you don't restore actual reciprocation between the trunk and the pelvis, that's what you're looking for. And if the woman is in gripping her abs, cause she wants to get flat abs again, that's a UDA joint, it's a uniform engagement of the abdomen is what most women hang on to, or try to do while they're running. And that continues to keep their reciprocation high. So it's like understand what's going on North of the border for these women, versus just looking at things like landing mechanics, landing mechanics are affected by what's happening North so Speaker 2 (12:59): Well that's so, yeah, that is so interesting. And now I'm going to be, you know, in central park watching all these women to see, okay, are they just running with their, from like the thoracolumbar junction up? And then just having legs move like a cartoon character or are they actually getting excursion and rotation through the trunk? Speaker 3 (13:19): Amen. Yeah. And then we're getting into summer, right? I mean, I'm here in California, so we're gonna be able to see people's abdomens. And the thing that I, my cue for my clinician friends is what's going on with the navel. Like if their navel is staying straight, dead, straight, the whole time they're holding their abdomen. So stiffly through their run, that they aren't reciprocated. Like they can't be like, that's an indication that's a quick and dirty clinical sign that you can see that that means the reciprocation is likely coming up higher. And then it'll sort of clue you in and you'll see it. And they're, they're the ones punching high in the sky. They've got ribs flared up, like it's sort of, and that's a lot of our female runners. And it's a lot of our women that have never had children because they're holding their abdomens. Speaker 3 (14:03): Cause that's what they think they're supposed to do. And we also have studies that have shown us that stiff abdomen when they had men jump off a height actually increase their ground reaction forces. So it makes sense it's part and parcel, right? Like, you know, we just got to sort of brought in and I think that's my hope when I talk about stuff like this with my ortho and sports medicine, friends and colleagues because that's really, I'm a sports medicine, PT, I'm not a traditional pelvic health PT, but is to broaden our lens and add these ideas into our differential diagnosis. Like we need to start thinking about how these things are affecting. Some of the things we look for in sports medicine. Like we understand to look at how ground reaction forces what's happening, but we don't often this into our thought process. Like how, why is that a typical running pattern for women? It's not just because we have brought her hips and Q angles and, you know, blah, blah, blah, look North, look North with me. There's more going on for these women. And and we have some strategy pieces that we could add into our thought process to help them Speaker 2 (15:13): Yeah, amazing coming in hot, right out of the gate pair with a great tip for everyone. So thank you for that. And one one question that I want to ask, just so the listeners really understand when you talk about postpartum women, can you define what that means? Speaker 3 (15:32): I'll give you my definition. Sure. It doesn't necessarily mean that it is the definition. But I consider anyone who's ever had a baby. And, and here's what I'll say about that. I think technically it's the first year that might be kind of more of a technical thought process. And that's mainly because I started learning this backwards when my, on my patients who were 35 and 45 and 55 and 65. And they still look like me. This is million years ago. Now when I was at postpartum early postpartum, like the way that I was using my body and it was creating issues for me, they were using their bodies that same way. And they were like, well, they had grandchildren at that point. And so once we start understanding, yes, it's a normal process that women go through, but our job is to understand what they went through and help them find their way back to efficiency and effective use of their structure and their systems and their like I D I was Chris. I love that Chris Johnson talked about their ecosystems, like, you know, like looking at all of those pieces for them and understanding our job is to help them get back to their baseline, their individual baseline. Cause my torso is this, like this with this link legs. Some people have long legs short, let you know, like to understand that. So my, one of my big pushes I hope to achieve at some point is to get baselines, like, let's start getting baselines. I was women. Yeah, go. Speaker 2 (17:09): I was just gonna ask that you, you beat me to the punch. I was just going to say, so if someone is coming to me as a woman who is a runner and she had a child would say a year ago or two years ago, even how do I know what her baseline is? Speaker 3 (17:27): Correct? Well, what I do is I have them try to bring me film from prior to the injury. So these are for women that haven't had babies or like what they look like running prior to having a baby. And again, so many women have said to me, well, I leaked even before I had a baby when I ran. So then you might find stuff in their running form that might help explain that like Mabel's that go straight ahead? You know, things like that. But it does give us sort of an understanding of, is the running form that we're seeing right now, is that speaking to why they're having the injury, the, whatever it is, or is this the running form they've always had and they used to run without any difficulty. Like, you know what I mean? Like, so for me, that's how I started to create their baseline. Speaker 3 (18:15): Even if I can't see what they look like. And a lot of women will, like, when we talk about diastasis, like, you know, something like along those lines, which I might have to define for the audience, but some women will send me pictures of them in a bikini from like their early twenties. They're like, Oh my gosh, you're right. I actually had a line down the middle, but I never gave it any thought because my belly was flat. But now that my belly is not flat, you know? So it's like, that's where we can start to kind of get some comparisons for baselines. But one of my goals is to reach into the medical community, meaning the obstetricians and the midwives and the nurse practitioners. If any of you are out there is to say, let's start creating baseline. You're the first contact for some women they'll come in for a prenatal visit or something like that. Like, let's get some baselines, encourage them to take video. How will they're lifting how they're running? You know, how are they doing these things that they want to get back to afterwards so that they have a library of their own baseline? Like let's understand what they look like beforehand so that we have a better idea of how to help them find their way back. Speaker 2 (19:18): Yeah. Yeah. Great answer. Thank you. And so we've talked a little bit about this return to run after pregnancy. And I know you said that is, that's what people want to know from you. How do I go back to running after I had a baby and you know, everybody wants a protocol. If you could do this, then do this and this then do this. Right? Right. So when someone says to you, when can I start running after I had a baby, what is your answer? Speaker 3 (19:50): My answer is, and everyone hates it. It depends, but I tell them what it depends on. And so, and that's what it does get a little tricky in a situation like this, because these are some of the variables that I want to know. So my, whenever I get a question like that, my favorite is when I get it from a practitioner, what should I tell my patient who wants to get back to running? And I'm like, okay, well, my, my response to you is I actually wrote a blog like this. Like, and I always get, Hey, quick question. And I'm like, it's not a quick question. It shouldn't be a quick question. You know, did they have a vaginal delivery? Was it traumatic? Did they have forceps? Did they have a Syrian? Was it, you know, did they have bed rest? Were they on bed rest? Speaker 3 (20:29): If you're on bed rest, no, you're not gonna start running right out of the gate. You're like, you know, like there's so many variables there was it a complicated pregnancy? Was there, you know, what's been happening to them during the recovery process, have they, you know, are they having postpartum depression? You know, what's the you know, what are all these variables that they're experiencing? Where are they having postpartum depression? Or are they depressed or having baby blues, partly because they've lost their exercise program. Like what, what are all of these variables that we're looking for and what was their athletic capacity before? What is it now? Or what are their goals? Cause I like to make goal specific recommendations. So those are some of like, those are just that's scratching the surface, but I don't want to make it sound like this is an inaccessible population to work with because you don't know what all those things are. Speaker 3 (21:19): But what I usually talk to my patients about is I understand their goals and then I break them down and we start preparing for them. So my program for you needs to prepare you for what you want to do. And I need to understand the demands that you're up against. If you want to run, I need to prepare you for impact. I need to prepare you for endurance. I need to prepare you for power and possibly change of direction, depending on what you want to do. Trail runs and jump over rocks and things like that. Like I need to prepare you for what it is you're going to be up against. And part of that preparation is looking at your form, giving you great form twos, helping you build in new form, creating an interval program, getting you impact ready. Like there's, it's not just, I need you to do some curls and tell me stuff and some cables, and now you can run. Speaker 3 (22:10): And I think that that's, but that's a typical postpartum recovery program, but it isn't a prep for return to run. I need to teach you to reciprocate. I need you to strengthen into those reciprocal movement patterns. I need you to do single leg work. I need you to do single leg loaded work. I need you to do single leg impact work. You know, I gotta get you practicing some of those pieces. Then I know you're prepared. And if you're leaking or having pain or having an I give you these things we're looking for while we're doing the prep work, we're just not quite ready. We need to modify those things. Keep giving you opportunities to build capacity and strategies for the kind of work you want to do. I'm going to build that back into your system so that you're ready. And if you're, again, if you're symptomatic during all the prep work, we're just not quite ready for the actual events, but let's figure out what still needs to be tweaked and what needs work. You know what I mean? And then like, let's start with elliptical, let's start with hiking. Let's start with things that don't have impact. If we're not, if we're having symptoms with impact, like sort of really parse, what's still creating the problems so that we can troubleshoot that. And then, and then get you back into interval prep, walk, run. You know what I mean? Like it's yeah. So it's yeah. So that's running, that's more running specific. Speaker 2 (23:27): Yeah. So if you're not, it's not like, okay, the doctor gave you the all clear at six to eight weeks depending. So I'm just going to give you a walk run program. And that's what you will do. There is a lot more building because like you said you to monitor, you want to give people their program, you want to monitor their, their reaction to it, their symptoms, and then make the necessary adaptations that you need to make and use your clinical judgment. Because we know that there's not a whole lot of research around even returned to run after pregnancy. There's not a lot of research to that, correct? Speaker 3 (24:05): Yeah. We're getting, we're starting, we'll give credit where you know, we're trying, but we, yeah, we have a lot of work to do. We need to figure out there's a lot. We need to understand just basics. But, but like some of the things that I, I I'm trying to create like little things, people can remember, like prepare, then participate, monitor, and modify. Like just keep get like put those pieces together for yourself. Cause some people don't have access. That's the other thing, like if anyone out there doesn't have access for whatever reason to the practitioner, like you are, you have a lot of power by knowing what to monitor for knowing it's not normal to have pelvic pressure or leaking or pain while you're running. It's not normal. Like we want you to feel good while you're running and you know, just cause you had a baby, does it mean that you should be in pain and leak for the rest of your life? Speaker 3 (25:01): Like that's an incorrect, like I think we did. We say we're going to bust myths. Like that's a myth D please don't buy into it. So yeah, and I think I lost your question in there somehow. Did I? No, no, no, no. Boston my own head. No, not at all, but it is. It's like these, like what else? You know, and then follow the other thing I try to tell people is follow your success. If it seems to be that you're having more symptoms on the flats, but you're okay if you are going uphill, which is not unusual because it sort of helps you have a better running form automatically. Then let's walk the flats, run up the Hill. You don't like listen to what's happening, but learn how to interpret it. I think that's what I'm hoping clinicians can be, is really great interpreters of what's happening with the patient standing in front of them so that they can they can be better guides. Speaker 3 (25:54): I mean, that's really ultimately what we're doing. We're guiding people through their process because everyone's process is going to be a little bit different. It should be. And I would love for, I would w I went a hundred percent with lots of over the protocol, charge everybody 10 books now, but it doesn't exist because everyone is different everyone's path through pregnancy is different. That one study we have was so fascinating. All those women did something different to get through the pregnancy running. So, so we, we were just learning, right. We're learning about, about everybody's path through, through all this stuff. So how can we guide them? And I think monitoring modifying, progressing not gradually in a scared way, but in a smart way, like, Oh, we tried that. That was too far. All right. So backing off a little bit. Let's try this. Let's modify, modify, keep adapting. So I don't know. Now I'm going down a whole nother rabbit. Speaker 2 (26:48): No, no, no, that's it. This is all, this is all amazing. And I, and I really think the listeners will, we'll definitely come away with, you know, the, the monitor and make it adaptations and watch and listen. And also, like you said you sort of referenced Chris Johnson, sort of talking about the whole ecosystem. So again, I think it's important to when you are sitting down with this patient for the first time, you know, you have all these questions, but then your other questions are, well, how old, how old is your child? Do you have more than one? What are your responsibilities at home? Do you have a nanny? Are you a single mom? Are you working? What are your time constraints? Like, because all of that feeds into what kind of program you can give this person, because they may say, Hey, listen, I have 10 minutes a day to do some exercises. And, and what happens a lot is people think I only have 10 minutes a day. It's never going to work. Right. So how do you get around those with your clients? Speaker 3 (27:51): I usually use their exercise program is their fitness program, whatever it is, like rather than ask them to stop. I, and so, I mean, we're talking early postpartum versus someone who's maybe coming back two years later. Right? So you know, I try to integrate, my goals have always been, or my path has always been about building brain strategies, neuromuscular. So then I'm teaching them how to re-establish. Some of the, the, the, so let's talk early postpartum things get kind of funky in terms of how components of the central stability Central's control system operates. I'm working on helping them reconnect and implement it into their function. They have to take care of their kids. If you're lifting your kid, we're going to do it in a way that sort of pulls in the brain's going to use all these components to help them start, to learn, to be reintegrated into your movements, just movement going up the steps. Speaker 3 (28:50): Guess what steps is just like running. We're going to actually, if your goal is running, I'm going to make going up and down the steps with your laundry hamper or your baby as your prep for return to run. But we're going to do it super low impact. We're going to think it through. We're going to have to, like, we're going to rebuild that reciprocation through walking up and down the steps. We're going to, you know, match it to your function right now. But if you're two years out and you're, it's a different ball game, I'm going to use your running as your program. I'm going to adapt your running and keep you below your symptom threshold or make it look a whole heck of a lot like running so that you're motivated to do your, if your 10 minutes is spent running and that's your goal, you'll do it. Speaker 3 (29:32): Do you know what I mean? But if I say you got to lay down on the ground and do these rehab exercises that make no connection for you, you human, emotional, or your brain to your goal. You're not going to be motivated to do that. So I have always broken down their exercise programs, if they are CrossFitters or going to gym or whatever it is, show me three exercises that you like to do. Yoga, Pilates, whatever it is, what are three things let's implement these ideas and strategies under something that you enjoy, because I know you'll be compliant. And then they know you're listening. That therapeutic Alliance is there, like out of the gate, you want to help them get to their goals, Speaker 2 (30:11): Right? So it's, it's like, you can take things they're already doing and modify, adapt it, allow them, give them the tools they need to implement. What will help them in that exercise. And ultimately perhaps help them get back to their running or whatever it might be. Okay. Speaker 3 (30:31): Break it down, break it down and then build it back up. That's got it. That's a pretty straightforward way to do it with any athlete. It doesn't have to be running. But you got to know what they're up against. So I, if I am not familiar with something, I just say, show me, I don't know, show me what that is. And I don't know the words, I'm the first one to admit it, but I can't remember what that, can you just show me that and they'll sh and then you can break it down. Like, I think that's, to a lot of people's barriers to working with athletes is they don't feel comfortable with the sport. And then of course we have, you know, members of our community that say things like, well, do you lift, do you even run? I know. And it's like, like, it's really I don't, I don't surf and I will never, my first surfer when I moved to California, you know what I did, I looked at YouTube and I looked at, I watched, I watched videos. Speaker 3 (31:30): I looked, I tried to understand what are the physical demands of surfing, but that didn't mean I couldn't help him. You know what I mean? Like, don't get me started. So anyways, so I think that it intimidates because also like, that would mean that men couldn't work with female athletes too. Like, cause you don't have a vagina. Like that's, it's a, it's an illogical argument and it makes me mad. So anyway, surfing is I that's one of the examples that I use because I don't surf and I never will because I'm afraid of sharks. So we w w your job, our specialty physical therapist should be movement analysis. That to me is a pretty basic part of our definition. And I know that you can at least pick out efficiency. Do you know what I mean? Like, you can pick out efficiency and I use video, like crazy. Speaker 3 (32:19): Have them bring you videos of them. Weightlifting have them bring you videos of running, and then you can slow it down. Look at it, really carefully. Look at it at home before you stand in front of them, start to break it down, look online. What is a clean and jerk, and then ask them to send you a video of a clean and jerk compared them and start to pick out where it's different. There you go. You know what I mean? Like, I think that we create this barrier for clinicians to be able to participate in this kind of care if we make it unattainable because they don't actually participate in it anyway. Yeah. Speaker 2 (32:56): Listen, I could not agree more. I think that's the dumbest dumbest argument against a qualified physical therapist, seeing the person in front of them, because what if you're the only physical therapist for 50 mile radius? What are you supposed to like, sorry, pal. I'm not an Olympic lifter can help you. Speaker 3 (33:17): Yeah, it's so stupid. It's so stupid. Well, and it's really the other thing too then is it's also important to sort of highlight and carefully and kindly and respectfully say that's also how pelvic health is understood by so many. Well, it's not, that's not my department, but it's physically inside the woman standing in front of you. It's part of her department. So like, you may be the only practitioner for miles and you are the only person that understands the human body, the way you do as a physical therapist. It behooves you to start understanding some of these processes. When we start to talk about our differential diagnoses for runners is to understand what is happening, what, how might this have affected what I'm seeing clinically? And then it's not, it's not pelvic health, like in this movie way, it's pelvic health as a, it's a, it's a friend to helping you understand what's going on with these patients. Speaker 3 (34:16): So, so again, like in the same way that, you know, folks get scooted away from participating with female athletes or athleticism, we don't want to scoot them away from pelvic health because it's scary or UV, or it's not their department. Like we need to open those doors broadly and say, let's, let's skill everybody up. Let's equip everybody, the pelvic health community to understand fitness better, and the fitness community to understand pelvic health better. Like let's everybody come to the middle and not create barriers inside the community to those things. Like, let's appreciate the perspective that we each bring so that we can optimize the care for our patients who don't have resources to go down, you know, and with telemedicine creates new opportunities until unless we can't do it nationally. Right. Can we have a talk about that? Speaker 2 (35:08): Yeah. I would love to have a talk about that. Like maybe every, every licensing board across the country, again, it's so stupid because we take a national exam, but we're only licensed in anyway. Yeah. We could have, we could have a round table on that one. But you know, what you said is really important about so for the physical therapist or even other health professionals listening pelvic health, it does not mean that you have to be clinically prepared to do internal work, right? No, not necessary. And it just means that you're treating the musculoskeletal health of someone who happens to have a pelvis, which last I checked is everyone. And so, and so you should, you should be able to do that. You may not ha you don't have to be certified as a women's health specialist, but you can take get information, read books, watch videos, take courses so that you are competent in, let's say for the sake of this month, I'm runners treating a woman postpartum that wants to get back to running. Speaker 3 (36:25): Right. And there, and that's, and I think that that's partially, I mean, to just be fair, I think we all learn pelvic health in a very isolated way in PT schools. You know what I mean? So I think that there's been a huge change in the conversation in the pelvic health community over the years. And it's just starting to get out there in, in other ways. So it also behooves those of us. And again, like I find myself always serve in the middle of these worlds. Those of us who communicate it in a way that's relevant to like, let's be communicating in a way that is enticing to learn more. Like, I want those to gain those skills and and understand it in a way that is relevant. And I, and so, yeah, so we have a lot of work to do to the physical therapy educational programming to start to build it into models a little bit differently, so that it's under some of the other side a little differently too. Right. So it's just, we're all we're evolving, but it is true that it has classically been defined that way. Right. Like, right. And so I think so anyway, yeah. So I, I agree with you, there's a lot we can do there. And it's also like, can you at least talk about like, and to have some ability to do that is important, you know, so, Speaker 2 (37:45): Yeah. And, and hopefully people like yourself and maybe podcasts like this and other podcasts that are out there will really help clinicians. And non-clinicians, you know, your, your, your gal that, that just had a baby. Who's like, I, I don't know what to do. How, what do I do? Yeah. You know, I just had someone contact me today who is eight months pregnant and she's starting to have a little low back pain. And she said, you know, should I just go to the doctor or should I just go to any PT or what should I do? And and I was like, Oh, I'm so happy that she's reaching out for a physical therapist, you know? But a lot of people just don't even know that that's an option. Right. So, Speaker 3 (38:32): Yeah. Cause the messages, while you're pregnant, low back pain, you're pregnant, you know? And, and so it's really, there's a lot of education that needs to happen, but I do think you know, so much of it is around I'm trying to think of a good way to say this, centering the woman as like that, those concerns just because they're common. I hate the common. Not more, it's not, I hate that. I get it, but it's also like, it just always has been, but that doesn't mean that's how it should be, or it has to be moving forward. Like I think we're starting to get more female researchers, myself trying to do that too, to help, you know, we're trying to have females asking questions for females and to the credit of this one particular, he will never know. I should write him a note, but like I had a conversation once with a running researcher. Speaker 3 (39:28): And I was like, did you think about the fact that that lady was probably in continent? Like he had just done something at CSM and he goes, that would never have crossed my mind. And I, and he wasn't like a poopoo that couldn't possibly be a variable. He was like, it looks like you need to start doing some research. And it was, it was literally like the last nail in the coffin of me, like meeting that, like I knew I wanted to go that direction, but it was one of those, you know, those really landmarking conversations that just sort of are like, w wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm point. Knowing what I'm doing, like cooking you in the right direction. Yeah. It's to say, you know, this is you, you understand it. And I think that's, you know, again, you know, we talked a little bit about clinical utility and research, like trying to ask the questions that women need to ask, you know, so we need for your eight month pregnant lady, we got to get better information to her and to people that can care for her in her local community. Speaker 2 (40:25): Yeah. And, and again, you know, we talked a little bit about this before we went on, but, you know, asking the right questions, asking questions, asking simple questions. Because as, as we've spoken about the research for even simple, for simple questions is not there. So before we went on, Julie was saying, you know, we don't know what the pelvic does when we go to sit to stand, what is it doing when we're walking? We don't, we don't know what's happening in the pelvis and the pelvic floor and, and, and articulations above and below. So how are we supposed to know with certainty what's happened when you're running or when you have impact or jumping? So I think these, like you said, these smaller questions need to be looked at and researched, and then hopefully that body of work can build up to something much more clinically. Speaker 3 (41:15): Yeah. We need to sort of, we need to build in the basics and, and, and, and we're working like there are teams working on that, like we have, and we're using computer modeling as a way that this is starting to get there because we can't the issue. And also, I really want to make something super clear before we get moving. This direction is one of the things that I'm trying to be really careful about is not just talking about the pelvic floor, but to talk about pelvic health, because the pelvic floor is not the only gatekeeper that creates pelvic health. And it is a component of multiple body systems. And we need to understand that those systems affect the way the pelvic floor acts and behaves and the pelvic floor itself, you know, needs to be, have attention directed at it. But B because when we talk about just pelvic floor, I think it isolated away from relevance to other areas of care. Speaker 3 (42:05): So I just want to be clear on that. So but we don't know what its behavior is. Cause we can't see it. We can't put a, you know, it's just, we are, but we're starting to get new ways to be able to understand it better through a technology advances. So we're getting there, right? Like, so that's been a barrier to understand this better in in the dynamic, in dynamic activity. And we are seeing computer modeling as an option to help us start to understand this a little bit better, but that modeling is usually done on like an N of one. One of my favorite studies is a computer modeling study, but it's with something, I can't remember the title now off the top of my head, but it was something like, you know computer modeling of pelvic, the pelvic floor during an impact activity and an athletic female or something like that, or for female athletes. Speaker 3 (42:52): But then it literally says in the methods section that the woman they chose wasn't athletic and I'm like, well, crap. Okay. But I mean, it gives us, it gives us new insight. We'll take it. But I would really like to see it on someone who is an athlete, because, you know, we want to understand all of those variables anyways. So, you know, we're just trying to get there, but we haven't always, we can't visualize the pelvic floor in when we're watching a runner, but we can watch it's relationships. We know it's related to the glutes. We know it's related to the pelvis and the low back and the abdomen and diaphragm, we can watch all those other relationships. And we're really good at that in ortho, in sports medicine. So there's all of these interrelationships that we can watch and understand that a little bit better and differently, but you know, there's elements of what's going on there today. I am grateful to our pelvic health community for their capacity to treat directly. Speaker 2 (43:49): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And now, before we start to wrap things up what I'd like to ask you is for, let's say the clinicians that are listening to us right now what, what is your best advice to those clinicians who are working with, let's say female runners who are postpartum at any point postpartum, whether it be six weeks, six months, six years, what have you, Speaker 3 (44:22): Oh let's see. That's kind of a loaded question, but I think it would be to learn to ask questions like that would be my best advice, like, and ask questions that make you a little uncomfortable. You will get more comfortable with it. And understand that what you're trying to do is open a door of communication. Like create a conversation around this with your athletes. Here's what we know, which is not much, but my understanding is after you've had a baby or two, it affects your running form and you can hang on to those changes six weeks, six months, six years, whatever, wherever they are, unless we actually look at them. So I'm wondering how that as part of your medical history is affecting what you're doing, but along with that often comes problems with how you're activating your abdomen. Or you might have a public health consideration like leaking when you're running or painful sex constipation. Speaker 3 (45:24): Like there's other problems that women have that are under the public health realm. You know, and so so I'm going to ask you, so have them in your intake form, have them, you know, are you comfortable having a conversation with me about that part of your life and your experience? Cause I'm wondering how it might be affecting what we're seeing here. We understand that there's an interrelationship with learning. The research is limited, but, and if you're not comfortable talking to me, understand that, you know, it is something that I think might be a variable. And so I'm going to actually at least try to incorporate your pelvic floor and your diaphragm and some of those interrelationships into our programming. But I also have someone down the street that you can talk to a few, be more comfortable. I just want to open that door, like open the door to a conversation. Speaker 3 (46:07): Like if that, if nothing else, if they aren't comfortable, you also should be skilling up to understand these components. How do you, what should, what do you see in a typical postpartum runner start looking for navels, start looking, going to central park, whatever it is, start to pay attention to these other variables and serve to give fit, give it new. Meaning like I, cause I read a lot of running research and athletics like sports medicine research and the meaning that it's attributed that is attributed to it is often based on what we've understood in men or like a strength based model. Like, well, they're just there post your chain. Isn't strong enough. Well, my question is why, why would every freaking females post your chain the off? Let's put that. Let's start thinking about that. That's the kind of questions I want to ask. Like the why we're seeing that as our common, it's not just structure, it can't just be structured because women aren't all structured the same P S all women do not run it into your tilt. Speaker 3 (47:08): Like they don't, what do you mean? Come on. Nobody does the same thing. All of us. Like it can't be. So it's like with what we've put this meaning on it and if you're postpartum or you're pregnant, you're you have an anterior tilt. Well, we have to have research has shown us. That's not true. So it's like, and then I don't know how you can overstride and inter tilt at the same time. Like, we need to really think about that because, but we've always, that's sort of the lens. And so everything gets filtered through it to the point that we exclude, like other, like, instead of thinking, Oh, well, this can't be the explanation. Let's ask other questions. It's this becomes the definition. Does that make, am I making sense? A hundred percent. Yeah. So it's like, how do we start say, okay, that's we didn't get to the bottom of it. Speaker 3 (47:57): What other questions can we be asking? And and, and to start to look at women, not just women, men too. So it's, it's like, how can we start to ask our questions a little bit differently? How can we start to and really it's to look for the, why's not, what is, why, why in the world are we finding this with all of our female athletes? Could it be the way that we've trained them to suck their stomachs in all the time, since they were 12 and 10, you know, like how could that possibly affect an entire generation of, of participants, right. Let's start looking at this, you know, so yeah. So I love her. Yeah. I mean, we brought up Eric Miura prior, so we'll throw him a little shout out here, but I wanna, I, I heard him speak at a conference. Speaker 3 (48:45): I don't even know time has no meaning now, but and one of the things he said was I, which I love was talking about with research. When you read the conclusion and research, is, is there any other explanation that could have come to that same conclusion based on what you're seeing in the light? And I thought that's so smart because sometimes I'm like, Oh, yay. My biases, my biases, whatever affirmed. And, but I, but so he was referring to that related to the research, but I think one of the things that I keep trying to think through for myself, and I think would be a really wise way for all of us as clinicians to think about it is what are other reasons why they responded to my treatment? What are other reasons that they could be experiencing this problem that has nothing to do with what I've always understood? Speaker 3 (49:28): You know what I mean? And I am sharing my bias. Like when I look at a female runner, I'm not like, Oh, that calf looks weak. I'm like, Oh, wow. Look at their central control system. Cause that's, you know, that's my lens. So I, you know, so I want to be open to understanding all of that other stuff, but I already, I already learned all that stuff. And this piece is something that isn't being considered by a lot of permissions. And so, yeah, so again, we need to start just broadening our lens and I think we're broadening it. I hope to look at females as not just little men and the problem we have wider pelvises, estrogen, and Q angles. Like there's other things happening for us that, that are not explained by those things. You know what I mean? Speaker 2 (50:13): Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. This was awesome. Now, where can people find more information about you, more information about your, you have a running a female running course, where can, yes. Where can, where can we find all of that? Speaker 3 (50:32): I am at Julie PT and I have discovered that you can misspell my name and still find me. So it's J U L I E w I E B E P t.com. And I have, I do have an online course that was recorded from alive lives online opportunity. So it does have that flair that feel, but it also has the questions, which I love. And, but I also have lots of free resources in terms of blogs, videos. I do a lot of podcasts and have a newsletter to let you know about when opportunities are coming up. Like this one and what's coming up for us this next week to be a part of the round table. But but yeah, and I'm on all the socials Speaker 2 (51:19): You're everywhere. Thank you so much. You're all over the place in a good way. Not in a bad way, in a good way. So thanks so much before we sign off, I'll ask you the same question I ask everyone, and I probably asked you at twice or three times already, but we'll ask again, you can keep giving the same answer I want growing and learning. So that's true, but that's true. Yeah. So what advice would you give to your younger self? You know, what I'm going to share? Speaker 3 (51:49): It's funny. I was just thinking about this before we got on, but, and this is something that I've learned during the pandemic and and it's from Aaron Nyquist just, but he was referring to the spiritual, but I'm going to relate it to our walkthrough. Learning is instead of thinking of learning as this linear thing that I learned this, and now I know this, so that's stupid. I learned I'm making it on my hand. No one can see me. I forgot it was on a podcast, but instead of it being linear, which is so much of what ends up happening in our rural this dichotomy, Oh, well, biomechanics is stupid pain. Science is everything like, instead of it becoming linear in our thoughts is to think include and transcend. And instead of it being a linear line that it'd be concentric circles. And I was like, Oh my gosh, if I could be a learner like that, always if I had started my thought processes that way, like, wow, that would have been important for me as a person growing, but as a clinician growing to like that, instead of it becoming these battles that we get between these dichotomous, like VMO and like Karen, you remember BIMA, well, remember BMO, but instead of these like dichotomous thought processes, let's see, what can we continue to include? Speaker 3 (53:05): And then how do we transcend it doesn't mean that what we used to think was horrible and versus stupid. It's like, how do we keep building on that in concentric circles versus this linear thought process? So, yeah, so that was, that was just on my mind today. Speaker 2 (53:19): What wonderful advice it's like, it's like a reverse, it's like a reverse funnel. Yeah. Yeah. It just keeps getting brought. Our perspectives should broaden our questions should really never be answered. Like we should never get to the end of that. Do you know what I mean? And I just, I, anyway, it was a really just as so much has changed and, and it's been a really challenging year for all of us. I thought it was a, and we're headed back to a new transcendent, normal that I hope will bring a lot of changes for all of us. You know, I just, it was, I, I think it's a really important perspective as clinicians to, so I thank you so much for sharing that and thank you for spending the time today and tomorrow. I know, and tomorrow is our round table with you and Ellie and Chris and, and Tom. Speaker 2 (54:08): And I was saying like, gosh, to have the four of you on like one stage is like, Holy crap. I can't even believe it. So thank you for that. And so everyone you can find out how to join us all by going to podcast dot healthy, wealthy, smart.com. I mentioned it in the beginning, in the intro as well. So Julie, thank you so much. I appreciate you and appreciate your, your knowledge and your insight. Well, thanks so much for having me again, Karen. I appreciate it. And everyone, thanks so much for listening. Have a great week and stay healthy, wealthy and stuff. Speaker 1 (54:38): Mark, thank you for listening. And please subscribe to the podcast at podcast dot healthy, wealthy, smart.com. And don't forget to follow us on social media.

Julie Allred received two separate islet cell transplants ten years ago. How is she doing today? Diagnosed at age 10, Julie was told she would never have children and she wouldn't live to see age 30. She’s proved her doctors wrong on both counts – her daughter was married a few years ago – but she did have a lot of trouble with unpredictable and debilitating lows in her 30s. These lows were so unpredictable and dangerous that she not only stopped driving, she barely left her house. Then she found out about a clinical trial of islet cell transplants. This interview was first aired in January 2016 Check out Stacey's book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! Sign up for our newsletter here ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android Episode transcription: Stacey Simms  0:00 This episode of Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Inside the breakthrough, a new history of science podcast full of did you know stuff.   Announcer  0:13 This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  0:19 Welcome to a classic episode of the show. As always, I'm thrilled to have you here. Glad you could join me. And these classic episodes are where we revisit terrific interviews, really great guests from the early years of this show that you might have missed the first time around. There is a new excitement right now about islet cell transplants, this thinking has been around for a while. But the problem has been that once the cells are transplanted, they're immediately attacked, you know, so the islet cell trials of the late 90s and early 2000s, didn't pan out the way that we had hoped. But new science, new technology is showing a ton of promise. And we're going to do some future episodes on what's in the works. There are at least two really big projects moving to clinical trials. I'm thrilled about this because it always seemed like it made so much sense. And this kind of stuff was around right as we were coming into the community, me and Benny and my family 14 years ago, it was kind of the tail end of when they realized that while it worked well for some, it wasn't going to be the cure type of research for many, many people that it had shown so much promise to be. But it really is important to remember that islet cell transplants worked really, really well for some people and you're going to hear from one of them today. I spoke to Julie Allred in January of 2016. More than five years ago now. She was diagnosed at age 10. And she was told she would never have children and that she would not live to see 30. She has proved her doctors wrong on both counts. Her daughter was married herself few years ago. But Julie did have a lot of trouble as she moved into her 30s with unpredictable and debilitating lows. These low blood sugars were so unpredictable and so dangerous that she not only stopped driving, she barely left her house, you'll hear her talk more about that this was not your typical low that almost everybody who uses insulin has experienced. Then she found out about an islet cell transplant clinical trial. She shares the whole story and I'll give you more of an update on how she's doing in just a moment. Spoiler alert. She's doing amazing. This episode of Diabetes Connections is supported by inside the breakthrough a new history of science podcast full of did you know stuff. The most recent show is all about unpopular science. One of the stories, it's bonkers. It's about a scientist who discovers the importance of washing your hands. The death rate at his hospital drops once he starts telling people to do this. But then they think he's insane. They discredit his theory and they lock him up and they stop washing their hands. You have to hear it. You can find inside the breakthrough wherever you found this podcast, and this podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Judy Allred had two islet cell transplants, one in 2011 and one in 2012. She is going to tell the whole story here in just a moment. But I want to give you a quick update on how she is doing now. 10 years later, she says she still uses just a few units of basil insulin a day. She does wear an omnipod but she says she uses it just for basal. She very rarely boluses. And she says the only time she goes low is if she quote makes a bad decision when bolusing for food because she's so rarely does it anymore. This really changed her life. I should also mention that I know Julie because she was our elementary school nurse. That's who I got to send a little Benny to when he was in grade school. How lucky was I? Julie Allred. Thank you so much for joining me.   Julie Allred  3:57 Thank you for having me, Stacey. I'm excited to talk with you. Yeah, I think this   Stacey Simms  4:00 is gonna be fun. It's always great to. For me, it's always interesting to learn things about people with type 1 diabetes, but it's also fun when I get to talk to to a friend. So thanks for agreeing to do this. Tell me your story. Yeah, tell me your story. You were diagnosed with type one, when you were just 10 years old, right?   Julie Allred  4:20 I was 10 years old and that was in the late 70s. So why can I tell people always that was before we had all the technology of course that we have today before we had manmade and storm. No glucometers we didn't even have Diet Coke. You know, what was that good old unsweet tea with a saccharin tablet. Those were your choice.   Stacey Simms  4:42 That's amazing to think about. How did you how did you manage diabetes before home meters.   Julie Allred  4:50 There was no homie here correct. So I use urine that we put in the test tube with some little tablet sets. He has done turn colors and it was a good gang. If you only do that, if you felt bad, there was no certain schedule to when you tested your urine. And as you're probably aware, urine sugar in your urine shows up about six hours after it shows up in your blood. So really, when you tested that urine and found out, you know, you had sugar there, it was well beyond the time that your blood sugar would have been half. And you didn't do anything about it. When you saw it there, you just made you aware, there was that insulin you took in the morning insulin, you took it bedtime. And in the middle of the day, there was nothing, there was no sliding scale, there was no carb counting. Nothing like that we ate by the exchange diet, which some people may be familiar with, and maybe not the day, but so many carbs, so many fats, and many fruits and vegetables. So all the things that everybody is familiar with now all the technology, all the things we have to keep ourselves healthier and and make things easier for non existent bands.   Stacey Simms  6:04 Now I've heard you speak and you've talked about how the doctor said you were not expected to live to 30 that you would never have children. Of course, you do have a great a daughter who I've met. But But did they really tell you that? Or was that something you were just aware of?   Julie Allred  6:20 They never told me I found that out and my 30th birthday party. Because my husband had a birthday party for me, of course, my family came my daughter was three at that time. So uh, my mom's sitting in the corner crying, you know, we're having a party, I'm like, what's wrong. And that's when I found out when she told me there, that when you were diagnosed, they shared with us that you were not expected to live to age 30. And that you definitely would not be able to have children that was just not in the cards for people who are diagnosed. And again, you know, diagnosis, disposable syringes were the new thing. So just all the technology that that has come about, exist in the time that I've been living with diabetes is amazing.   Stacey Simms  7:07 I'm just trying to have the perspective that your, your mom,   Julie Allred  7:10 your mom had? Well, I think about that. And you know, you mentioned I'm a school nurse, my school nurses, when I was a little girl that That being said, I didn't check my blood sugar at school. So mom packed my lunch, I ate that. But other than that there was not really anything, per se to do for me at school, you know, unless I complained about not feeling well, or something the teacher would call her but they're just the things that are available today. The things that we do today to manage things so closely. We're just not available Batman. So yeah, it was not a concern.   Stacey Simms  7:46 I'm just trying to think of her being told you would not live to be 30. And then being at your party, must have been an incredible ride for her. But as you got older, you began to have some real difficulties living with diabetes. I know you had a lot of episodes of low blood sugar. Tell me about that.   Julie Allred  8:05 My dad, so I did very well, I actually, you know, got a insulin pump in 1990, of course, glucometer in the early 80s. So I was kind of always trying to stay on the cutting edge with technology and have the newest latest and greatest thing to help me manage. And I did really well. I still was doing really well as far as how I had managed, not that I always did absolutely everything I should the best I should. But I had been fortunate enough to not to experience any of the complications that are a lot of times associated with type one didn't have any problems with my kidneys, I had great steel. None of those things that a lot of times people began to have problems with as they move into 30 plus years with type one. And I was 34 years with type one, the problem that I was experiencing, experiencing was those unrecognizable low blood sugars. And that started probably in 2007 or eight somewhere around there. It it became more difficult for me to know when I was having a low blood sugar, the symptoms changed. And they became less evident to me. And as time went on, they just eventually just went away. I didn't have any signs or symptoms until I was so low that I couldn't help myself. I would get to the point where I realized that I needed to do something that at that point, I couldn't do anything for myself. I had to rely on someone else. So you were in that slow traveling.   Stacey Simms  9:46 You were driving, right?   Julie Allred  9:49 I was driving. And many times I would even was married that's my daughter who was now will be 21 next week at that time she was you know in her Team so not driving yet but a couple times we'd get to a stop sign or a stoplight and she would put the car in park and take the keys away and call my husband because she knew you know that it wasn't safe. And I did have a couple episodes where I ran off the road. Fortunately for me, and others never hurt myself or anyone else. But it the discussion, the next discussion at my doctor's appointments going to be taking my driver's license away, because that was unsafe.   Stacey Simms  10:27 It's so scary to hear about.   Julie Allred  10:29 All that being said, I still had the latest and greatest, I still have the newest pilots. I had a dexcom CGM. At that point. I was doing all I needed to do. And of course, my medical team was doing all they need to do to help me. It was just that that was my complication. I guess you can put it that way. But I just was not able to feel those lows and do anything about them. And enough time to help myself.   Unknown Speaker  10:55 Is that how you get into work was   Julie Allred  10:57 not an option either. Yeah, I was working about 10 hours a week was all I could manage?   Stacey Simms  11:02 Is that how you were able to get a trial?   Julie Allred  11:05 Yes, that is how I was able to get into the trial because I laugh and tell you how to be a fairly healthy, unhealthy diabetic to qualify for the study that I participated in. That being said, you could not have any kidney issues, all those things that I talked about that I was fortunate not to have experience. But the low blood sugar. The hypoglycemic unawareness was the key to qualifying for the study I participated in. So they asked me about how many low blood sugars I thought I had in the past year, that one of my first visits, I have no idea. I was horrible. I was mad at writing down my blood sugars. But we went back and looked at at the month, at one month that had passed. And from that guesstimated that over a 365 day period, I probably had 300 I think we came up with 386. Wow. was until a by definition for them a low of anything. 54 below.   Stacey Simms  12:05 Oh my gosh.   Julie Allred  12:07 Right. Wow. How did you   Stacey Simms  12:09 feel during this time? Was this something that you were used to? Or was it did you feel lousy every day?   Julie Allred  12:17 No, I said, I felt bad. And and the left felt bad. But I didn't realize how bad I felt. A lot of it was my normal. I slept a lot. You know, when I was at home. I felt like I never slept well. And I guess I probably didn't two, between two and three a 3am was probably my worst time. That's when I would have the most severe loads. And of course, you know, everybody else is asleep, too. So that makes it even more difficult. But I just always my, my constant thought was when I could lay down if I got up to do something, it was how quick Can I get finished with it. So I can sit back down so I can lay back down. Because to me all I saw, you know, 15 minutes of laying back down, and I'll feel better. And that was just never the case.   Unknown Speaker  13:10 As   Julie Allred  13:12 I didn't do and the probably the year, year and a half before my transplants I was became pretty isolated. I didn't say that at the time. But I say that now, I just didn't go and do things. I didn't go out of the house a lot would find an excuse not to go to a party or you know not to go to dinner with somebody because I was always afraid of what was going to happen when I was there. And I of course didn't do anything by myself. Nothing. I didn't even go to the grocery store alone. Somebody was with me all the time. So that was very frustrating for me. And for my family. Of course, let's talk   Stacey Simms  13:50 about the clinical trial, you have been through two procedures right for transplanted pancreatic islet cells, the cells that produce insulin in 2011 and 2012. And I'm gonna I'm gonna walk through this, so tell me if I get this right. But this is the operation where basically they they put the islet cells into your into the liver, right, which helps. And then they take over the job of making insulin. When you went through this, did you know was it the kind of trial where and I forgive me for my ignorance? Are there people getting placebo islet cells? Or is it all everybody gets the real thing because you're going through surgery and you know,   Julie Allred  14:33 right? Everybody gets the real thing? That's correct, because these are human hours that are that are donated from organ donors just like any other organ would be donated. So they use the whole pancreas normally for a pancreas transplant. But a lot of times even when you have a donated pancreas, it can't be used because in the process of organ donation, you know, of course thanks at a higher level some things at a higher level level than others, the kidneys and pancreas work together in the body and to to isolate both of those organs. Of course, the kidneys are more useful, you have two kidneys, those can go to two separate people, all the necessary blood vessels that are needed to do those transplant go to the kidneys. First, the pancreas is next on the list. So a lot of times even though you have a pancreas that may be suitable to use, you don't have all the necessary blood vessels that go with them. So that keeps it from being available for transplant as a whole organ. So what they do is use that organ and isolate the eyelet sales from that pancreas and transplant them. And that is how I received the alpha cells I received. How, yes, that's what see those on the waiting list for a heart or, or lung or kidney or whatever, and the head has to be matched in the same way you have to go through all those all those same steps. And then check with your organ donor.   Stacey Simms  16:00 Do you then after the surgery take immunosuppressant medications?   Julie Allred  16:06 Yes. How is that because everyone that   Stacey Simms  16:09 I'm sorry, Julie, everyone that I've heard talking about this, they always say, Well, that sounds great. But the drugs you have to take to prevent rejection are so harsh. How is your life since then?   Julie Allred  16:21 Well, it took a little bit in the beginning to get all those things regulated. And and I'm not saying it was easy. But it was a lot easier than what I had been going through. So taking those five or six pills a day seemed like nothing to me, compared to the life I had been living compared to the to a low blood sugars to not being able to work, all those things that have, you know, had gone on before. I did have a little problem with Jia upset in the beginning. But again, it's just getting all their things regulated, you know, for each individual. And that happens with anybody with a transplant. And once that happens, I did not experience any terrible side effects. I still take those medications on two times a day on a daily basis. And they're just part of just part of my life. Now, a lot of people say, Oh, you have to take pills now. I do. But all those other things that were issues or are not issues anymore. And I guess it depends on how you look at it. And it was a wonderful trade off for me. I would do it 100 million times over again, all the all the bad parts, the good parts, were just a million times better. Well, here we are five years ago, there were issues right here we are almost five years later. And when I been here, kind of not participated in that study, I would say I would not be unfortunately. And I am I have a driver's license, I work a full time job I volunteer I'm engaged in, in the life of my child and able to participate and do things that I have always wanted to do. But always felt a little bit hesitant to do and especially in this, you know, four to five years prior to the transplants that I just didn't allow myself to do those things. So people say well, you have a normal life, not really life like I've ever known. That's a good point.   Stacey Simms  18:21 Tell me about what you do for diabetes because I remember reading that initially at least after the surgery you still worn insulin pump Do you still check your blood sugar? What do you do now? Do you consider yourself cured?   Julie Allred  18:34 If you can't say cure technically and no I'm not because I did were the insulin pump after the first transplant because even though those eyelets were working, I didn't get the equivalent number of hours to what you know a normal person would have. So I continue where my insulin pump I went from taking 75 units and on a day to 11 units between that first and second transplant and then after the second transplant I was insulin free for 96 days completely insulin free. Again I had a little issue with some of the medications and of course the major side effect to those medications or damage to your kidneys and or pancreas. So they did damage I had some toxicity to one of the medications and they believe they damage the islets a little bit. So I started back on insulin and June after the second transplant unsavoury of 2012. And I've taken a small amount of insulin at bedtime since then,   Stacey Simms  19:39 but that's it. You're not wearing an insulin pump currently.   Julie Allred  19:41 I'm not wearing it and so on top. I do not have low blood sugars. I do not have high blood sugars. Do I eat whatever I want. Not whatever I won't I just don't think that's in me. I mean, there's still that there's still always that After in the bathroom, I'm always thinking about what I'm eating, how many cards bed what you know, what would that do? What is it going to do now? Because that's part of being in the study? Is there not a lot of answers what to expect in the future? That's part of participating in the study is, we will let them know what to expect in the future just by following us. And there were 273 participants in the study that I've participated in. So we're part of what's going to happen in the future. They're getting all that information from us. So yes, they still follow me. Yes, I still check my blood sugars and provide them with that data.   Stacey Simms  20:36 But would you mind if I asked him, please don't answer if it's too personal. What is your typical blood sugar?   Julie Allred  20:42 And my last day once he was 6.20? Wow. Yeah, right there. Again, right on the edge. Technically, if you look at the textbook standard, Dima non diabetic, maybe not. But I'm a million times better than I've ever been absolutely. Great.   Stacey Simms  21:00 Before we leave this part behind, because I definitely want to talk about the school nurse component. Tell me about the   Unknown Speaker  21:09 visit the rosebowl   Unknown Speaker  21:11 talk, tell me about right.   Stacey Simms  21:12 Yeah, the Rose Parade. Tell me about the Donate Life. Rose Parade, the float that you were in for Donate Life.   Julie Allred  21:19 Right. So in 2000, January 2014, I was the first islet cell recipient to add on the Donate Life float in the Tournament of Roses Parade. And so I ratters on that. Riders on that float are all transplant recipients, and all the float as well, or floor graphs or pictures of donors that are honored on the float. And then there are also people who walk around the float and those people are living donors. So they've all usually donated kidney. And Donate Life has had a float in the rows pray for I believe this was the 12th or 13th year. So I was sponsored by Emory Transplant Center to go and represent Emory transplant and outsell recipients on the donate lifeflight. What was that? That was amazing. Very, that was an amazing experience. So you know, I've always watched the Rose Parade on TV and think how fabulous that is and and realize it Yeah, that's a big deal. That's a big parade. But I had no idea until I went participated in the whole event. And we were there for six days, you know, a few days leading up to the price. So I was honored to be able to help decorate the float place all those, you know, some of those roses on that float. So the donatelife float, the bottom of the float is always decorated with resins that are dedicated either in honor of memory or memory of someone. So they all have a personal tag with a handwritten note. And so I was honored to be able to place those verses on the float. And the rule is that you read every note on every rose before you put it on the float. So that was that was really a special experience for me, David, my husband got to go with me and help. As we decorated, we spent three days helping decorate the float. And then of course, I read it on the slide on New Year's Day. But again, a tremendous once in a lifetime experience to meet so many wonderful people from all over the country and other parts of the world as well. transplant recipients, donor families and those special living donors. Wow,   Stacey Simms  23:28 that's an incredible experience. I was so exciting to see you part of that. So Julie, we've known each other for few years, because of the local jdrf chapter, you've done so much work with them. And, you know, I was on the board for a while there and we've kind of circled around each other. But then a couple of years ago, you became our school nurse. And so I have to put a caveat out there as we begin this conversation, I promise I'm not going to ask you anything specific. I understand the HIPAA laws and I understand the constraints you may be in. Because you know people may know what school you work at. But I just thought it would be a great opportunity. Because I talked to a lot of parents who have difficulty dealing with their school, the school nurse or the school principal, or teachers don't seem to understand the needs of kids with type 1 diabetes, they they may insist that the kid go to the nurse for every single thing. They may be frightened of the kid. And I was just curious if you could share some advice. I know you and I have such a wonderful relationship and we never give you any trouble and our child is an angel so we'd have to go down that road.   Julie Allred  24:34 But they all of course,   Stacey Simms  24:36 what but you know, it's interesting before, I should point out, we have four kids at our school with type 1 diabetes, all of whom manage very differently. It was very different, right? Not even in terms of the technology because there's different pumps. One child has been on MDI until very recently, transitioning from injections, but every parent is so different. And it's been a lovely experience because the school has Never said to any of us, you need to do it this way. What's your advice for parents, though, for working with this, right?   Julie Allred  25:06 The biggest piece of advice I can give to parents is to meet with your teacher and meet with your school nurse. I guess I'm sort of at an unfair advantage when it comes to managing my children and helping them manage at school and the relationship I can have with them, because I've lived with type 1 diabetes, and that that does give me a very different perspective. As you know, and as most of the parents know, the understanding that the the general population has a type one is sometimes a huge misconception. And, and to help them understand the communication between between the parent, the teacher and the school nurse is the key. They have to be able to understand and you are the person to help them understand your child. The other part is that every child is different. And I think that's hard. Sometimes for teachers, especially a little bit hard for the nurses as well, because there is no black and white with type one. Every child is different, every day is different. Sometimes every minute is different. And you just have to be able to go with the flow a lot of times and so there's not all you can't always answer every question for them and give them give them an example of everything that might happen. You know, in a school day, it's all about communicating again, with a parent, the teacher, thing about that school nurse as a teacher communicating with the child. Like your son, a lot of these children are diagnosed at a very early age. And even sometimes by the time they get to kindergarten, they've been doing this a while. Yeah, they know a lot about type one. They know a lot about how domains things themselves. And sometimes that's hard for people to understand that a kindergartener really can't check their own blood sugar, they really do understand, you know, how this technology works, that these kids do. So having that relationship with the child, for the school nurse to have that relationship and the teacher, to have that relationship with the child and keeping the lines of communication open, I think is the most important thing. Again, because they all managed differently. Nobody way is right or wrong, nobody has better than another's. It's all based on that that particular individual child and what works best for them.   Unknown Speaker  27:35 What I love about you, and if you   Julie Allred  27:37 can continue what you do at home, if you can continue that at school, it just makes it so much easier for everybody, for the parents and for the children. And the teachers, I think and the nurses say eventually that it makes it easier for them as well.   Stacey Simms  27:50 Oh, yeah, you don't want to change management, I was just gonna say, what makes me laugh. And what I love about you, too, is you do know this so well, that, you know, My son has gone through times where he's been, oh, my diabetes, or he'll give somebody that puppy dog eyes. Oh, and you don't get into any of that. It's great. You're just like, Look, I know what you're doing. I know where I've been, you know, go back to class or, you know, we'll deal with it or whatever. And I think that that perspective is so valuable and wonderful, they really appreciate that. But if if a parent is, really, I think a lot of this comes from fear. That there there may be, as you said, misconceptions, and I see a lot of parents, especially online, who will write things and they're just on Facebook, they don't really mean it, I think half the time, like I'm going to go to school, you know, I'm going in swinging, or I'm really upset, and I'm going to give them a piece of my mind. Can you speak to that for just a moment, just in terms of, you know, trying to, I always tell people, you know, approach as a team, even if you hate these people, they got your kid for eight hours a day.   Julie Allred  28:52 Right? They do. And I can say, not as a parent of a child with type one. But as, as a type one who works with these children that have type one and, and I know, I feel like where they're coming from a little bit better, maybe then not better than a parent does. But in a different way than a parent. I get it that it's hard to trust someone the first time that you send them out of your sight. To know that they're going to be taken care of like you take care of them at home. So again, approaching it like you said, as a team, sit down with everybody don't have the separate meeting with the teacher and the nurse, everybody meet together so that you're all hearing the same thing at one time you come up with a plan that works for everybody, because a lot of times nurses not aware of every the schedule in every classroom, and a lot of times everybody in the second grade does things pretty much the same, but a lot of times they don't So again, it's knowing all the specifics of what goes on even hour to hour during the day and how we can best manage that during the day. And then what do we do? If there's a problem? You know, who's responding, who's gonna call Who? And then even comes down to sometimes, you know, does the nurse needs to call the parent? Or does the teacher need to call the parents? And just coming up with the sample the answers to questions like that, but don't get you bogged down during the day, when there's so many other things going on. Meaning as a team, listening, what the child has to say to is very important, because they're the one living in that environment. They know what they're comfortable with. They know how comfortable the teacher how comfortable they are with the teacher, how comfortable they are with the nurse, how long does it take them to get to the nurse? If they're not in their classrooms, if they're in another area of the building? You know, how long does it take to get there? What should we do then involve the child because again, these kids are smart. Most of them are very independent. And they have a lot of good ideas and information that I think we need to consider and take into, you know, taking into consideration when we're making the plan for the for the school day. It's great advice. A lot of it is to I think people are very intimidated by the fact you know, especially a new teacher, maybe who's never dealt with this. Again, sharing with him and showing them bringing the child before school starts if you can, if they're newly diagnosed tremor day or two before they're going to be there a whole day, and let them see the child checking their own blood sugar, administering their own insulin, using their insulin pump, that they really are independent. A lot of times when they do they need a second set of eyes. Do they need adult supervision? Yes, they do. But many times, that's just what it is supervision, double checking. These kids know what to do. Yeah, that's   Stacey Simms  31:59 a great point. We've done that with a lot of teachers. And once they realize that they're that they're not going to become a nurse or doctor while they're to die. That really assuages a lot of fear.   Unknown Speaker  32:09 So Julie, what's next for you? Does   Stacey Simms  32:11 this those trials continue indefinitely? Do you go back for periodic checkups? Are you scheduled for more surgery if I can be super nosy and ask   Julie Allred  32:20 right now, just yearly checkup? am considering another transplant that's kind of out there on the horizon? It may be a little while. And then there are all those things like encapsulated owlets that are going on right now. So there will be another adventure for me, let me just say that I'm just not sure what it is yet. But in the meantime, I'm happy to be working in school to be sharing my experience with these kids. And people say you know, you've had such success. Yes, I have. Has it changed my life? Absolutely. It has has it changed the life of my family? Yes. But it's also changed the lives of other people. I said, this goes way beyond me. Hopefully it's changed, eventually will change your life safety and the lives of all the kids and all these parents and they're dealing with this on a daily basis. And whatever they learn from me, whatever successes I have, whatever mistakes that we've experienced, we learn from it all. And so the hope is that down the road, we're all going to have the experience of living those days without type 1 diabetes. That's that's just what I'm looking forward to.   Stacey Simms  33:38 You know, I love doing this podcast, but it is hard to be a news interviewer when I'm trying not to cry. I tell you, Julie, when you talk about this, I don't know if it'll be this type of transplant, or it'll be encapsulation. But I know that the information that comes from people like yourself, who who sacrificed I know, you say it's good that you did it. It's wonderful. But you've sacrificed a lot to to get to this point. I know that information will help people and thank you so much for doing that.   Julie Allred  34:09 Absolutely, I would I would do it a million times again. Julie, thank   Stacey Simms  34:13 you for talking to me for sharing your story for making me cry. That wasn't fair. I really appreciate you joining me today.   Julie Allred  34:21 Absolutely appreciate you speaking with me and appreciate our friendship, and all that you do for the tight bond community. I mean, you are the go to person in this area. And we love hearing you and we we truly appreciate all the information that you get out to us, sometimes on a minute to minute basis. It's really it's valuable information. And if people ask me again, why I'm still you know, involved because it's, it's part of who I am. I want the best, not only for myself, but for all of you as well. And it's just it takes it takes the whole community to support each other and we need to continue that support and we thank key for all you do to provide support to the type one community.   Stacey Simms  35:03 I'm leaving it there because I'm gonna start bawling.   Unknown Speaker  35:10 You're listening to Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  35:16 I'm gonna link up some stories that were done on Julie in the past and some information on clinical trials and islet cell transplantation. I'll put that on the show notes at Diabetes connections.com. And the episode homepage as always has a transcription, I do have to share one embarrassing story. It's embarrassing for me. I remember hearing Julie speak for the very first time Vinnie was not yet in elementary school, so and she was not even at that school yet as a school nurse. But I heard her speak at a jdrf event. And I'm embarrassed because I kind of didn't believe her. I was in a moment of time. And I don't know how you reacted when your child was diagnosed, or when you had your own diagnosis. I did not want to hear about cure, I was very cynical, I was closing my heart to those things. I just didn't want to hear it. I just wanted to get through the next couple of years of learning how to do this and keeping him healthy. And that was just my reaction. And when she spoke about islet cell transplantation, I was not in the right place to hear the message, as some people might say, and I talked to her afterward, I don't think she even knows this. And I was just kind of politely nodding. And people were saying, you know, oh, you should talk to her for your blog, because I was blogging at that time. And, you know, it was on the local radio. So you talk to Julia, what a cool story in my head, I'm going well, I'm not gonna do this. This is false hope this is good for anybody. And this is going to work. You know, I think I was just in the wrong state of mind. And so I'm glad I spoke to her. I'm glad I learned more about her story. And that, of course, when I started the podcast, she was one of my first guests very excited about the future of islet cell transplantation. Sure what she went through is not a cure, and it didn't work for everybody. But you can hear how much her life changed. Absolutely amazing. I'm thrilled. Think about all the stuff that they learned from it. Just great. Okay, coming up next week, I'm talking to the people from Pro vention. I say it very clearly, it's not prevention, it's prevention. This is the company behind to please him up, which I say as clearly as I can. That is the drug that is showing such promise of delaying the onset of type 1 diabetes. It is in front of the FDA right now. We'll be explaining the whole thing. But the great folks from prevention. By the way, the gentleman who works there that I'm talking to is not only a pediatric endocrinologist, he is a diabetes camp guy. He's the director of a big diabetes camp. And so he gets it and he gets emotional just like the rest of us. I really enjoyed talking to him. That's next week. Thank you so much to my editor john bukenas from audio editing solutions. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Stacey Simms. I'll see you back here next week. Until then, be kind to yourself.   Benny  37:46 Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacey Simms Media. All rights reserved. All wrongs avenged

Julie Wald is the founder, CEO and Chief Wellness Officer at Namaste New York, a wellness company that serves a vast and influential clientele of high-performing business leaders and celebrities in achieving their health goals. Join us as we unearth the steps necessary to achieve a more balanced life and gain "inner wealth."  EPISODE 07 [EPISODE] [00:00:21] BA: Well, welcome to a conversation on Colloquium. Thank you for joining us. Today I’ve got Julie Wald. It's a real treat for me, one, because her book is phenomenal. And we're going to talk a lot about it. But two, she is one of my best friends and Nashville sister. So it's always kind of fun when you can combine business and friendship in one. So, Julie, thank you for joining us. [00:00:41] JW: Thank you so much for having me. [00:00:43] BA: I’m going to give a brief rundown on Julie. Then we're going to go right into it. So Julie is a wellness practitioner for over 25 years. She is the founder, CEO and Chief Wellness Officer at Namaste New York. She has a bachelor's degree in social work from NYU. She began her career in 1995 as a clinical social worker treating adults, children and adolescents and inpatient-outpatient mental health settings. And in the process of building her mental health practice, she also pursued her personal wellness objectives, and in so doing became a certified yoga instructor along with a lot of other things. And the master of these disciplines has combined with an intense fascination for eastern wisdom and proven to be invaluable assets to professional path.  So that's a lot what. I really want to get into is when I was reading your book, and I’m a 38-year-old white guy who's in finance, and pre-COVID was grinding a lot, traveling, getting up early, trying to cram in as much as I possibly could in the day. I’ve got two little kids, a wife who works. The biggest thing that struck me right off the bat was talking about how abundance does not necessarily equate with success or wellness. And the realization and the self-reflection by me that even though I have really nice things, I live in a nice house, I belong to a nice country club, we don't really have any needs or wants. I often find myself thinking that all of these material things that I have or these memberships that I have, they don't really bring me much joy or happiness. And I don't spend a lot of time reflecting on that because it makes me sad. But I do think it's a conversation that for people who are in that 35 to 55 year old demographic, it's a conversation that we should be having. I think it's important. So maybe if you could expound on that a little bit, that concept and how you fleshed it out with some of your clients and people in your network. [00:02:43] JW: Absolutely. So it's really, really interesting, because back when we started our business, and this was back kind of in the early 2000s. Officially we started in 2003. I really ended up in living rooms, in offices with some of the highest performers, most incredibly brilliant and wonderful people in the world quite frankly. And one of the things that became really, really clear to me after sort of doing this work for a number of years is that again and again people would come and say, “I’ve achieved X, Y and Z. I’ve met my financial goals. I’ve exceeded my financial goals. I’ve gained all the letters and the titles that I want after my name.” All of these resume items that check the box and say, “But somehow I’m just not feeling as good as I thought I would feel.”  And this often time came particularly after sort of a hyper focus on that external achievement or external wealth for a period of time, which in many ways was the greatest strength of these people, this intense focus, this intense commitment, this intense drive, this intense intelligence. All of those things are huge strengths, but it was those exact same things

Julie Zhuo is the bestselling author of The Making of a Manager: What to do When Everyone Looks to You. She was also the first intern at Facebook when they had 100 employees and were just starting out as a company. She worked there for a total of 14 years and during her time there she became a manager and then ultimately the VP of Product Design.  Actually, it was because of her experience at Facebook and first becoming a manager very early on in her career that caused her to write her book. Her internship at Facebook was something she did while in college and then right after she graduated she took a full time job with the company. When she was asked to become a manager at the age of 25, she had had no prior training or management experience and she wasn’t exactly sure what she was supposed to do. But as the culture at Facebook was at that time, as a startup, employees all had to try new things and say yes to some things that took them out of their comfort zone. So Julie said yes to the position. Then she went to a bookstore to read up on the skills that managers need, how to lead people more experienced than she was, how to delegate, etc… But what she found was books directed at CEOs and senior level executives on very advanced concepts, when what she needed was the basics to start out with like how to lead a one on one meeting and how to motivate employees. So she wrote her own book on the subject later on in her career to help others in similar situations. The definition of a manager Julie shares that when she first started out as a manager she didn’t have a very clear definition of what a manager was. The only thing she had was a general idea of what her past managers and bosses had done in the past, which was mostly give feedback and tell her if she would be promoted or if there was something she could do better. And that is the picture she had in her mind for years until she became a leader herself and learned over the years that a manager shouldn’t just be a series of actions, but they should be someone who is focused on getting results from a group of people and doing whatever necessary to help them succeed.    Julie also believes there is a difference between a leader and a manager. She says, “Sometimes people use them interchangeably, but to me, they're quite different. To me, leadership is a quality or a trait. And I think all of us are, you know, can be leaders in certain contexts or can exhibit leadership traits. Being a leader just means that you are somebody that other people will listen to, and will follow. And you have that ability to influence and help organize a group of people towards doing something together. I think of a manager as a specific role, like it's a specific job function with a set of responsibilities and the major responsibility of a manager is you are trying to get a group of people to work together and to achieve some certain outcome, right? There's a reason why teams are formed. There's a reason why companies are formed, they're trying to aspire to, hit their mission or they're trying to hit a business goal or they're trying to do this and that and your job as a manager is to help this group of people hit that goal.” The word manager is descriptive of the role inside of the company, whereas leadership refers to qualities and traits people can have. Anyone can learn leadership qualities, but not everyone who has leadership qualities should necessarily be a manager. Everyone who is a manager should definitely have leadership qualities, though.  Common mistakes that new managers make Over her career Julie has not only experienced being a first time manager, but she has witnessed others experience it for the first time as well. And there are certain mistakes and pitfalls that a majority of managers make when first starting out.  The first one is feeling that as a manager you have to have all the answers. A lot of people have this feeling that if they are unsure about something, it’s a signal that they are not cut out for the role of a manager. But that’s not true. As Julie shares, as a manager you are going to feel uncomfortable or unprepared at times, and that’s okay. You are having those feelings because you are managing for the first time, things are new. A lot of the confidence and know-how will come with time and practice. Every manager goes through this when they first start out.  And even as you get experience, those feelings may be there when you have to address something new later on in your career, the difference is you will be better equipped to deal with new situations as you progress and you will develop the tools you need to deal with uncertainty.  The second mistake that new managers make is feeling like they need to know how to do the roles of their employees as well or better than they do. For example, when Julie moved to the manager role she realized she had to lead a team of designers who were more skilled at designing than she was. Because of that she felt like she had nothing to contribute and she felt inadequate at her job. But now she realizes that was incorrect.  Your job as a manager is not to be the best at the roles of your employees. If you are very skilled in one specific area, then maybe you should be in that role as an individual contributor. But as a manager it actually benefits you to have a group of people who are more talented than you are. Your job is to elevate those talents so that everyone on the team can be working at their best.  The third pitfall that new managers can encounter is a feeling of superiority, or getting a big head from a promotion. Julie says that at Facebook they had a way of making sure that didn’t happen. When people moved to a role of management it wasn’t called a promotion. Instead they used the word transition, to recognize that management was on a parallel path with any other role. Because there are multiple ways to move up in your career. Just because you don’t become a manager doesn’t mean you haven’t improved and succeeded. It’s just a different path.  How to overcome imposter syndrome Most of us have experienced imposter syndrome at some point, the feeling that happens when you don’t believe you are equipped to do something you are doing. When you doubt your ability and feel inadequate. Julie says she definitely felt this when she first became a manager and, in fact, she has felt it at times throughout her career even after gaining experience.  So how can we overcome imposter syndrome? Julie shares the following tips:  Recognize that you can ask for help. Don’t be afraid to reach out to people who have more experience in the area you feel doubt in. Learn from their expertise.  Don’t be afraid to admit that you are nervous or that you don’t know something. Everyone goes through this at times, and it doesn’t mean you’re an idiot. It means you’re human.  Turn to things that bring you energy and peace in those moments of anxiety and doubt. Go for a run, meditate, go out and see some friends, spend some time doing a hobby you enjoy, etc..This will help build your confidence back up before facing the issue head on.  The biggest difference between an average manager and a great manager Whether you are a brand new manager or you have been managing for 20+ years, there are certain traits and qualities that make a great manager stand out from average managers. First of all, Julie says great managers are able to get great outcomes from their teams over and over.  But there are three other things that Julie uses to judge if someone is a great manager. They are people, process, and purpose. The first is, how does the individual deal with people? How do they nurture their talent. Do they play to people’s strengths and are they making sure that they have the right people on the right problems. Great managers need to know how to let their people shine and excel.  The second thing that a great manager has is the ability to figure out the processes. That is how people work together in the context of a team. And the third thing is a manager has to know how to convey a company’s purpose to employees. Because as Julie says, you can have the best talent, but if they don’t know what they are working towards, you are not going to get their best work.  Your people need to know what they should be aspiring towards, what you are trying to achieve together, what success looks like for them as a team, etc... The first year of a manager Julie walked us through the first year of a manager in increments of the first day, the first week, the first month, and then the first year to help us to understand her recommendations for people just starting out in that role.  First, on day one of being a manager you should talk with your manager and make sure you understand what success looks like for your role. Have them help you plot out benchmarks that you should be hitting throughout your first year as a manager. It is critical that you know on day one what you're expected to do. Knowing the expectations ahead of time ensures you will do a great job versus a mediocre job.  For the first week in that new role, Julie suggests you focus on listening to your people. You need to get started on developing trust relationships with the people on your team. Talk to every single person on your team, get to know them as an individual. What are their hopes and dreams? Where do they want to go in their career? What do they think about the team? Do they have problems or friction with anyone on the team? What could the team do better?  This not only helps you to get to know people, but it helps employees feel like they have contributed, they feel like they have a bit of ownership in the team.  Moving on to month one, this should be an extension of what you are doing in week one. You have to continue to invest in the relationships with your people. By the end of month one you should have a good sense of how the team operates. Julie says that before you change anything, it is important to know what the situation is now, to begin with. Don’t just try to change things up as soon as you move into the role. Really, it’s going to be 3-6 months before you get a great sense of the people and the business.  At the end of year one what you should be looking for is, as a team, have we set clear goals? And of the goals you have set as a team, are you starting to see the fruits of those goals? You should be asking for constant feedback from day one, so that you know what is working and what needs to be adjusted. You should get feedback from your manager, your peers, and members of your team. You should also sit down with your manager at the end of the year and see if the expectations that were laid out were fulfilled. If not, figure out together what needs to be adjusted to do better in the next year.

Covid Created Customers With Julie Bannister Josh: All right. Everyone out there in podcast land, I've got a cool guest for us today. We've got Julie Bannister from BforB, and she's been doing some special stuff with businesses for a number of years and several different flavours, and overall, she helps businesses grow and thrive. And who wouldn't want to grow and thrive at a time like now? So Julie, tell me, how would you say we could best take advantage of the current pandemic? Learn more about Covid created customers at dorksdelivered.com.au Julie Bannister: Hi Josh. Well thank you and thank you for having me on the podcast today. I think obviously we all are online because we cannot meet face to face and that was the whole part of our business. It was face to face business networking. So we had to pivot. I think that's a trendy word just at the moment. Josh: Isn't it? Julie Bannister: It is. I feel a little bit bad saying it, but we have had to change and we've had to go online. So that is our only option. That's everyone's option is to be online and really to support each other. But I think we all have to realise that it's not the end, it's not that we won't come out the other side of this pandemic, and it's not that we can't also grow in this time. Julie Bannister: So I think that is one thing that we really need to be aware of and for everybody to be aware of, and for us to think of ways that we can, and I've seen many of our members of BforB, and other business people just looking at how they can maybe take things online and sell their product online or doing other things so that they can stay afloat in this time and then come out the other side and thrive. Julie Bannister: So we've got lots of things that we're doing. That's one thing that I think we all need to be looking at, at this present point of time. Josh: Absolutely. Changing around the way that you do business is incredibly important and making sure that you're ready for the boom. And I think this is for some businesses, has come as a complete shock, to other businesses, they've seen this as a bit of a kick in the butt to start doing things a little bit differently. And it's all about just making sure that you're ready. And there's just been a breakneck speed that we've seen people do some of these changes. Josh: I guess what you're saying and I'll bring it to an analogy I'm very fond of which is comparing success to a Chinese bamboo tree. So the Chinese bamboo tree you can plant and for the first five years, it grows only very, very small amounts. And then on the fifth year, in six weeks, it grows 80 feet. Julie Bannister: Oh my goodness! Josh: I know. Julie Bannister: We've got bamboo in our backyard and it's been there for about four years. Josh: And using what you said as an analogy, I think all of us have some bamboo in their own backyard and one way or another. Julie Bannister: Yes. Josh: It's about working that out now and harvesting that and planting the seeds now because people right now isn't the time to bury your head in the sand. It's the time to be building relationships and helping people out and making sure that when things come good, you already have that groundwork done. You already know who you know, like and trust and you've already built those relationships up. Josh: So that you can then move forward and move onwards and upwards. Julie Bannister: Definitely. Josh: So anyone that's looking to start a business, this is the most ideal time. And I can say that with a lot of confidence, knowing that Dorks Delivered would start in 2007 as a bit of a side hustle, another one of those words that everyone overuses. Josh: And it was 2009 that we had the, I guess, mini-recession in Australia and the global financial crisis. And that was our time that we absolutely boomed. I gave up my day job, turned that into my full-time gig and I've never looked back. Julie Bannister: Wow. I didn't know that Josh. I've talked to you a lot, but I didn't know that. Yes, interesting. Josh: Yeah, and I think this is the best time that people should be growing businesses. People shouldn't be closing and they should be pivoting them wherever they can and making sure they're taking advantage of the huge amounts of time that people have available. Julie Bannister: Yes, definitely. Josh: So an example I'll use, my podcast has been running now for a bit of time and the YouTube channel has been running for a bit of time. Josh: We have over 100 videos in the YouTube channel published, I think about 120 podcasts and about 180 recorded. But I was only looking this morning at the dashboard for where we're sitting. So the podcast, just looking at it right now, the podcast, the difference in traffic between February and March increased to 30% more listeners. Julie Bannister: Wow. Josh: If we have a look at the YouTube channel, it's increased. The watch time has gone up by 47%. Julie Bannister: That is amazing. Josh: 47% for the month, just ridiculous. And the view count's gone up by 10% and so I think what we can take home from that is, going up by 10% means that I've got 10% more viewers or customers, but the current customers having watched 47% more of my content has shown that they have enjoyed what we're doing, but they just haven't had the time to look at it in the past. Josh: That's where you've got people with more time and what you guys are offering, which I'd love to make sure everyone else knows a bit more about that, but what you guys are offering is going to mean that they can build those relationships with that available time. If they have available time to watch my stupid videos, they definitely have available time to build relationships. Julie Bannister: I must say that videos, very entertaining. They're not stupid, they're entertaining. Sometimes I'm not quite sure why you said that, and why you say some things, but they are definitely very entertaining. Josh: I'm going to say something I'd normally never say, but I was told many years ago, you can have something that's boring. You can have a boring topic or something that people don't give a crap about and someone said, "They can give a crap about, you just have to roll it in glitter." And I'm like, "Okay, no worries." Josh: So you take a boring subject like IT and stuff like that, and you roll it in glitter and that's what the YouTube channel and podcast is all about. Julie Bannister: That's what you definitely do. Josh: That's right. So you've been running something called BforB in one form or another for quite a while and BforB connects people together and builds those relationships up. Julie Bannister: Yes. Josh: So tell me about what you're doing now for people that are looking to grow their business. Julie Bannister: Yes. Okay. So just to go back a step, you mentioned when you were talking Josh, that building the relationships and that's the core essence of networking and business because you need to build those relationships to actually get, as everybody says, the know, like and trust, so that people will want to do business with you. Julie Bannister: And that's what we do in networking. So now that we can't meet face to face, what we're doing is, we've gone online and obviously, the meetings are free to join in, and we're actually launching in a number of different areas. So we're launching in regional Queensland, we're launching in New South Wales in Sydney, and building extra groups near where we are here in Brisbane and Adelaide, and the Gold Coast. Julie Bannister: So allowing people to join in, in the already established network with our formatted meeting structure, it's formatted and it's professional, but it's friendly and casual if you can have that all in one. And you've attended some Josh and you understand that that's what it is. We like people to have fun when they're there. So currently, we're allowing people to take advantage of that and we're offering free membership, well we're saying three months at the moment, but that may have to be extended. Julie Bannister: We're saying the hopeful, three months, this nightmare, we'll be out of this nightmare and we'll be back to life. But that may need to be extended. So that free membership will be extended for however long we're in this situation and allowing people to join in with our network. And we have some larger meetings where all of the members all over Australia connects. Julie Bannister: So that would be people's opportunity to connect with everyone. But it's allowing people to build the relationships now and when we've got the time, as you mentioned, then when we come out of this, those relationships will still be there. And from that, hopefully, referral business can start happening for many, many people. Wonderful, I'm just so excited about it. Julie Bannister: I was sharing with my coach the other day and we got so excited about what we can do for businesses at the moment. And as you mentioned, Josh, people who are not even in business, it's a great time for people to start thinking about that. Josh: Absolutely. We've got an abundance of time. Julie Bannister: Yes, yes. Everybody's got a lot of time. And there's such an opportunity for everyone in this situation and this is the way that we feel that we can help people, help our current members as well because they get connected with other people and we're all hurting at the moment in one way or another. We're all coping in one way or another and all differently. But this is, I believe, a great opportunity for people to be building those relationships now for the future. Josh: Fully agree, as you've pointed out in different words, but your network is your net worth. Julie Bannister: Yes, definitely. Josh: And creating a good network and talking to people right now is the best thing you can do. Those without a voice, won't be heard. And if you're going to just sit there in your sorrows, it's not going to build your business or your mindset, or grow yourself personally. So jumping into a group, as you've very, very generously pushed a free reason. There's no reason, there's nothing to lose, if they just want to spend a bit of time building up their relationships with people now. Josh: When everyone comes back, as I was saying with the bamboo tree, as soon as everyone kicks back into gear, things will be striving through and thriving for them and their business. So it's sensible to set the groundwork now. Sow the seeds, put them in the ground, even if it's not five years, if it's five months that we're in this a pandemic for, it would mean that in five months' time you've hit the gas pedal and you're absolutely cracking out goals. So we'll make sure to put a link towards that because I think that's very, very important and that people do jump onto that. Julie Bannister: There's one thing else that you touched on is that, some of us, and I know even in the last couple of weeks, I've wanted to put my head in the sand or go back to bed and put the pillow over my head and forget that anybody even exists. Josh: I had a talk to my mate, Jack Daniels. We're sweet. We were pretty close. Julie Bannister: My challenge is that if I get too stressed, alcohol doesn't do me good at all. So that's not my answer. But I think we have to not be tough on ourselves because realising that some moments in the day will feel a bit like that and other moments will feel, no, I can do this. So we really do need to acknowledge that and get connected with people so that we can all pull each other through all of this and not be too hard on ourselves, I believe. Josh: Absolutely. Being able to sit down and just, if you want to do it with me right now, Julie, I think it'd be good. Just take a deep breath, and take a breathe in, and breathe out. And then just know, and recollect yourself, and recollect your thoughts and your position. Feel comfortable about where you've come from and this is something that I always try reflecting on every three months, every year, every five years, I go back and look at each of the different business plans that I've made either from the start of the year and go, okay, what have I achieved? Josh: What have I been able to achieve? What have I been able to climb out of? What's been the driving motivator and those things and go, I can do lots. I can't believe how much I've done and be excited about those things and then go, okay, how can I, in a time like now where people are thinking we don't have the resources to do things, we don't have the ability to go and see people. Josh: It's a time where you just need to pivot your mindset and think about how resourceful we have the world at the moment. Being able to do things such as Zoom. We have the ozone layer that's clearing itself up at the moment. We have a huge amount of benefits that are coming from this. Now there's going to be a whole bunch of fallout from that as well and what the world looked like when we went in is not going to be what it looks like when we come back out. Josh: But knowing that you're still here fighting the fight and you have a game plan and way to position your business, it gives you something to drive towards and thrive towards. Like your kids at Christmas time when you tell them to be good and then say Santa's coming. Like, "Oh, I'll be good then." You just got to have something to work towards and know that you can create that sparkle in your eye and your family's. Julie Bannister: Yes. I think the gem in that is, or the key point in that is being connected with other people, whether it's your family, but I think business people, we are a little bit different and we can't always talk to our family members about the challenges or the stress that we're feeling in business. So being connected with business people, is really important in any way you at the moment, I think. Yes. Josh: Absolutely. You're exactly right Julie, and we need to have people being connected with their businesses and what they're doing and also understand that your business and your personal life are two separate things and building relationships in business can help you out personally as well as in business. That's very, very important to make sure you differentiate the health of your business and the health of yourself. Josh: I paused everything to do with Dorks Delivered and I paused it for three days as I went through the personal approach and game plan as to what we would be doing and how we'd be making sure we're okay personally. And then once I was confident with the results, I then started looking at the vehicle that brings us the success that we've got in our lives. Julie Bannister: That's very interesting. I didn't know that. That's another point I didn't know, but I also didn't even think of doing that. So that's a very good point Josh. Josh: Well I think it's knowing that your family is going to be healthy. I'm a bit of a forward thinker and I'll plan for the worst and hope for the best and that's what everyone should do. Nothing out of the ordinary. I didn't go do some bulk buying or anything like that. I don't have a room full of toilet paper. Julie Bannister: I hope you've got enough though. Josh: I've got a mango tree at the back. Julie Bannister: Ooh. Josh: But yeah, just the normal amount that fits under our sink and that we'd normally buy and just knowing that we've got our water bottles filled up. I've got CB radio set up to mum and dad if something was to go wrong with the phone networks or internet or something like that. Just knowing if we have a complete blackout type situation, that you can still talk to your loved ones and where you're at with your mindset and your finances and that. Josh: That's something that I'd definitely suggest everyone doing is just having a look at what the government is putting on the line for businesses. There is quite a number of things we went through and we could see that if you were to be in an 800,000 to $10 million turnover business, you'd be pretty comfortably able to find about $350,000 worth of advantages from the government at the moment. Julie Bannister: I haven't added that up. That's interesting. Josh: Yeah. So that's the numbers that we've got too and we've been talking to any other businesses, and this was something that I went through and spent a couple of days just looking at all the different literature that's available online to see what any of the different stimulus packages include and don't include, and make sure that you're aware of them before you start stressing out thinking customers are leaving and this is happening and that's happening. Josh: Just take a moment to collect yourself, see where you're at and see what is actually available out there and you'd be surprised at what businesses are happy to help out with and in a time like now, as I said, it's about building relationships. One business, we spoke to them, someone that we buy things from, so a vendor for us and we said, "Look, we need to know, are you relaxing any of your terms? You've pretty much presented us with a bill for $3,000." Josh: And he said, "No, if you don't like it, you don't have to stay with us." And I said, "Well, at the moment we would love to stay with you, but it's an auxiliary product that we weren't using with many customers." And we said, No, we're going to have to cut you out." And he goes, "We've had 30 cancellations this month. I don't know what's going on." And I thought, "Well you're an idiot then." Julie Bannister: He needs to open his eyes and ears. Definitely, wow. Josh: I said to him, "We'd be more than happy to utilise your products more than what we have been. We definitely see value in your product. If you give us some marketing material, we're happy to promote your product to help us help you out with this situation." Josh: And he said, "Oh no, I don't have time for that." I went, "Ah well, if you're not going to invest in your customers, you're not going to invest in your relationships. You're not going to invest in your business." It's fair that businesses with that mindset will collapse. And that's again, another thing that I found in going to the BforBs was, it's not just about the business, but you have a whole bunch of other advantages where you have keynote speakers and you have people come to these groups and they talk about the importance of doing certain things in business. Josh: Whether that be setting up your business in a certain way from an accounting perspective or creating videos for promoting your business or whatever the case may be. Automating and bringing back your life, which I'm a big fan of. Julie Bannister: We do have our guest speakers and that is a great value add. And just recently, we've been having a lot of speakers talking about the different packages that the government is offering and a lot of people are doing this, but we're still giving support around your mental health and things like that. But overall, we have guest speakers who talk about marketing, sales, IT, accounting, mindset, all different topics that can help people in their business. Julie Bannister: So yes, definitely, that is a great value add. And as you mentioned, it's not just about business, the friendships people make in BforB is just, it's so valuable, you can't put a price on it. And another value add that a lot of people receive from being a member of BforB is the confidence that you build because little by little, so you might be asked to do a one-minute infomercial and that's very frightening to a lot of people. Josh: Absolutely. Julie Bannister: Yes. And then we'll ask you to do a five minute, and then a 10 minute, and many of our members who've joined and was so scared to do a one-minute infomercial, are actually doing 25-minute presentations now. So it's a confidence-building and within a very, very, very supportive environment. Yes. So that's one of the biggest benefits I believe. Josh: You were talking about some things, new things that you learned about me today. One of the things, I can't remember if I've told you this or not, but I was severely bullied at school to a spot that I wasn't able to walk and I was very introverted. I was the guy that, I'm going to call myself wicked awesome at chess. No one challenged me to that because if you're challenging me, you're probably better, but I was the guy in the library playing chess. Josh: That was my hangout. I was not confident to talk to people. I was not confident to be in the spotlight whatsoever. I was overweight and it was a battle and it was a time where something clicked and I realised that if I have developed the cure for cancer from a computer standpoint in managing and automating businesses, but I'll have that sitting in my garage. Josh: No one has the advantage from that. I'm sure someone has got a cure for cancer and it's just sitting in their garage and they don't have the voice to be able to speak, and speak and talk to people about it. And things like BforB, and being able to come outside of your comfort circle. Josh: Proud of me knowing about BforB was put onto a roadshow to talk to people about IT. It was a five-day roadshow. The first day that I did that roadshow, I recorded it because I was going to put it up on the web for people to have a look at. I watched it. I nearly threw up. I was like, oh my goodness, that's terrible. I can't believe I've done that. I've got four more days of this with no audience engagement and I've gone, oh this is terrible. This is so terrible. I was going to call in sick. I've never wanted my mum to write me a letter to say I can't come to school so much as a grown adult. Josh: I was thinking, I'm freaking out. I watched that same 30 minute video, maybe 10 times that night and I'm writing down what did I do wrong? How did I move my hands? I didn't like that. I look really nervous. How can I fix this? And I wrote down and critiqued everything. The Tuesday, I did the presentation and everyone loved it. They stood up and clapped. They gave me a standing ovation. Josh: I thought, oh, this makes Wednesday a lot easier. That's not to say I didn't watch it still, but BforB gives you exactly that power to be able to... It doesn't matter if you're a scared little mouse and you sit down. It gives you the growth to be able to talk and to know that other people are in the same boat as you. You're not just the only person that's feeling that way. Julie Bannister: That's exactly right. Yes, and that's actually the thing that rocks my boat in BforB is watching people grow and getting that confidence. The referrals, yes, because we need a return on our investment. That is still very important. But that confidence building, it's grows the person and the business. So that's so important. Josh: Yeah, well, Julie it's been great speaking with you and is there anything else you'd like to talk about before we finish this one up? Julie Bannister: We have some online meetings. As I mentioned before, we have our BforB regular meetings at the same time that we used to have our regular face to face meetings. We've got monthly networking, which is open to everyone to come on and we have a guest speaker with that one and I can share the link with you, Josh if you feel that's appropriate. Josh: That'd be perfect. Absolutely, that'd be great. Julie Bannister: Yes. And we do have our daily business, every business day from 10 o'clock till 11:30 where people can just come in and chat with us. No formal meeting, just connecting with people. So yeah. Josh: Cool. Well Julie, I'll make sure to make sure that all of our listeners out there in podcast land get those links and are able to really have a compounding growth for their business over the next few, hopefully only weeks, probably months, but likely, several months. But we'll see how they go. Julie Bannister: Definitely. Thanks for having me. Josh: No worries. And if anyone has enjoyed this, make sure to jump across to iTunes, give us a review, and everyone out there, stay good.

138 - Staying Focused & Resisting the Sirens of Distraction This week we're going to be talking about staying focused in the midst the siren songs of distraction that call out to us. Featured Music The Medicine by Jeremy Renner  On this week’s episode: "I was thinking, you know, I could say that a muse is our inspiration, our strategy, or our goals.  Muses need to be something that we can look to that keep us on track and keep us inspired. Whereas distractions are the sirens that lead us away."  -BrandiSea Some strategies to resist distractions: Do the hard things first Track your time Set your goals the day before Be intentional with your goals This Week's Uncommon Inspiration Perspective (you'll have to listen to understand this one) "Like the intention is probably the thing that differentiates the two of them [sirens and muses], between really looking for inspiration and just stumbling on it because you were scrolling for two hours." -Julie "And if you're not in the right mindset, and if you haven't set yourself up for, like you said, "what am I actually supposed to be doing right now?" The siren is just going to be like, "look at me. I'm actually inspiration over here, but I'm not going to give you anything to do with it. I'm just something pretty to look at and do nothing with". And that's what we always talk about here, is making sure that your inspiration is actually actionable. And  that's the true test of whether you're following your muse, or whether you're following a siren." -BrandiSea Share on email Email Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter Share on linkedin LinkedIn Share on pinterest Pinterest Want to support us? SHARE THIS PODCAST WITH A FRIEND or Visit Patreon and help support our podcast! We would be eternally grateful! We can't do this without YOU.  You can give as much as you want. Every little bit goes to helping us keep this podcast going. Also, if you get any value out of this show if you would please rate and review our podcast on iTunes! Have a question, comment, or episode subject request? Send an email to brandi@brandisea.com Find us on all forms of social media @designspeakspodcast Find Brandi @BrandiSea on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Find Julie @juliehaider  Find Dakota @realdakotacook Thank You To The ultra-talented  Vesperteen (Colin Rigsby) for letting us use his song “Shatter in The Night” as our theme music on every episode of Design Speaks. Producers Kenneth Kniffin and Dakota Cook. Podcast Cover Art Illustration by Pippa Keel - @pippa.jk of Zhu Creative Copyright ©BrandiSea 2020. All Rights reserved. Design Speaks Episode 138  - Chapter 10 - Staying Focused and Resisting the Siren Song of Distraction [00:00:00] BrandiSea: [00:00:00] Welcome to Design Speaks the podcast that helps you discover uncommon inspiration so you can make more meaningful work. I'm Brandi Sea, my co-host is Julie Hyder. This week we're going to be talking about staying focused in the midst of our distractions. Stay tuned for that coming up later in the show. [00:00:30] So Julie, I have a question for you. [00:00:32] Julie: [00:00:32] Yes. [00:00:32] BrandiSea: [00:00:32] On a scale of from super focused to, Oh look, squirrel. Where would you say he rank? [00:00:43] Julie: [00:00:43] Uh, it depends on the day and [00:00:45] possibly also the [00:00:47] hour and the minute. Um, yeah. I don't know. It also, I feel like if I'm really excited about something, then I'm like super focused on it and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to get this done. [00:00:59] Um, but if [00:01:00] I'm just looking for excuses to not be doing what I'm doing, then yeah, the tiniest thing will definitely get me distracted. [00:01:10] BrandiSea: [00:01:10] Do you find, do you find that you are more prone to distractions during like a certain time of day?

134 - The Secret to Getting Motivated Do you struggle to find the daily motivation you need to make your business a success? Do you have a hard time pinpointing what motivates you? Don’t miss this episode as Brandi and Julie discuss how to find motivation in the things you already do every day, and ingraining that into your process so choosing motivation becomes a habit.  On this week’s episode: "As graphic designers, we need to stop getting discouraged when we have to work for our ideas"  -BrandiSea Featured Music For Elise— Saint Motel  Three tips to find motivation: Know what motivates you Set routines Don’t wait; start the process and the motivation will follow Procrastination is a trap Intentional motivation takes practice This Week's Uncommon Inspiration Screensaver Image from Apple TV Some Things that Motivate Brandi Certain colors  Weather Playlists Clean workspace Lighting a candle Resources & Other Things We Talked About The Motivation Myth Post Best Self Co. Edison Deck "I'm very much into this idea of taking control of your creativity. Because for me, it's about choosing to be motivated, going out and finding your inspiration.“ -Brandi Sea Share on email Email Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter Share on linkedin LinkedIn Share on pinterest Pinterest Want to support us? SHARE THIS PODCAST WITH A FRIEND or Visit Patreon and help support our podcast! We would be eternally grateful! We can't do this without YOU.  You can give as much as you want. Every little bit goes to helping us keep this podcast going. Also, if you get any value out of this show if you would please rate and review our podcast on iTunes! Have a question, comment, or episode subject request? Send an email to brandi@brandisea.com Find us on all forms of social media @designspeakspodcast Find Brandi @BrandiSea on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Find Julie @juliehaider  Find Dakota @realdakotacook Thank You To The ultra-talented  Vesperteen (Colin Rigsby) for letting us use his song “Shatter in The Night” as our theme music on every episode of Design Speaks. Producers Kenneth Kniffin and Dakota Cook. Podcast Cover Art Illustration by Pippa Keel - @pippa.jk of Zhu Creative Copyright ©BrandiSea 2020. All Rights reserved. Design Speaks Episode 134  - Chapter 6: Choosing Motivation BrandiSea: [00:00:00] Welcome to Design Speaks, the podcast that helps you discover uncommon inspiration so you can make more meaningful work. I'm Brandi Sea my cohost is Julie Haider. Today, we're going to be talking about motivation and how you can actually choose to be motivated. Stay tuned for that coming up later in the show. So Julie, do you consider yourself a very motivated person? I would say I feel like I'm pretty motivated. Julie: [00:00:38] Yeah. I dunno if I would say very motived, but I do think I am a fairly motivated person. BrandiSea: [00:00:44] You're, like, medium. Julie: [00:00:46] Yeah. Depends on the day, the week, the month. BrandiSea: [00:00:49] You're like venti--venti, motivated. Is that, like, the medium size at Starbucks? Julie: [00:00:54] Yeah. No. venti is the big one, right? BrandiSea: [00:00:57] Grande? Julie: [00:00:58] Correct. Yes. Tall, grande, venti. BrandiSea: [00:01:01] Yes, sure. Okay. You're, whatever the medium one is. That's still pretty good. Yeah, so I think that--that motivation can be chosen, not just felt, so we're going to talk about that today. Julie: [00:01:15] Oh, you sound  motivated. BrandiSea: [00:01:17] Prepared. Is prepared the same as motivated? Julie: [00:01:22] Hmm. I think they have some tie-ins for sure. BrandiSea: [00:01:24] Okay. Well, we'll talk about that a little bit. I'm just going to tell you about my inspiration this week. Actually, it's been my inspiration for some months,

133 - Creating for Love & For Money with Mark Brickey of Adventures in Design Don’t miss this awesome episode as Brandi interviews Mark Brickey, creator of Adventures in Design Podcast. You’ll get to hear his take on creative flow, how to make space for being inspired, and how to take the things we love and make marketable content for consumers who share the same interests. Featured Music This Must Be the Place by Sure Sure "This Week's Inspiration...  Hiking:  the difference between hiking and exploring and how that relates to designing when it comes to having a plan. "I was thinking about design and how so many designers are explorers and hikers. It's--it's very much like, "I'm just going to kind of get on the computer and I have this client, but I--I sort of have, like, I know where it needs to be. Like, I know I need to find an end. I don't really know what that looks like. I don't know what I might find along the way. You know, I'm creative and I'm an artist and I'm just going to like go with whatever"--and you will need rescuing. You're going to get lost because you don't have a goal. You don't have a plan." -BrandiSea On this week’s episode: Mark Brickey’s advice - Be open to inspiration everywhere. If you can’t find it then you’re not truly open to it. “Inspiration is all around me and, like many things, the more you open your heart and the mind to it, the more that you catch.” -Mark Brickey - If you look for negativity, that’s all you’ll find.  - Realize that money is not what decides your value.  - Money is great and necessary, but it doesn’t buy you success, it buys you the freedom to be able to do what you want to do. “Because you're creative; your passion is above profitability. That's both a blessing and a curse; but you have to keep in mind that money's greatest value isn't the things that you buy or the peace of mind that comes with it. Money's greatest value is it buys you freedom.” -Mark Brickey - If you’re not doing what you love and putting it out there, no one will ever pay you to do it.  “The idea is, do what you love and the people that also love that will be drawn to you and your style.” -Mark Brickey Share on email Email Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter Share on linkedin LinkedIn Share on pinterest Pinterest Want to support us? SHARE THIS PODCAST WITH A FRIEND or Visit Patreon and help support our podcast! We would be eternally grateful! We can't do this without YOU.  You can give as much as you want. Every little bit goes to helping us keep this podcast going. Also, if you get any value out of this show if you would please rate and review our podcast on iTunes! Have a question, comment, or episode subject request? Send an email to brandi@brandisea.com Find us on all forms of social media @designspeakspodcast Find Brandi @BrandiSea on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Find Julie @juliehaider  Find Dakota @realdakotacook Thank You To The ultra-talented  Vesperteen (Colin Rigsby) for letting us use his song “Shatter in The Night” as our theme music on every episode of Design Speaks. Producers Kenneth Kniffin and Dakota Cook. Podcast Cover Art Illustration by Pippa Keel - @pippa.jk of Zhu Creative Copyright ©BrandiSea 2020. All Rights reserved. Design Speaks Episode 133  - Chapter 5: Guest Mark Brickey BrandiSea: [00:00:00] Welcome to Design Speaks, the podcast that helps you discover uncommon inspiration so you can make more meaningful work. I'm Brandi Sea my cohost  is Julie Haider. Today we're going to be talking about creative flow and making what you love for the people who love it. Stay tuned for that coming up later in the show. So Julie, how much do you love Disneyland? Okay, don't hate me. Design Speaks Ep 57: [00:00:35] Oh, no. Um, I've never been to Disneyland or Disney World. And I'm not really a big Disney fan. I'm so sorry.

130 - Leatrice Eiseman on Observing Color in the World "If designers would understand the power that color has in their work, I think that it would really elevate what they do." BrandiSea Tweet Tune in this week to hear Brandi’s chat with Leatrice Eiseman, a renowned color specialist. You’ll get to hear some insight into how she chose this years color of the year, and some of the work she does with the Pantone Color Institute, of which she is the Executive Director. Follow along as she recounts where she finds inspiration—her answers might surprise you. On this week’s episode: Featured Music Les Champs Elysees by Pomplamoose, and John Schroeder Resources & Other Links leatriceeiseman.com Pantone Color of The Year: Classic Blue Quotes from this Episode You know, the first indicator, the most important is, kind of, the zeitgeist of how people are thinking and feeling, and what can a color answer to satisfy that feeling. -Leatrice Eiseman It has to be a color that is symbolic of the zeitgeist or particular social movement or feeling. -Leatrice Eiseman But, you see, the whole point is, our intention is to get the people to start a conversation about color. Get them talking about color. Whether it's positive or negative. -Leatrice Eiseman Want to support us? SHARE THIS PODCAST WITH A FRIEND or Visit Patreon and help support our podcast! We would be eternally grateful! We can't do this without YOU.  You can give as much as you want. Every little bit goes to helping us keep this podcast going. Also, if you get any value out of this show if you would please rate and review our podcast on iTunes! Find us on all forms of social media @designspeakspodcast Find Brandi @BrandiSea on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Find Julie @juliehaider  Find Dakota @realdakotacook You can email Brandi  brandi@brandisea.com. Thank You To The ultra-talented  Vesperteen (Colin Rigsby) for letting us use his song “Shatter in The Night” as our theme music on every episode of Design Speaks. Producers Kenneth Kniffin and Dakota Cook. Podcast Cover Art Illustration by Pippa Keel - @pippa.jk of Zhu Creative Share on email Email Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter Share on linkedin LinkedIn Share on pinterest Pinterest Copyright ©BrandiSea 2020. All Rights reserved. Episode 130, Season 1, Chapter 2 - Leatrice Eiseman: Transcription BrandiSea: [00:00:00] Welcome to Design Speaks. The podcast that helps you discover uncommon inspiration so you can make more meaningful work. I'm Brandi Sea, my cohost is Julie Haider. Today we'll be talking about how observing color in the world around you can keep you inspired. Stay tuned for that coming up later in the show. Hi, Julie. Julie: [00:00:30] Hey, Brandi. BrandiSea: [00:00:31] So Julie, how do you generally choose colors when you're working on things? Be honest now. Be honest. Julie: [00:00:42] Um, I don't know. I definitely, I'll be honest, I don't want to put as much thought into it as you do. Um, I don't know. Sometimes it's just, I feel like I gravitate towards certain colors naturally, um, and certain ones I'm like, yeah, I don't really like that. But, um, at the same time, certain projects kind of require that you go in a certain direction color wise. So it's kind of a mixture of things. BrandiSea: [00:01:05] Okay. Okay.  So you're going to feel totally called out by the end of today's episode, but, um, so I had the opportunity to talk to Leatrice Eiseman. I'm officially allowed to call her Lee. Which is, like amazing. She said that, like, conversationally she's allowed to be, she likes people to call her Lee. So I was like, Oh, yay. I've talked to you twice. We're friends now. Um, she is the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. Uh, which basically means. That she helps choose color of the year. Like she, um, she does research and all sorts of things to, uh,

Julie White sits down with Cobie and John to explain what's so fantastic about an activity she developed called Farmtastic! Transcription: Announcer: This is 4H4U2, a podcast from the Mississippi State University Extension Service, promoting 4-H programs and positive youth development. Here now, your hosts, Dr. John Long, and Cobie Rutherford. John Long: And welcome to another podcast of 4H4U2. I'm your host, John Long. Cobie Rutherford: And I'm Cobie Rutherford. John Long: And it is yet again one of my favorite times of the week, and that is to do this podcast, and we're talking about everything 4-H. We are joined with our special guest this week, Dr. Julie White. And Dr. White, did I do that right? Did I say that correctly? Julie White: It's Miss White. John Long: Oh, sorry, sorry. Julie White: Hopefully in the next year. John Long: Okay. All right, so we are working on it. All right. Julie White: That is true. John Long: That's good. All right, so we're going to get that taken care of, and then we'll formally call you doctor. Julie White: That is true. Yes, that's right. John Long: All right. Cobie Rutherford: That's right. John Long: So you're pre-doctor? That's the way I look at that. Julie White: That's right. Yeah, there we go. John Long: Okay, very good, very good. So, how are you? Julie White: Good. John Long: Good. Good, good. Cobie, so you had a good week so far? Cobie Rutherford: It's been a good week. John Long: Good. Yeah, I think it's been a pretty good one. Cobie Rutherford: A hot one. Julie White: Yeah, very hot. John Long: A hot one. Felt very blessed to be able to say that I could stay inside. Cobie Rutherford: No doubt. Julie White: That's right. Amen. John Long: Yeah. And I'm an outside person, so that's kind of tough. But anyway. Anyway, comme ci comme ca, we're going to move in to the program. And Julie ... I've been knowing Julie a long time, and Julie, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, and how you got here, to where you are today. Julie White: Okay. John Long: And what you do, today. Julie White: All right. So I grew up in South Louisiana. I grew up in Livingston Parish, just outside of Baton Rouge, and grew up in 4-H there, showing livestock, was in the clothing project, which is one of those deep-known secrets that a lot of the 4-H agents find out. And you're like, "Really?" So I actually made my senior prom dress. So it was one of my projects. But I grew up on a dairy farm, and so ... But while I was in school, I met a Mississippi boy, and ended up in Starkville because of the Mississippi boy. So ... John Long: Isn't that a, I think that's a country song isn't it? Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man. Cobie Rutherford: Yeah, that's it. Julie White: Mississippi man, sure is. John Long: So you just played that right out there. Julie White: Sure is, so ... John Long: Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Julie White: So yeah. John Long: And got started, you said in, well you were a 4-H-er, and then you came to 4-H through here. Julie White: Yep, yep. John Long: So that's awesome. That's awesome. And a little-known fact, I always like saying a little-known fact. Julie and I are practically neighbors. Julie White: That is correct. John Long: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Cobie Rutherford: Wow, how about that. Julie White: Mm-hmm (affirmative). John Long: Yes, yes. We got to keep check on each other when we need to. Julie White: Technically I'm in the middle of you two. John Long: You are, you are. You really are. So ... Cobie Rutherford: How about that? John Long: If we need anything, just call, she can be there in a short amount of time. Julie White: That's right. Cobie Rutherford: That's a good deal. Julie White: That's exactly right. Cobie Rutherford: Now Julie, you started out your career in the county office here in Oktibbeha County, right? As a 4-H agent? Julie White: I started actually in a Attala County in 2000, and served there, and in Lowndes County, and Webster County before coming to Oktibbeha County as a County Agent. In Attala, Lowndes, and Webster, I was actually a 4-H Agent. So I spent 15 years on the county level before coming to the School of Human Sciences. John Long: Boy, time gets away, doesn't it? I just was always say that it's amazing how quickly that gets away from us. Julie White: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So, yeah. Cobie Rutherford: And now you've got one of the largest Extension projects in the whole state that you conduct. Tell us a little bit about that. Julie White: So I am an Extension associate over in the School of Human Sciences, but I focus on Agriculture Literacy. So I run a program called, Farmtastic, that I actually created back in 2012 as a way to teach kids. At that time I was the county agent here in Oktibbeha County, and I just wanted a way to teach kids about farming and agriculture. And when I would go to the schools they would say, "Tell me that chocolate milk came from a brown cow. Or that cotton comes from a sheep." And so I just wanted a hands-on way for us to be able to teach those kids about agriculture, and for them to experience it. And so- John Long: And these are legitimate answers that kids are giving. Cobie Rutherford: Yeah. Julie White: Yes. Yes. Cobie Rutherford: Yeah. Julie White: It's amazing how many adults will tell me that chocolate milk comes from a brown cow. And they really don't understand where cotton comes from, or anything like that. And so, there are as many adults that have that perception as kids. And so, this was just a way for us to really highlight county agriculture here in Starkville, but grew way faster than I had planned. John Long: That's what you get for being creative, Julie. Julie White: And so, in about a year and a half, we went from being just a county program to being a statewide program. John Long: That's awesome. That is awesome. And now, we talked about this on our last podcast we recorded, about that disconnect that people have with where everything comes from. And it's so hard to wrap your mind around it. Well, I grew up in an agricultural background. If you're around it, it's pretty easy to know where things come from. I never had those kind of questions. But it's really hard to believe that people really don't know where everything comes from, and what it takes, that production side and all of the things that are so big a part of our state for that matter. Julie White: Right, yes, very much so. John Long: So, with us being an agricultural state, to me that seems like an extremely important thing we need to do, especially in our state, is to continue doing that. Julie White: Yeah. Most of our kids these days are three to four generations removed from the farm. And so they just haven't been exposed to it like many of us were. And so, they just don't know. And so it's our job to show them what agriculture is about, and why it's important to them. John Long: Right, right. Cobie Rutherford: Yeah. And I even look at our statewide 4-H demographics, where only 6% of our 4-H-ers claim to live on the farm. So there's 94% of even the children that we're interacting with, John, that don't have that real farm experience. John Long: Background, that's right. And see how much that's changed. And I would think in a relatively short amount of time, too. I don't think it's been all that long since ... But then that's again, something that we have to adapt to, as far as the educational efforts for sure, I would say, so ... So Julie, exactly ... Walk through some of the activities. I know my kids have been, or one of them have been through it. Just tell us exactly what Farmtastic, how do you go about setting that up and going through them? Julie White: Okay. Yep. So Farmtastic is a traveling exhibit, and we travel across the state throughout the year. We set up in agri-centers across the state, and when we set up, it has five or six different focus areas depending on where we're set up. But basically the main ones that the kids will walk through, they'll all enter through our Barnyard Bonanza, which of course focuses on livestock and poultry. Then they'll move through to Mighty Crops, which focuses on agronomy, like cotton, soybeans, rice, corn, those kinds of things. Julie White: And then they'll move to Wonder Plants, which is horticulture, so it looks at gardening and things that they can do in their backyard, whether it's actually growing vegetables, or whether it's growing plants such as flowering plants to beautify their home. And then we also go to the Enchanted Forest, where we look at forestry and how big that industry is in our state, and how it relates to the things we do every day. We also go to Something Fishy, which has to do with aquaculture. And we look at the different things, the catfish industry here in this state. Unless I'm on the coast, and then of course on the coast we're looking at the seafood industry. Cobie Rutherford: You have to adapt for that, for sure. John Long: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Julie White: Yes. And that is a huge room when we're on the coast. And then the last room that they always go through is the Farm Village, which helps them to put together the things that they've seen that day dealing with agriculture, and how all that gets to their plate, or their home, or their clothes that they're wearing. And so that's a chance for us to kind of tie that whole farm-to-plate activity. But we also have many partners as we travel, such as the Soil and Water Conservation districts, the County Farm Bureaus, MDOT is a big partner of ours that comes in. And so, there's a lot of different activities that we add to the events, depending on where we are and what the local partners are. John Long: Right. Well that's great that you've got these local partners coming in and continuing to help to expand the program that you have. So that's important, too, as far as that support is concerned. Julie White: It's definitely a great benefit. John Long: Mm-hmm (affirmative). For sure. Cobie Rutherford: How many of these do you do a year? Julie White: Typically the last four years we have done anywhere from nine to twelve a year. When we set up, we come in on a Monday and set up, and then we run the event Tuesday through Friday. So bringing in local schools ... As an example, and most of them, this is how it works, like here at MSU when we host the one at the Horse Park, we attract 10 counties, and we're targeting second to fourth graders. And so it's a free field trip as far as coming in and being able to tour it, and experience it. All the kids go home with a backpack full of goodies they get to take. There's a lot of make-and-take activities as they go throughout the exhibit. They get to take that stuff with them. The teachers also get some information, an agriculture curriculum that they can use in their classroom. And so they get stuff, too, while they're at the event. John Long: Wow, that reminds me. I'm sure you remember this, you know when we used to have school days on the farm? Julie White: Yes. John Long: That's very similar to that. Julie White: It is. John Long: Except you're more mobile, instead of having to bus kids into the campus. That's great. So this program is, I'm obviously expanding through the years that you've been doing it, as you said, starting on the county level ... How many at each workshop or Farmtastic event that you have, on average, how many kids would you say that you're reaching out to at a time? Julie White: Each time it kind of depends on actually how many days the event is. But the average is about 12 to 1500 in those four days. So ... John Long: Wow. Sorry I just blew into the microphone, but that's mind-blowing. Cobie Rutherford: Yeah, that's a lot. Julie White: So we're seeing a good number of kids for us as a 4-H program. It's a great opportunity for us to show what we have, as 4-H, since everything we do doesn't necessarily have to do with farming. There are some other things that our kids can be involved in, and so it's a great time for us to market our 4-H program, too. John Long: Now Julie, I know that you're a hard worker, and I know that you don't back up from anything, but you have to have help for these things. Julie White: I do. John Long: Now how many people do you have helping you with this? Because it's tiring me out hearing you say all that. Julie White: Yeah, I run ... Usually I utilize about 40 volunteers a day, and that's to get through all of the stations that are in the different focus areas, and to make sure that the kids have the best experience possible. So we're using a lot of volunteer hours when we do Farmtastic. John Long: Yeah. Thank you volunteers. Julie White: Yes, very much. John Long: Thank you. We can't do a lot of stuff without you, and we really appreciate you. A little plug for our volunteers. Julie White: That's right. John Long: Now I have to ask this, do you have a favorite area that you work in? Julie White: Well ... John Long: Yeah, out of everything, the whole thing, out of everything. Julie White: I do. Actually, there's probably two. A, I'm a livestock person. And so, of course the livestock room is always my favorite. Because being raised on a farm, and we have a farm now, it's kind of my thing. And yeah, to see the kids all hold that baby chick in that room, it's a really cool moment, especially for those that have never seen it. My other favorite is the forestry room. John Long: Really? Julie White: They get to the bubble blowers in that room. John Long: Oh yeah, I saw that. Julie White: So if you haven't seen a bubble blower, it's an actual stick of red oak, and red oak is very porous, and so it allows us to be able to blow bubbles through it. So they get a piece of wood that they get to blow bubbles through. And just watching them experience that concept of how a tree utilizes water ... But for us, we're utilizing bubbles. But we get to have some fun with wood, so that's my other favorite. John Long: You get an aha moment of it anyway, don't you? Julie White: Yeah, so ... Cobie Rutherford: That's pretty cool. So I'm sure you've seen a lot of eureka moments, where the light just flicked on in the kid's mind. Do you have a favorite? Julie White: I think for me, one of the favorites, and it's more because of the way my volunteers act, is because the kids walk from the livestock room into the agronomy room. Well in the agronomy room we have a cotton gin going, and we're ginning cotton. Well, of course the first thing we ask is, "So where's cotton come from?" And they're like, "A sheep!" And we're like- John Long: Well it does look kind of like cotton. Julie White: Yeah, it does. But then they're like, "Oh, it really doesn't?" And so we really get to hone-in on that. "No, here are the plants it comes from, here's where it's grown." John Long: It's a plant, not an animal. Cobie Rutherford: Right, yeah. Julie White: And so that one is really neat. And to watch how the volunteers react to the kids' reaction has been really a neat thing for me. John Long: That's good. That's really good. Cobie Rutherford: I can almost see the volunteers getting as much out of this in some cases as the youth, because they kind of see firsthand that disconnect that we all see on a daily basis. And then I guess from an adult standpoint, that gives them an opportunity to say, "Well I tell them an agriculture story is important." Julie White: Yep. John Long: Right. That's exactly right. Julie White: It does. And we try to utilize a lot of volunteers that are farmers, or that are involved in different industries in agriculture when we're out traveling. Because then they're actually getting to see what their consumers are saying. And so it gives them that consumer perspective John Long: It may be more so now than when we went to school, but ... And I think this is what is so important about 4-H, kind of the key thing that we teach in 4-H, is that, learn by doing, and that hands-on activity is so important to that learning process. And every station you have is that way. So those kids are not sitting in a classroom trying to regurgitate information. They're actually learning by that tactile touch, and everything. Julie White: Yes, and that's one of the things I try to emphasize to our volunteers as I'm doing volunteer orientation for the events, is, look, it's okay that they're not just standing there listening to you. It's okay that they're moving around, and really in each room, there's like seven activities for them to do. And so there's a lot going on in that one room. And so, sometimes my teachers are like- John Long: Be still! Julie White: What do you mean they're not going to just stand still?" John Long: Right right. "We can't handle that." Julie White: They have trouble. Yeah, they have trouble more than my kids do. My kids love it. John Long: Very freeing. Yeah, so ... Julie White: Yeah. And so it's one of those that I kind of have to talk to the volunteers and the teachers, and just be like, "Hey, let them do what they want to do. And it's okay if they don't touch everything," but just letting them do how they want to do. So ... John Long: Right. Right, right. And giving them a little freedom as far as what they're interested in, yeah. Cobie Rutherford: I remember a couple of years, well, I guess it was last year when you had it here on campus, we took Reason. And Reason had been terrified of chickens- John Long: Reason being your son. Cobie Rutherford: Reason is my son, yeah. He was terrified of chickens up to this point. So we took him in, and he got to hold a chick for the first time. And that was the first time he had seen a chicken outside of a commercial grower. And he just, it blew his mind. He couldn't wrap his head around why this chick wasn't yellow, and in a house with 60,000 friends. Julie White: Right, yeah. John Long: "Where are all your friends?" Julie White: Yeah, they, that's probably ... And that's, like I told you, that's one of my favorite spots, is because that is an aha moment for most of them. And even though we have to tell them that that chicken's going to end up growing up to be probably a chicken nugget. John Long: Right, your chicken nuggets, yeah. Julie White: But that whole little fuzzy baby chick thing, and we actually have them hatch in there, so they're getting to see the whole process. The whole "chicken or the egg" thing. So it's- John Long: We discussed that last time, didn't we? Cobie Rutherford: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Julie White: Yeah, so it's kind of a neat thing for them. So ... John Long: Oh, that's good. Cobie Rutherford: It also works out really well that Julie and her husband have a farm, because I know they use their own animals sometimes at these events. John Long: Oh, wow. Julie White: Yes, especially here in Starkville. It's ... Cobie Rutherford: Easy to transport. Julie White: Yeah, it's easy, and it's easier for me because I spent so much time at the exhibit. When we're having to feed and stuff, it's just easier to have ours there. But we do utilize 4-H-ers as we travel across the state to utilize ... Whatever county we're in, typically that county's 4-H-ers provide the animals for the exhibit. John Long: Boy, that's great outreach for them as well. That opportunity to go out and show what they know, too, so that's really good. And it's giving back to what 4-H has given them. That's great. Cobie Rutherford: Yeah and I said, I guess I misspoke there, they're probably not Julie's animals, they're probably your children's animals who are 4-H-ers, too. Julie White: Yes, yes. And they spend as much time at Farmtastic as I do because they love it as much as I do. So ... John Long: Right. That's awesome. It's a family event. Julie White: Yeah. John Long: Yeah. Julie White: Yeah. Morgan asks me all the time if I'm going to keep doing this until she's old enough to do it. And I'm like, "I don't know about that." John Long: Well, you know, time moves on. Julie White: Yes. John Long: Well, now what do you see in the future for Farmtastic? What are your visions for the future? We're not going to hold you to those, but ... Julie White: Yeah. No, I would love for us to be able to continue to do Farmtastic across the state, because I see the importance of us as an agriculture state promoting what we do. And to be there to promote what our farmers are doing on a daily basis, because people need to understand where their food and clothes come from. Cobie Rutherford: Absolutely. Julie White: And so I'd love to see us maybe scale back a little from doing that whole 12 a year to maybe doing at least one a region across the state. And if not, just a couple more than that. But I would love to see us be able to continue the program for a while and expand it in certain areas. And change it up just a little. It gets changed pretty regular, more or less because I get bored, more than ... With the same activities all the time, but that also- John Long: Because you've got a new crop of kids coming in. Julie White: Right. And so it's fun to change things up and let them see something new. John Long: Sure, sure. And that's keeping you fresh too, right? Julie White: Yes, yes. John Long: Not losing your mind. So with that, that is, like you said, expanding and changing things is going to be important. And we have a lot of things that change agriculturally, and otherwise. So, yeah. Julie White: So yeah, our technologies are changing every day. So there's going to be a lot of new things coming down the pipe that we're going to be able to show. John Long: I saw a drone spraying a field the other day. I knew it was just a matter of time, so ... Julie White: Yep, yep. Cobie Rutherford: I heard about that. John Long: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Julie White: So most of our kids will have the opportunity to go to school to be a drone pilot. John Long: See, now that's ... Julie White: And that's something we would've never thought of. John Long: The big yellow bird will be replaced by that. That's an airplane for people that don't know. Julie White: That's right. John Long: But anyway, but anyway. Well Julie, we certainly thank you for coming in, and the time just flies by when we do these things. Julie White: It does. John Long: And we really appreciate it. Now where can they go, our listeners, if we have listeners, I think we've got listeners. I hope so. If you're listening, Where can they go to get more information? Julie White: Our website is farmtastic.msucares.com. John Long: Oh, that was snappy. I like that. That's good, and easy to remember. Julie White: There you go. John Long: Easy to remember. And Cobie, where can they go to learn about 4-H in their area? Cobie Rutherford: So to learn more about 4-H, you can visit any county Extension office across the state or visit our website at extension.msstate.edu. John Long: And I love our website, because if you're in your county, and you just look to the right, it'll say, "Select a county," and it automatically takes you to the people that you need to be in contact with. Julie White: That's right. John Long: So, that's awesome. Well thank you. And with that, we're going to wrap up this edition of 4H4U2. Be sure and subscribe if you're not a subscriber already, and join us next time. Take care. Announcer: Thanks for joining us for 44H4U2. For more information, please visit extension.msstate.edu. And be sure to subscribe to our podcast. 4H4U2 is produced by the Mississippi State University Extension Service Office of Agricultural Communications.

GUEST BIO: Julie Lerman is a Microsoft Regional director, Docker Captain and a long-time Microsoft MVP who now counts her years as a coder in decades.  She makes her living as a coach and consultant to software teams around the world. You can find Julie presenting on Entity Framework, Domain Driven Design and other topics at user groups and conferences around the world. Julie blogs at thedatafarm.com is the author of the highly acclaimed “Programming Entity Framework” books, the MSDN Magazine Data Points column and popular videos on Pluralsight.com. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Julie Lerman. She has had a long IT career, of more than 30 years, during which she has worked as a coder and coach. Since 1989, she has worked as an independent consultant. Over the years, she has led software teams in many different countries. She specializes in guiding teams towards re-thinking their software architecture and adapting it to fit in with modern practices. Julie has worked hard to share her knowledge with a wider audience. She has created in-depth training in the Pluralsight library and has written 4 highly acclaimed books about Entity Framework. Her blog, thedatafarm is also a great source of information for developers.   KEY TAKEAWAYS: (00.58) – So Julie, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Julie explains that she spent the first 4 or 5 years of her career working mainly as a programmer for employers. But, about 30 years ago, she decided to go it alone. These days, she focuses mainly on coaching, consulting and mentoring. She uses her decades of IT experience to help all kinds of IT teams to progress. (2.26) – How did you get into coaching, Julie? It is something that just evolved. For many years, she had been teaching people through her sites, books and conference speeches. After a while, people asked her to provide training for their teams. She really enjoyed the process of sitting down with companies and going through their issues and working out how to address them. It is much more effective than public training. However, she does encourage the companies to go through her PluralSight videos, first. If, after doing that, they still have problems or concerns she sits down and helps them to solve their more complex issues. (3.43) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Julie’s most important piece of advice is to take responsibility for your career and further learning. Too many people get stuck in a rut. They just carry on doing the work they are familiar with. Over time, they end up being unaware of what is going on in the wider world. They have very little understanding of the new technologies and how they are being applied. You have to keep up with new developments to be able to make the most of your career. Phil reminds the audience that the company you are working for will only assist you in learning new skills, up to a point. Typically, they will only help you to take your career in a direction that suits the needs of the business. (5.14) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? For Julie her two worst career moments came when it was time for her to move on to bigger and better things. In both cases, her employers got very angry with her. They both tried to persuade her to stay by offering her a little extra money or the promotion she should have already earned, but not been given. In both cases, she felt that what they were offering was ‘too little, too late’. So, she said thank you, but no. That is when they got really angry and aggressive. In both cases, she had to deal with the men who had been almost father figures to her losing their tempers and berating her just for leaving. For someone in their 20s this was an extremely unpleasant situation. (7.21) – Did you take anything away from that experience, in particular? Julie says that it taught her to trust her instincts. These experiences also made her realize that she had more gumption than she thought. She just stood there and sucked it up, did not argue back and moved peacefully on into a better role. (8.28) – Phil asks Julie about her best career moment, her greatest success. The moment Julie’s first book was delivered to her home and she held it in her hands was a highlight. She felt so proud of what she had achieved. But, Julie is lucky enough to regularly experience smaller moments that also make her feel proud. For example, when she is able to help a developer to understand something they have struggled with.  Another example is when she suggests a little tweak that ends up making a tremendous difference and benefiting lots of people. (9.58) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact that things are so open-ended right now is something that excites Julie about the IT industry. Things are opening up in new directions all of the time. Thanks to IoT, machine learning, artificial intelligence and big data. The easy availability and effectiveness of this tech are freeing people up to use their talents in new and exciting ways. You no longer have to worry about a long list of little details, when developing. Now, you can focus on the code knowing that the deployment and infrastructure is not an issue. Cloud computing has made things so much easier. It is just one example of how new technology is freeing up developers to achieve more. (12.24) – What drew you to a career in IT? Julie fell into her IT career by accident. When she started college, her plan was to become a chemical engineer. While there she took a programming class. She realized she was something of a natural, so got involved in IT instead of chemistry. (12.59) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? Someone once told her to “praise publically, criticize privately”, which is advice that Julie is careful to follow. (13.23) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? That is something that Julie has never really thought about before. It is not really in her nature to plan like that. But, she does wish that she had more time to get more deeply involved in machine learning. She also knows that she would still want to be involved in the back end. (14.17) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Right now, Julie is focused on continuing to learn, to make sure that she stays relevant. She is working to make sure that she pushes herself out of her comfort zone without constantly jumping from one thing to another. Looking for opportunities to share what she learns is helping to do this and cement her knowledge. (15.42) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Julie says that her liberal arts degree has proved to be surprisingly helpful. Taking the course, gave her a head for broad thinking and thinking outside the box. It helped her to develop her creative thinking. These are skills that she has found invaluable during her IT career. (16.19) – Phil asks Julie to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. If you find yourself stuck on a problem, walk away from your computer. Take the dog for a walk or something similar to break the negative cycle. When you do that you can be lucky and find that the solution has been there all the time floating around your head. You mentally go through everything again. Usually, that is when you work out what it is you have missed or a few other things you can do to fix the problem. All you need to do is to give your brain a chance to relax to get a fresh perspective. BEST MOMENTS: (4.14) JULIE – "Take responsibility for your own career and further learning.” (10.16) JULIE – "Things are really opening up in new directions, with IoT, machine learning, artificial intelligence and big data." (11.49) JULIE – "Cloud platforms are enabling developers to do that much more and explore that much further." (14.43) JULIE – "It’s really important for me to stay relevant. In order to do that, I need to keep learning" (16.41) JULIE – "When I am really stuck on a problem, I find walking away from the computer helps so much." CONTACT JULIE: Twitter: https://twitter.com/julielerman Website: https://thedatafarm.com    

Why Dave Decided to talk to Julie: Julie Stoian is a digital marketing consultant and tech coach, making her mark on the internet through her popular brand Create Your Laptop Life®. Julie has inspired and equipped thousands of up and coming business owners with the skills and strategies they need to create, build, and grow profitable online businesses. Julie started her journey to entrepreneurship as a blogger and writer, garnering the attention of media outlets like The New York Times and Washington Post with her no-holds-barred approach to social media. After a rocky divorce and unexpected pregnancy in 2014 that left her needing to build a profitable business quickly, Julie transformed her passion and love for internet marketing into the 7-figure business she has today. She's been a head coach and funnelbuilder working with Russell Brunson and Clickfunnels for the last year, and is getting ready to take the role as VP of Marketing and official Clickfunnels partner. Julie has been featured on media outlets like Anderson LIVE, BBC World Have Your Say, and Rachel Ray, as well as numerous business and marketing podcasts and blogs such as Content Academy, Boss Moms, GoDaddy Garage Blog, and Funnel Hacker Radio. Tips and Tricks for You and Your Business: (4:54) Keeping Your Chief Executive Officer From Becoming Your Chief of Everything Officer (9:20) Freelancers Belong in the Clickfunnels Fleet (12:52) Project Management: Making Time and Money (15:32) THE WAFFLE (20:06) Coaching Your Clients without Strictly Criticizing Them and Their Work (23:15) Your Employees and Their Drive (26:07) Help Your Contractors (30:21) Julie Stoian’s Travel Log Over These Next Few Months Quotable Moments: (8:08) “For me it was more important to be on the team that was going to make the most impact than it was for me to be the captain of my own ship.” (19:02) “That’s the thing with this whole agency thing is you have to think about how to break through as much bottlenecks as you can.” (22:34) “Realize, as the entrepreneur, you may not be hiring people who may not be as  motivated by the same types of things that you are and may not be as driven as you are.” Other Tidbits: Your agency can be as large as small as your scaling allows Get your employees to the point where they identify their work as a CALLING Important Episode Links: Createyourlaptoplife.comJulieStoian.com/podcast FunnelHackingLive.comFunnelHackerRadio.com FunnelHackerRadio.com/freetrial FunnelHackerRadio.com/dreamcar ---Transcript--- Speaker 1:     00:00         Welcome to funnel hacker radio podcast, where we go behind the scenes and uncover the tactics and strategies top entrepreneurs are using to make more sales, dominate their markets, and how you can get those same results. Here's your host, Dave Woodward Speaker 2:     00:17         [inaudible]. Everybody. Welcome back to funnel hacker radio. This is going to be one of my funnest podcasts. Uh, you know, my guests, you had the upgrade of hearing from her quite a few different times, but she has a new role and I can't wait to talk all about that. So first and foremost, Julie [inaudible] and welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I am so excited to. I, I have coined a new term. Would wired in excitement, excitement level at the Dave Woodward level. Oh, you're too kind too. Kind of honestly. Then that would be the type of excitement I have right now for the opportunity. I want to introduce our newest partner to click funnels, Ms Dot Julie. Yes. I, um, I, I had been waiting for this day, I feel like for my whole life. Speaker 2:     01:06         So I want to make sure people understand what that means is a little background here. When we started clickfunnels four and a half years ago, uh, there was two cofounders, Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson. We then brought on a third co founder, uh, Dylan Jones, who we later bought out. He was helping us primarily on the Ui side. And so todd and Russell Todd being the, uh, the whole tech guy behind the scenes who I don't know how he does what he does. I'm literally fascinated every single day. Anytime we're together, I'm like, todd, I don't get it. And I'm so glad I don't understand your magic because I would screw everything up. Russell, you guys already know because Russell is the marketing genius behind click funnels and a ton of other things. We then have four of the partners myself. I run all the business development opportunities, the top line revenue type of stuff. Speaker 2:     01:52         Uh, our CTO is Ryan Montgomery, helps todd managed a lot of things on his side. We then have a Brinko Peters who works on our side with all of our operations and things, and John Parks. You guys know who runs all of our traffic behind the scenes for the little Julie, has it been a year now? It seems like it's been about a year, a year, and Julie's been behind the scenes literally working magic that you guys can't even. I have still totally spellbound by how you pull off what you pull off. No one gets more done in a day than Julie. I don't know how in the world she gets it done. She's actually helping Russell right now in writing a track two secrets book. She has literally been the brains behind what we're going to roll out here. Actually you guys on this call is as our new waffle and how that's all coming together as far as our internal agency, what that means to you guys and more importantly, how you can actually start doing this kind of stuff in your own business and that Julie has her own multimillion dollar business, which basically are buying to bring her over to click funnels. Speaker 2:     02:53         And we'll talk a little bit about how that's all coming together. In addition to that, uh, Julie is probably the person you will ever meet. In fact, I was just with my family, seen Mary poppins and continue to think of Julie because that's what she's like in our craziness that we have over here. So she's the one who makes all the magic happen and I just wanted to make sure everyone, you guys were listening, understand our gratitude, our appreciation for one of the major things that she's done is allowed Russell to kind of step away from doing all the stuff that is great to get us to where we're at, but won't get us to where we're going. And without Julie, none of this would happen. So Julie, my gratitude to you, my appreciation for you and so excited for 2019. So with all that said, welcome again and I'm so glad that that's all we're going to cover. Speaker 2:     03:41         That's the start. That's the start. You know, it was so funny though, you know, watching, as you know, during the year when we were talking about kind of the org chart of clickfunnels and how Russell was in Russell at this point. Like you should be like seoing, not seoing and cmos and funnel building and copywriting, writing your own emails. It was crazy. It has been crazy. And again, if it wasn't for you stepping in, we'd still be in that same situation. Uh, so actually a little step back to last year about this time is when Steven went to go do his own thing. So Steven Larson was Russell's funnel builder and he and Russell were kind of tag teaming up, doing a lot of the stuff that really kind of got us to where we were for about two years. Russell and Steve were kind of tag teaming that. Speaker 2:     04:32         And as Steven left, it was one of those, it was kind of a, a weird mixed blessing. I love Stephen to death. He's become a dear friend and he's helped us grow, got us to where we were, but it was time for him to go spread his wings to grow his business and what he wanted to do. And so as he left it was then a matter of saying, oh my gosh, what in the world are we going to do? How are we going to prevent Russell from doing all this stuff that steven was doing and bringing in a team that would allow us to scale and we were struggling so much as far as trying to find the right fit you have to understand to. It's to be able to get into Russell's brain is, I don't know, it's more than just a padlock. It's kind of like one of those. Speaker 2:     05:16         It's kind of like the whole Laura Croft tomb raider type of thing where she's changing this little egg thing and it changes a million if it's shaped and there's four different keys and Julie's been able to do that and so Julie's dad had this magical key that's been able to basically work with Russell at a level that is allowed Russell to focus more on helping us grow the business and really taking her genius, which again, Julie's. I take a look at all the magic you've done in your own business. One of the things I was most impressed with was your ability to literally be able to replace yourself and so Julie had her own, again, create your laptop. Lifestyle is one of her create your laptop. Life is one of the businesses that she was doing. Again, a seven figure, two Comma Club, award winning business, crushing it, but she said, you know what guys, I really want to be involved with you guys. Speaker 2:     06:07         I want to find a way of helping you guys get to the next level which was beyond. I mean, again, Julie, I can't thank you enough for that because it was great for us to see how you came in and without expecting anything, just said, let me help and I think that's a huge. One of the main attributes that you carry is this ability of having such just massive passion and caring for other people. Most people just don't have that. Especially when they're running their own multi, multi seven figure business. It's easier to say, you know what? I got this. I'll do my own deal. You were able to say, you know, I'm going to put this on the back burner. I'm actually going to hire other people to replace me. Which really is what, how all this started with Russell because it was at that point where thought, all right, if Julie can do that, her business, how could she help Russell do that in our business? I want to kind of dive in. I've done enough talking. So how do you do all you that you do? Speaker 3:     07:00         Well, you know, it's so funny. As I was getting ready to like talk about this transition. I know a lot of people when I first came onto click funnels, you know, they weren't quite sure why I was doing that because it was like, well you have your own business over here. Like this is obviously not like a monetary monetary thing. And of course you know, there was part of that, but I honestly, I had this analogy of like ships that are like all going in the same direction and headed for the same promise land. And it was the SS click funnels which was like this huge ship, right? And then my little ship was like behind in its wake and we were serving the same customer base and we were both going in the same direction. And I, and my business was really flourishing in the wake of click funnels and I know Russell has talked about how cool that is when a business can like create other businesses. Speaker 3:     07:46         But for me it was like I recognized how much the success of clickfunnels was really. There was so much of that attributed to the success of my business too. And so it was like, it was a no brainer. It was like, of course I want to get on the SS click funnels and help that business succeed because a rising tide lifts all the boats. Right. And so for me, um, it was more important for me to be on the team that was going to make the most impact than it was for me to just be like the captain of my own ship. Do you know what I mean? And so for me, I'd much rather be, you know, like on the team first mate, then captain of my own little Shit, you know, Speaker 2:     08:26         oh the great thing is your little ship was growing at a very fast pace. So it's not like it was this tiny little thing. And that's really for us, when we were able to bring that in and acquire that. So some of the things that you're going to see rolling out is this whole idea as far as create your laptop life and with that there are so many things you guys are going to see happen in 2019. I wish I could go into all of them. One of them is going to be associated with this whole concept of freelancers. Now we just rolled out a funnel Rolodex and we've got a bunch of changes were making to that between now and funnel hacking live, but that's just a small little, tiny team of what freelancers can do. Julie, you've had this magic ability to really help build agencies and to obviously you have your own agency. You've now, I've taught other people how to build their agencies and you've. You've really given the keys to the kingdom to a lot of these freelancers to truly provide them a create your own laptop life. So you don't mind. Could you spend just a few minutes kind of talking about what is a freelancer, how to. How can freelancers fit into the ecosystem of click funnels and what is, why would someone want to do that? Speaker 3:     09:33         Well, so I, I will. I will die on my sword when I say that. If you want to get started in online business, the easiest way to really start is to offer done for you services to start because you don't need a huge following and you're essentially selling time. Right? And so like you don't have to have anything created and so I have helped a lot of more women than men, but men to jump into the online space through the done for you services and you know you could get started with copy with social media or with funnel building and funnel building could actually pay a lot more than some of the other online done for you services. And so it was such an easy a marriage to put those two things together because not only could you make money quickly, not only did you not need a product, but you were helping other business owners make money through funnels and on top of it, you could also get affiliate commissions as you fold. Speaker 3:     10:28         Click funnels and the process, and so as I saw these, you know, a lot of moms would start coming to me, I want to make three to $5,000 a month. I was like, this is how you got to do it. And so that's where I started and then as I grew my agency, I started to teach people how to grow their agency as well, how to hire, how to project manage when you're building funnels and running ads for people as well. And even if you decide someday to not fully scale your agency and you want to go into coaching, consulting course, creation, any other business, you will now have the skillset as that you needed as an agency owner to build any kind of business you want. So it's like at this one, two punch, make money, build the skills at build the foundation for whatever your legacy is going to be. And so that's essentially what create your laptop life is all about, is like build that foundation that no one can take away from you no matter what you decide to do. Speaker 2:     11:21         To me, that's the part I am so excited about because a lot of people are trying to do, again, this is probably gonna be posting the first week or so of, of 2019 and there's so many people out there right now her saying, you know what? I want 2019 to be a unique year for me. I want this to be like the best year ever. And you know, we hear a lot about affiliate marketing and I'm obviously we run a large affiliate program over here, but I think the cool part is this whole idea as far as creature, laptop, life, and the ability to then really control your destiny without having to have a product which so many times people spend literally years building a product that never gets launched. And that's one of the things I was so excited about is this. So first of all, if you guys go check out, create your laptop life.com, uh, Julie's face of that. Speaker 2:     12:09         She's done an amazing job building it. In addition to that, she's a, has an amazing team and I want to kind of talk right now, Julie, if you don't mind about this whole idea as far as project managing, it's been one, again, one of your many, many talents is I don't know how you do all that. You do, especially when it comes to project management. You're managing not only our internal agency, which we'll talk about a few minutes, but also you're managing a Russell's books. Uh, our two Comma Club coaching program. You're one of our coaches. You're managing that, uh, and providing massive content. So if you don't mind, could you help people understand when we start talking about project management, what does that really mean and what is the financial opportunity available to someone who wants to get involved in something like that? Speaker 3:     12:52         Yeah. Well, so project management, it is a, when you can find a good project manager, man, don't let them go. Like it's a unique, it's a unique skill set and there's project management as a service. Like I know people whose entire business, that's all they do is they go in and they do project management and pr and really, you know, I remember when Brandon and pool and came to click funnels and they were doing the CEO slop it stuff really at scale. When we talk about scaling and we talk about like how to, how to make your, you know, double your revenue in 10 x your revenue. We're really talking about managing people because any business, I don't care what kind of business it is, the way to scale is through people and the only way to scale with people is to have project management in place where you can manage the teams that people so that you're all moving in the same direction. Like you know, like the choreographed dances you see at the mall. What are those things called where people all of a sudden bust out into like choreography mobs. Yes. Thank you. Flash mobs. Right? It's like at its very core scaling your business is about learning how to manage people and projects. Right? Like that's it. And I know I know it, you know, that doesn't sound quite as sexy as like 10 x your revenue, but like that's really what it is. And I remember brandon saying I aspirin and I was like, Speaker 3:     14:10         what do you do all day? And he's like, well really what I do is I'm thinking about project initiatives and the people and the project managers that we're going to need a place like because I have to keep building out the team. And I was like, it's so interesting that that's really at scale with what businesses are doing and that's exactly what Russell is doing and that's why I've kind of taken on that marketing role so he can really start to cast that vision and start to create those initiatives, those people, teams that then I can manage to help bring all the initiatives to fruition. Speaker 2:     14:41         I love it. And I've talked a lot about who, not how. I know Russell's done podcast on, I believe you've done a podcast on who, not how. And so there's a lot of resources out there, but if you don't mind, because one of the things we were talking about in our, one of our meetings we have just recently was this whole idea as far as this waffle and there was a ton of fomo associated with the waffle. We were actually at waffle me up a hector owns the company, gave us all these necklaces that had a waffle on it. We then reflect with Ryan with regard to some of the things that he was doing from a Dev standpoint and creating a teams. And I want it, if you don't mind, let's kind of segue from, as a project manager, what does this whole waffle, how does it work in an internal agency and what are the pieces that a person would need a, if they're going to look at project management, what are the pieces they need to add to that waffle? Speaker 3:     15:29         Yeah. Okay. So, um, the idea of the waffles, like it's a square. And so, um, basically if you imagine a square and you think of a funnel building agency, right? We have the people that you would have would be like a funnel builder, a designer, a copywriter, um, maybe a video person and a content person, right? So imagine those five people down that first column. Speaker 3:     15:52         Okay. And those are your core team. Now, as you start to expand out, you need to create a second team and the third team and a fourth team. So you can, as you imagine that waffle, you are essentially creating a second column, a third, a fourth, and you're hiring another funnel builder, copywriter, designer, video content versus the idea is once you have that waffle all filled out at the very top, the very top row is project managers. So whenever a team is working and they need to know what to do, they're going to look up right and they're going to report to their project manager. But in any kind of agency, especially a funnel building one where there is like a skill level involved, they also need to understand how to do it. They need to have someone to report to as to how to design well or how to copy well. Speaker 3:     16:40         And so if you look left on the waffle, right, you go over and you're able to basically ask the head funnel builder, the head designer, the head copywriter, how to make the coffee better. And so instead of an org chart, which is very flat and two dimensional, where there's just one person reporting the reality is that as a project, as a project manager in the agency, let's say Jake who is a designer, he's going to report to me for the, what of the design, but he may report to a head a head designer, he's actually our head designer. But if there were another one, he would report to that person asking about how his design is working and it just creates this three dimensional reality, which is real life, right? Because, um, that's just how agencies work. Speaker 2:     17:25         I love it. So if you could take back, take a step back to last year. As Julie came in, she basically acted as not only a project manager, she was also a content creator. She was also part acting partly in as our funnel building side of things as well. And so as you guys were first starting your business, realize you're going to find yourself, if you were to look at this tic Tac, toe board waffle type of thing, you're going to, your name may be in a whole bunch of different places all over. It was a Julie Board for them for a while there, but the the object now is to start replacing yourself. And so we brought in, Julie brought her in as a part of her click funnels now and one of her main responsibilities here is to replace Russell from the marketing standpoint. So she's now our vp of marketing. Speaker 2:     18:09         She's heading up all of our marketing. We've created our own internal agency, so she's hired a. We now have a yourself who basically is our chief project manager soon we'll replace that as well, but she thought I was going to be training all the other project managers that we bring them in in internal agency. It was all that really was brought in primarily just to build out our own funnels. We really didn't start this with the intention of bringing others on. Now we're actually, and we'll talk about some other stuff we're gonna be doing later, but realized that first column was you were heading up the project management. We had nick, who is our chief funnel builder. Jake is our chief designer. Karen's or chief copywriter. I'm, who am I missing here? Dan is our chief, a videographer, and then Russell and I were sharing the role of chief content creators. Speaker 2:     18:55         He and I were doing that together. Um, in the content creation side. We both became the bottlenecks and that's one of the things when you're looking at this whole agency model to realize you, you've got to try to break through bottlenecks as much as you can. And as we were looking at the scale of this, especially as you start one of the, you run across two different types of bottlenecks. One is what to do and that's as Julie mentioned, again, that's where you would be looking to your project manager. The other thing is how to do it and what if you don't know exactly how and really it's not just how it's at the way in which the owner wants it done. And I know that was probably one of the biggest things and there's a lot of people who can write copy. There's a lot of people who can do design or funnel building, but it has to be done the way that the owner or the project manager wants for that system. Speaker 2:     19:48         And I think that's what you've just done such a great job over the course of this last year, is helping communicate that in a way that, um, how do I say this in a nice. In a way that was kind of your, the kind one of the group here. Uh, I, I definitely am not, that's not one of my skillsets. I'm much more direct, but a, Julia, we were able to do this in a nurturing way. And I think it's real important when you start looking at scaling a business and scaling your company to realize that you've got to, as you're one of the main role is you as a ceo or whatever role you want to put yourself in. Anytime you're managing people, you're also a coach. And Julie, you've done such an amazing job because you have your own coaching program as well and I think because you were used to doing that type of coaching as you came into our team, you nurtured and coach people through that in a way that we go to a very fast paced as do you, but you were able to nurture in a way that brought a lot of congruency as well as a just more of a family friendly type of environment. Speaker 2:     20:54         And again, I think it's an important thing if you don't mind, if you could spend just a few minutes far as teaching people, how do you actually coach someone and help them develop the skill set while still holding people's feet to the fire to get stuff done? Speaker 3:     21:07         Yeah, it's a fine. It's a fine line because I think, you know, I always am. I always remind myself it was something I think, you know, probably I learned in kindergarten this idea of like the compliment sandwich and it's not necessarily like a platitude compliment, but it's like whenever you're about to go disseminate, don't forget to like express your gratitude, your encouragement, whatever it happens to be. So like say something that like shows that you recognize that they're working hard, right? Then provide whatever constructive feedback you need to provide and then wrap up with some sort of encouragement. So be like, Hey, you know, I saw that you were working on this funnel. I know you've been working hard. Thank you for putting in the extra hours. Here are the changes that really needs to be made. Right? And then you could go through and then at the end you can say, you know, thanks. Speaker 3:     21:55         Um, I know that this has been a big project and I really appreciate you acting so quickly or whatever. It's just like validating all as much as you possibly can where you see people attempting to do a good job because people like crave that. And then that way the constructive feedback is always so much easier to handle because they know that you're seeing them. So to me that's like, I mean, it's just like they call it a compliment sandwich was not really a compliment. It's more out of that. It's just, that's always the way I try to coach people whenever possible. Speaker 2:     22:28         I love that analogy and I think it's important for those you guys who are listening realize as the entrepreneur, the people you're hiring, they may not be motivated by the same type of things that you are and they're not going to be as driven as you are. And I know that, uh, in my earlier career it was one of the biggest mistakes I made was thinking I was bringing on a whole bunch of entrepreneurs who are going to be as excited as I was. They were going to stay as late as I was. They were all invested and understand that when you start looking at careers, there's typically three different steps to that. Jobs or positions. And typically a person when they first started working there literally are just looking for a job. It's a paycheck. That's all it is. And your responsibility as the business owner is if you can help paint a picture for a career you're going to find all of a sudden, once, once a person goes from job to career, their mindset changes a ton. Speaker 2:     23:19         And we're starting to see that already as we look at, um, those people who are our head designers, copywriters, all that kind stuff. When they start seeing themselves as a career where they're building out other people, you will see their whole attitude towards their work changes a ton. And then when you can see when a person can go from a career to a calling, life changes completely and understand a calling doesn't need to be a person that they're the CEO or anything else. The janitor can have a calling where they understand that what they do matters. And we just, uh, gave out to all of our click funnels, employees, sweatshirts and sweatpants. And on the back of the sweatshirt bay says what we do matters. Because it really, really does. And I hoping that as you start whoever, as you're listening to this and you're looking to build out a company, you're gonna find, typically you go from a a product to a business and from a business to a company, and as you start really building out a company, you start to having to lay out a career path for those people who you're working with and if you can get from career to calling it, lily is the biggest game changer you're ever going to see in your business. Speaker 2:     24:24         Because now people are connected. They feel vested. You can tie this to culture. You can tie it to a whole bunch of different things, but realize, as Julian mentioned there, that complimentary sandwich type of approach is so critical to people because there's a lot of people who the dollar isn't as important as validation and knowing that the work matters and knowing. So as an entrepreneur, typically you, you're going to be a high d, You're going to have a high monetary drive, but that may not be and most likely isn't gonna be the type of people you're hiring. So you have to realize that you're not going to motivate them the same way as you yourself might be motivated. Speaker 3:     25:01         And I got the understanding, the more that the CEO or, or even even the c suite level, whoever's up at the top can recognize that the ship is moving because of the work these people are doing is just. I mean like Jake. So funny put a meme about facebook of like a designer and it was so funny because you know, Jake, nick, Karen, I know and you know, maybe it comes from the fact that I used to do those roles as well. They work harder than. I mean like they just work so dang hard. It is unbelievable. And they are like actually the ones like birthing whatever asset. Right. And so like recognizing how much skill that takes just I don't know, wherever you can and whether you have an in house team or whether you have contractors, just recognizing their talent and their skill goes such a long way. Such a long way. Speaker 2:     25:58         No, I appreciate you're mentioned as far as recognizing contractors. I think too often that isn't appreciated. I'm sure you've had in your experience, if you don't mind, to kind of talk about when a contractor doesn't feel appreciated, what typically happens and how can you actually show gratitude to a contractor? Speaker 3:     26:17         Yeah. Well it was a big mistake that can happen for contractors. Freelancers is that they can, um, they can be treated like the monkey who just implements and this is partly the fault of the contractor if they haven't positioned themselves as like, Hey, I'm going to strategically help you and I'm not just the implementation montcalm also like the artists trying to help you figure this out. Um, but then from the, from the employer side, understanding that when you bring a contractor, they're not an employee. They are, you are bringing them on in a, in a, in essence to consult and to be the boss of whatever project it is. Right? And so, like sometimes like employers will treat contractors like employees and it just, it just hurts the relationship when recognizing if you're going to go hire a funnel builder, you're essentially saying, you're better at this than I am. I want you to come in and I want you to actually lead the charge on this. Um, you'll find that contractors will perform better if you do, you know, if you, if you, if you see it that way rather than just like the monkey who's just gonna like do the dirty jobs that you don't want to do. Speaker 2:     27:22         No, I love that. So how do you, how do you work best with a contractor in that role and help them feel connected and have some ownership to what they're doing without having to give them actual ownership of the project they're working on? Speaker 3:     27:35         Yeah. Well, I think the very first question you have to ask yourself is, is this really a contractor job or am I trying to fill a contractor, an employee position with a contractor? Because I will, I will gander a guess that a lot of people who are scaling their business need to start building an in house agency like clickfunnels does. Um, and they really need people who are on the team. If that's not you, if you're not in that place. And it really is a, you know, a sectioned off projects that a contractor would do. I would just say that the more you can bang out the scope of the better and just remember contractors feed on testimonials so you can do an amazing thing about making the contractor's work better by being willing to offer a testimonial and a case study because for a lot of them that's going to be like, hey, if this goes well, like I will shout it from the rooftops, I'll tell everyone I know that will help them perform better. It will also give them a nonmonetary when that they will need it to make their business grow. Speaker 2:     28:36         Awesome. So kind of a loaded question here and that is, can contractors become good employees? Speaker 3:     28:42         Um, I think in some cases, yes, I think it all boils down to what they're motivated by. If you meet a contractor who is, has a high economic drive, right? Who has a high drive for freedom, they're not going to be a good employee, they just won't. I will tell you that the two employees that I have now originally were contractors. Um, and both of them actually are gonna be coming and working with click funnels as well. They both were not just driven by monetary, they were freelancing because they wanted a laptop life, but they really, really enjoyed, again, being a part of a team, being part of a bigger mission. Certainty matters to both of them. And if you have someone who likes certainty are gonna, like the steady paycheck, they're going to like not having the hustle. Um, and so, so in that case, when I brought them on as employees, they didn't see it as like, they were like, yes, we're ready to be like on your team like that. Um, and so in some cases it works out, but they had both been working for me for about two years before we, before we did that. So we kind of, you know, the honeymoon was over, right? Like we all knew what we were getting into. Speaker 2:     29:54         I, it take off here in a few minutes. I want to kind of wrap up with a couple of things, most importantly, how people can get ahold of you and some of the things that are coming over with youtube click funnels. So you had mentioned as far as we, we have the opportunity of having two amazing people being brought over to the team as we're so great. Your laptop life.com is one of the things. So if you don't mind, tell people what that is and why, why somebody would want to go there and what they're going to get. Speaker 3:     30:20         Yeah. Alright. So, so much is changing but it's going to be amazing. It's going to be so, so create your laptop. Life is basically a membership community for people who want to start service based businesses. So um, I would probably say about 60 to 70 percent of the membership. It's not a thousand people right now. Our funnel building agencies, digital marketer. So if you are interested, that is a great, great community to get hooked in. There's some great content. I go live once a week. I answer your questions and that has been running for three years and it is amazing community, so that is coming over. That will be, I don't know how it's all going to like unfold that I know that it's only going to get better hooked up to the SS click funnels, so that's remaining, um, the second thing that I do, which is going to become an official partner brand click funnels stamp his funnel, gorgeous, which is our premium more feminine, but we also have some funnel handsome in there to a design for heart centered female entrepreneurs who want something that's gorgeous and beautiful. So that's exciting. Um, and then most of my other contact is really going to get worked into the fabric of click funnels. So if you're interested in the two Comma Club x coaching program, um, any of the content that's going to be coming in 2019 is going to be all, all pushed through there. So I will be found in the funnel hacker community. I'm at clickfunnels. That's where the bulk of my content will be going. Speaker 2:     31:50         Starting January first. Awesome. And she'll be speaking at funnel hacking live so you can go on stage. They're also to get a lot more. Julie, I highly recommend you check out her podcast. So let's talk a little about your podcast. So right now we have this podcast. You guys are listening to funnel hacker radio. We have a marketing secrets, which is just russell talking about his own thing. So obviously for those of you listening to this one, I typically bring other people on like a bread Giuliani multiple times a will bring other people into fight outside feedback and content. I do send my own, uh, thoughts and things here. But do we have to help people understand what your podcast is, why they should go there and how they actually get more of your podcast as well? Speaker 3:     32:32         Yeah. So create your laptop life.com when you go to that website. If you just go to forward slash podcast, you'll see my podcast, the, your laptop life podcast is literally about laptop life living. And what that means is when you are working on from home on your laptop, most of the time I'm talking about people who are in the freelance market, um, but people who are building a life and building a business that is the nontraditional business. So I talk a ton about marketing online business. I talked about productivity and some balance stuff because you know, when you're not in a traditional office, there's a lot of things that happen when you're trying to balance that work life balance. So all of that stuff. And a huge dose of funnels and marketing are over overact career, laptop, lifestyle. Speaker 2:     33:19         Alright? So take checkout, create your laptop life.com. Check out her podcast. Uh, you'll see our funnel hacking live. If you don't have your ticket, by all means. I don't know why you haven't bought it yet or not. I can live.com please. Last thing I want is for us to sell out like we always do. And then people are saying, I didn't get my ticket yet to go get your ticket. You don't want to Miss Julie speaking from stage. He's going to be crushing it as always. Uh, Julie, anything else before we wrap things up here? No. You gotta hit out pretty quick. Speaker 3:     33:43         Yeah. No, I'm just, I'm just so excited for this new chapter. I'm excited for what together we can. We can do. I mean the one funnel away challenge was probably the best example I could see of what happens when you put heads together and you put all those skillsets together. You have russell with the strategic marketing genius that he is, um, my skill set which is really systematic teaching I would say. Um, and taking that strategy and then steven who is just totally the funnel preacher is what I call him because he's just going to like kick your butt and when you put those three things together, we saw the power of what happened. And so I'm just excited to be able to do more and more of that and to, to not have to duplicate my efforts in two different ships and to just like bring more value to the funnel Hartford community Speaker 2:     34:37         now. Well, we are so excited to have you as a partner. We're super excited to bring your content, your businesses over to click funnels to really help out, especially those people are getting started in wanting to build an agency, wanting to be a freelancer, a, we're going to tie this into a whole bunch of other things. We've already bought some domains around that. June, we'll be launching all that stuff as well, but 2019 is going to be a crazy, crazy year and we're so excited to started off by announcing a Julie as one of our newest partners and more importantly, as the person behind the scenes making everything happen. So Julie, I can't thank you enough. I'm so excited for 2019 and appreciate all that you always have done and continue to do. Thank you. Speaker 4:     35:15         Hey everybody. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to podcasts. If you don't mind, could you please share this with others, rate and review this podcast on itunes. It means the world to me. We're trying to get to as a million downloads here in the next few months and just crush through over $650,000 and I just want to get the next few 100,000 so we can get to a million downloads and see really what I can do to help improve and and get this out to more people at the same time. If there's a topic, there's something you'd like me to share or someone you'd like me to interview, by all means, just reach out to me on facebook. You can pm me and I'm more than happy to take any of your feedback as well as if the people you'd like me to interview more than happy to reach out and have that conversation with you. So again, go to Itunes, rate and review this, share this podcast with others and let me know how else I can improve this or what I can do to make this better for you guys. Thanks.  

Happy New Year HIMYF fans! This week Alison had to take a night off to be a responsible adult and complete some work for her freelance clients. So Julie and Kathleen (with a quick cameo from Trevor) took the wheel and drove the car right off the rails! Ha ha, not really, but we definitely had some trouble staying on topic. So sit back and catch up on our New Year's New Word, why we think you should use anatomically correct words for genitalia, and almost forget to do Friend of the Day! Chat with on Twitter @himyfriendspod, Instagram @howimetyourfriendspod, our brand-new Facebook page How I Met Your Friends Pod, or email howimetyourfriendspod@gmail.com!

ASCO: You’re listening to a podcast from Cancer.Net. This cancer information website is produced by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, known as ASCO, the world’s leading professional organization for doctors that care for people with cancer. The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Cancer research discussed in this podcast is ongoing, so data described here may change as research progresses. In today's podcast, Suzanne Dixon and Julie Lanford discuss nutrition during and after treatment for colorectal cancer, including ways to manage side effects and guidelines for eating with a colostomy. Suzanne Dixon is a registered dietitian and epidemiologist in Portland, Oregon. Julie Lanford is a registered dietitian in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  ASCO would like to thank Ms. Dixon and Ms. Lanford for discussing this topic. Suzanne Dixon: Hi. I'm Suzanne Dixon and I'm an epidemiologist and a registered dietitian, and I have a really long history of working in cancer care and I'm really passionate about making sure that people get good information that's based on facts and not fear. And I'm here with my friend and colleague, Julie Lanford. Julie Lanford: Hey, everyone. I'm Julie and I am also a registered dietitian. I've been an RD for about 13 years, and almost all of that time has been spent helping people facing cancer. I also have a master's in Public Health, and I'm a board-certified specialist on oncology nutrition. Suzanne Dixon: Well, thanks, Julie. I wanted to say thanks to ASCO, from both Julie and I. We're really excited to be here to discuss this topic of nutrition for people who are going through colorectal cancer treatment and also for colorectal cancer survivors who may be finished with treatment. So those are the topics we're going to tackle, and talking about how to help people eat well and get the nutrition they need to get through treatment. So I'll get started by talking a little bit of a brief overview about why good nutrition is so important for people with colorectal cancer who are going through treatment or perhaps after treatment. We know that cancer treatment, for a number of different types of cancer, but certainly, for a cancer like colorectal cancer that affects the digestive tract, that can diminish a person's ability to eat well. And there are other symptoms that might pop up that can even affect how the body digests food and uses nutrients. And we worry about something in the nutrition community called unintentional weight loss. In other words, losing weight without trying. And this is really different from when someone diets to lose weight intentionally. And unlike weight loss by choice, unintentional weight loss, or losing weight without trying, during colorectal cancer treatment can be harmful to your health. And I'm sure, Julie, you've probably heard this, too. And I've spoken with lots of colleagues who have worked with patients who want to put a positive spin on cancer-associated weight loss. Maybe they've been told they should lose weight by their doctor in the past for some other health issue, and they might even say something along the lines of, "Oh. Well, it's terrible I have cancer, but at least I'll lose a few pounds." And I think that really comes from the fact that a lot of the general public is dieting or trying to lose weight at any 1 time. And so a lot of people think any weight loss is good weight loss, and that includes even during cancer treatment. But unfortunately, that is not true. And what we do know is true is that, if you lose weight without trying during cancer treatment, meaning you're taking in less calories and protein than your body needs in order to maintain your current weight, it can make your treatment a little bit harder and sometimes even a little bit less effective. So you might think, "Okay. What's going on here? Why would that be the case?" And what happens is, with cancer, we know that the body doesn't necessarily respond to weight loss in a healthy way that it might do if you were, say, just dieting on any given day. And that's because stress of the treatment itself and stress of the cancer, that's very stressful on your body, can actually lead to the body not using fat for fuel. And so this is something that a lot of people don't realize. They might think, "Well, I have excess body fat, I'll just lose that weight. It'll be fine." But we know that the fact that the body can fail to use fat for fuel can be true even in people who are carrying excess body fat. And so I think it's really important for people to take away from this that, even if you have "extra body weight", it doesn't protect you as you're going through colorectal cancer treatment from the negative effects of unintentional weight loss. And that's because if you're not burning that fat for fuel, then that means you're burning lean tissue. And that's the healthy stuff, which is made up of muscle, bone, organs, red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, other immune cells, all kinds of tissues. Those all are part of what we call lean tissue. And that explains why losing weight, if you're not trying to lose weight, during cancer treatment can be so harmful. For sure, you're going to feel a little bit weak and fatigued if you lose that muscle mass, but those very cells and tissues, that lean tissue that I mentioned? The red and white blood cells and all the other healthy tissues that you need to keep your immunity and your body strong through treatment can be depleted. And so this is where we worry about that unintentional weight loss maybe leading to more severe side effects from the treatment. And sometimes your physician might need to reduce the doses of your treatment or schedule breaks in your therapy, which makes recovery harder and makes it hard to reach your treatment goals. So that's kind of the baseline that we start from and lays the groundwork for why nutrition is such an important component of your care and why it's so important to make sure that that's something you think about as you're going through colorectal cancer treatment and as you're recovering even after treatment. So Julie, I'm going to turn it over to you for a minute here. And I wanted to hear a little bit about, what have you seen when you're working with patients in terms of symptoms that you feel are challenging and make eating difficult? Julie Lanford: Yeah. So it's definitely true, us oncology dietitians, we get very nervous when people lose weight, and it's not something that we want to necessarily see, especially during treatment. Every person is different. Their type of cancer, their type of treatment, how they tolerate it are all going to be different. The symptoms they may have during treatment can change with time, and so I actually find it helpful to start just by helping patients understand what the role of nutrition is during treatment. Since it's nota treatment for cancer, but it helps to support the healthy cells as much as possible. Treatment targets the tumor and then your nutrition plan helps to make sure that your body is well-nourished. So while we're looking at that, each person who's coming in, we're going to have to assess, "What are the challenges that they're facing individually?" and try to develop a plan based on that. Suzanne Dixon: Yeah, that's an excellent point, Julie, just the idea that everybody's different. And I think that's really important for anybody going through colorectal cancer therapy or any other type of cancers, that you might hear some ideas or things that people suggest that you do to help with your nutrition during treatment. And it's good to keep in mind exactly what you said about everybody's different and that we can't assume that what might be right for one person is right for another. So knowing that, say someone is coming in for the first time and they've received a colon or colorectal cancer diagnosis, and maybe they're getting started in treatment. What do you do when you first meet with them? Julie Lanford: Yeah. So once somebody comes in—oftentimes they're referred by their medical care team, and there's already an issue identified, but a lot of times I like to sort of start at the beginning and try to compare what their usual intake and their usual weight is to what they're currently looking at. So maybe somebody has lost weight, but they didn't realize it because it's possible that they lost a lot of weight before the cancer. Sometimes that's what's actually brings somebody into the doctor is that they say, "I'm losing weight and I'm not trying to," and then that's when they start looking at what the problems are. So rather than thinking, necessarily, just about, "Well, how much weight have you lost since treatment?" we want to look at, "How much weight have you lost over time from what is usual for you?" So we start with that, and then also looking at, "What are they able to eat? Are they able to eat a normal diet they usually eat? Are they not able to eat anything at all? Or are they having to sort of change the types of foods that they're eating?" And then we try to identify what kinds of symptoms might be causing their eating challenges, and that really is why you want to work 1-on-1 with an oncology dietitian because then you can start troubleshooting based specifically on what's going on. Suzanne Dixon: Yeah, that's a great point, just making sure that people understand that it's both about if they've lost weight in response to treatment but even coming into treatment. I think a lot of people do come in and they don't think about the fact that maybe they've lost 10, 20, 30 pounds even before they were diagnosed. So when someone walks into your office, what are some of the common side effects that you seem to find in those colorectal patients? Julie Lanford: So when I'm working with people, a lot of times the 2 top things that a lot of people are facing challenges with are not having much of an appetite and/or feeling tired or fatigued to the point where they either don't have the energy to prepare foods or they just don't feel like eating because they're so tired. And so those are pretty common. What I usually tell people is that actually, to help address both of those issues, we usually suggest eating five or six small meals a day in order to get nutrition without getting tired out by trying to eat a huge meal. A lot of people do feel overwhelmed by a large meal, but if they can eat small amounts throughout the day on a regular basis, that will still give them the calories their body needs. Also to keep high-calorie, high-protein snacks on hand is something that is always helpful. So having things like nuts, avocados, fruit, some kind of granola bar that's easy to eat, just something that's around all the time, that's easy to grab, so that you don't really have an excuse to not have something to eat. Some people will keep nutrition supplement drinks like Boost or Ensure in case they don't feel like having a meal, but they are willing to kind of take calories by liquid. And then when it comes to fatigue, what I tell people is try to rest when you're the most tired. And then when you're less tired, use that time to be physically active because physical activity has actually been proven to help increase energy, which sounds a little bit crazy, but that's how it works. Same thing with fatigue is to have meals and snacks available to you and making sure that you're eating several times a day because your body won't be able to have the energy it needs if you're not eating. So both of those things are kind of similar in their strategies for getting enough intake. So I was curious, Suzanne, though, what are some of the challenges and tips that you share with your patients about side effects? Suzanne Dixon: So as you said, everybody's individual, and I agree. I do see people with the poor appetite and the fatigue that you mentioned. But I've also seen a lot of patients over the years who have taste changes and mouth sores, which sometimes go together and sometimes don't. Sometimes you can have one or the other, or both at the same time, which can be a challenge. And I completely agree with your ideas around small, frequent meals and snacks, and kind of, as you said, more of what we call eating by the clock. Don't wait for a meal time per se because that appetite might never come. And especially if things don't taste right, or your mouth is sore, and that you have a lack of appetite, you're definitely not going to want to kind of let time go by and then think, "Oh, I need to eat lunch." Well, lunch might be too big, so you should be probably snacking throughout the whole morning. So I also encourage people to keep those high-protein, high-calorie foods readily available in the fridge, or on hand, as you said. Maybe something portable if they're leaving the house, not to leave without food, to keep some of those things with them in their purse or their bag. And I, at home, encourage things like eggs, chicken, fish, beans, nuts, lean beef, high-calorie liquids, smoothies, things like that. You could throw some fruit juice in a container, throw in a scoop of protein powder, shake it up, and drink it. That's the easiest kind of protein drink. Or you could make a straight-up smoothie where you throw some fruit, maybe some banana, and some other types of fruits that you might want to throw in there, or some frozen fruit like cherries, or those sorts of things. Peaches, maybe. And you blenderize them up with some juice or milk or whatever liquid that you might like. Throw in a protein powder, just a basic whey protein. Anything like that would be great. And just blenderize that all up, and you can kind of sip on it all day. I think for mouth sores, sometimes people feel challenged because it doesn't feel good to eat if your mouth hurts. And so I always encourage people to work with their medical team to make sure that their pain and their mouth sores are medically-addressed appropriately. And I encourage people to realize that just because a particular medication works for one patient doesn't mean it's going to work equally as well for you. And there are lots of options, so I always say, "If your mouth hurts so badly that you're just absolutely unable to eat, call your doctor or your nurse right away." There's all kinds of different pain medications available. Pills, patches, suspensions. There's oral mouth rinses that people can use to kind of numb the mouth a little bit, and you might want to time those so that you do that rinse, and then you eat when that pain control is at its absolute best. And we want to make sure that patients understand that, that if that pain control isn't good, communication is key. They need to let their doctor or nurse know because, typically, those folks are going to start with some standard medications for things like pain control or sore mouth. And if you don't tell them that, you're not getting good pain control, they're going to not know that and they're just going to assume they're fine. So I really do encourage people to keep up that dialogue with their physician and nurse, and to use some common sense tips about sore mouth type problems such as bland, soft, room-temperature foods, usually not hot or extremely cold. Maybe oatmeal, yogurt, casseroles with a lot of moisture in them, shredded chicken in broth, pasta with olive oil. The noodles can kind of slide past the mouth sores, that sort of thing. Applesauce, smoothies. And I always encourage, for the mouth sore part, any food that doesn't have seeds. You want to avoid the berries and the fruits with lots of seeds because those can get stuck in your mouth and irritate the mucous membranes a little bit. So you want to make sure that you kind of stick with those smooth fruits like the bananas, the peaches, those kinds of things, in your smoothie. And for the temperatures—I said room temp is good, but of course anything that requires cooking for food safety, so that would be things like the casseroles and the things with the meat and other types of foods in them that need to be cooked to be consumed, be sure to cook them thoroughly according to directions, and then you can let them cool down to room temp to avoid irritating your mouth. And of course, avoiding hard, crunchy things. If your taste is off, you can certainly do things like granola bars, and nuts, and those sorts of things. But if your mouth sores are really problematic, then you want to avoid those particular foods because they're crunchy, they're kind of poke-y, and they can make your mouth a little bit worse. There's some really unique taste changes that can happen for folks who are going through treatment. For example, a metallic taste in the mouth. Sometimes just using plastic utensils can diminish that a little bit. You don't want to stick a metal fork in your mouth if it already tastes a little bit metallic. Marinating meats, chicken, fish, lean beef, those kinds of things, in different types of flavors that you might not normally think of. Because those foods can taste kind of metallic in your mouth when you're going through certain types of chemotherapy. So fruit-based sauces, sometimes, something a little sweet on that, will take away that metallic. Some people even put a little jelly or jam on their meat to kind of kill that metallic aftertaste. And I just say experiment. If you are dealing with taste changes and you don't have mouth sores, you can experiment with things that are a little bit more acidic like lemon, or vinegar, lime. Those sorts of things can really pep up the taste and get rid of some of those nasty tastes that might come from the chemotherapy or radiation, those kinds of things. But I always say, don't use those acid foods if you have mouth sores. It's too irritating. But also look for other tips to keep yourself away from food smells, so staying out of the kitchen when food's prepared so that you don't kind of get that smell and that taste up in your nose and your mouth before you're ready to eat. A lot of people say things are overly sweet, so they might say, "Well, I don't really like a Boost or an Ensure, or one of those kind of liquid supplements. They just taste too sweet." You can take one of those and throw in something a little more tart, like frozen cranberries or a little bit of powdered coffee to one of those chocolate or vanilla types of supplements so that you get more of like a mocha flavor. It's not quite so sweet. So just asking yourself, "Do I feel like salty? Do I feel like sweet?" and just experimenting and trying whatever you feel like eating that day, I think that's really important for people to remember. There's no one right answer for everybody. And I wanted to turn a little bit and think about more—a little bit lower down in the digestive tract, so GI issues. And these are things I think a lot of people don't want to talk about. Sometimes patients are a little bit embarrassed to admit that their GI tract is doing weird things, things like constipation and diarrhea. That's not usually part of our polite conversation, but what you need to realize is embarrassment is definitely not going to get you the help you need. And the other thing is all of your healthcare providers deal with this type of stuff with their patients every single day, day in and day out, so there's nothing wrong with bringing up changes in your bowel habits, those kinds of things. So Julie, what do you see often if a patient comes in and they kind of hint around that maybe their GI tract isn't functioning quite so well? Julie Lanford: Yeah. You know, I think that GI issues are really common for people in cancer treatment in general, but especially for patients in colon cancer treatment. Diarrhea can be a significant issue, especially if you're having radiation. But a lot of the chemos, that's certainly a side effect. What I really recommend for people is to pay attention. You may need to track, because you might not realize how many bowel movements you're having a day. And one of the key things with diarrhea is making sure that you stay well-hydrated. So especially if you're on chemo, the last thing you need is to be dehydrated. And you lose a lot of fluids with diarrhea, so making sure that you increase your fluid intake to add any lost fluids back. If they're having constant diarrhea, finding sports drinks or a way to get electrolytes, even things like—Pedialyte is formulated for kids, but some way to get electrolytes back into your system, making sure to communicate with the medical team about that, avoiding caffeine and fizzy drinks. Usually, those can kind of irritate it a little bit more. Making sure to have small meals. I feel like I've already said that [laughter] couple of times so far today, but that really is a strategy that helps. Bland, salty foods, like pretzels, crackers, broths, soups, can help get some of those electrolytes while also replacing fluids. But yeah, Suzanne, what kind of tips do you have? Suzanne Dixon: Well, you touched on, a little bit, the importance of talking to your medical team. And I mentioned this too, but making sure you start that discussion with your physician if that medication isn't working the way it should. A lot of times, as you said, we expect that folks might suffer from a little bit of diarrhea or maybe a lot of diarrhea, and you may be given some medications to manage that. And again, keeping in mind that kind of what the standard medication is that maybe works for 80% of people with this particular problem, it may not work for you. So I think it's perfectly fine for you to perk up and tell your physician, "I know you gave me this medication for my diarrhea. I'm taking it just like you said, but I still have—" as you said, maybe you track it. "I still have eight watery bowel movements a day." That's not good. We don't want to see that, because it really can make it hard for you to stay well-hydrated, keep your electrolytes normal, and get the nutrition you need. So I think that's really important. And Julie, once that medical management is addressed, what do you do with helping people with their nutrition? Julie Lanford: Yeah. So hopefully, the medicine will actually kick in and make sure that people are digesting and absorbing nutrients during their treatments, and they can kind of get, at least, to a stable place with the diarrhea. And then what happens is sometimes they get the diarrhea under control and then their body tends to move towards constipation. And so it can be really challenging for people once they figure out, "Oh, I think I have a strategy that works," and then another issue comes up. So once it comes to constipation, again, being in touch with the medical team is really important, and making sure that if you are having constipation, just like diarrhea, you want to keep track of when your last bowel movement was, what's the consistency, is it painful, and then making sure to communicate and not wait too long. Because once somebody waits a long time, it's hard to get those bowels moving again. So it's really important to just keep that open communication with the medical team. With constipation, we really want to make sure people are eating food on a regular basis because your GI tract isn't going to work if you're not putting things into it, drinking plenty of fluids, so that's pretty consistent across the board. If it's possible, and you tolerate fiber, getting enough fiber will help. Being physically active. But if the constipation is a result of pain medication, a lot of times, our dietary strategies may or may not be effective, but you really need to be on some medical management for that. Suzanne, what kinds of things do you usually recommend for constipation? Suzanne Dixon: Well, I agree with what you said about pain-management. Some of those pain medications and anti-nausea medications can contribute to constipation. And sometimes our food recommendations can make a big difference with that, but for other people, they don't make as much of a difference. So if you are prescribed any kind of medication to help manage a side effect, like constipation, you want to make sure that you follow those instructions and do it as directed. And Julie, as you mentioned, I think it's really important to let your physician know that you're having this type of problem and if the medication isn't doing the trick for you because, as you said, once that problem gets really entrenched and you're really kind of backed up, so to speak, and you haven't had a bowel movement in several days, it's challenging to get that fixed. And so we don't want people to struggle to the point where they end up—what we call impaction, meaning they need to work with their physician to maybe have that stool mechanically removed, which nobody wants to go through that. And so we always encourage people, if you haven't had a bowel movement in a couple of days, make sure you let your physician know so they can up your medication or find other ways to control your pain that maybe aren't a medication that cause so much constipation, that sort of thing. And once that's all taken care of, as far as just using the diet in addition to those medical managements, fluid is really important. You mentioned that maybe sometimes people might take a fiber-containing product, or getting more fiber in their diet. Fiber only works if you get lots of fluids. I always tell patients, "Fluid, fluid, fluid. Get plenty of water or other liquids in your diet so that everything can kind of move through your digestive tract." And then the other piece is that I think it's helpful to know the different types of fiber in the diet and what they can do for you. So there's soluble and insoluble fiber. And soluble means it's dissolvable in water. It gets sticky or gooey when it gets wet. So oats are a great example of this. If you pour some liquid into your oatmeal, it actually thickens up and gets gooey. And that's soluble fiber. Now, insoluble fiber is just the opposite. It doesn't really absorb much water, and it doesn't really change much when you add a liquid to it. So I always think, "If you dropped a carrot stick or a celery stick into a glass of water, what would happen?" Not much. It just sits there because it's insoluble. It's a really different type of fiber. And so for constipation, we know that a combination of both soluble and insoluble fiber can help quite a bit. And for diarrhea, getting back to that topic, soluble fiber only is kind of where we head for people to go with their intake. So it's kind of interesting that fiber can be used at both ends of the GI spectrum, whether your GI tract is moving too slowly, with constipation, or too rapidly with diarrhea. Just remember soluble fiber only for diarrhea, and a combination of those two for constipation. And so some places you might a soluble fiber for food—and again, you want some of this for constipation, and only this for diarrhea. Oats in oatmeal, applesauce, lentils, pears, really finely ground flax seeds—not whole, because then it acts a little bit more like an insoluble fiber and it goes through too fast. Barley, really well-cooked barley, or white rice. If you cook it with a lot of extra water and you get this kind of stickiness to it, so you get this real, kind of globby, sticky white rice, that can really slow things down a little bit in the digestive tract. But insoluble fiber, again, what you're aiming to get some of this in for your constipation—and you would want to avoid this for diarrhea. But if you are going towards managing constipation, you add some insoluble fiber, which has things like whole wheat and wheat bran, rye-based breads or crackers, nuts and seeds, raw or lightly-steamed vegetables, berries. Those seeds that I mentioned earlier with the mouth sores? Those are good for constipation generally. Those berries have a little bit more fiber in them. And when you look at things like beans and peas, a lot of people think of beans as being very fibrous, and they are. They contain both soluble and insoluble fiber. And then in terms of kind of maybe picking a fiber product, like something like a Metamucil, or that sort of a product, you would want to work with your physician because there are some situations that could be worsened by adding in a fiber product. So you want to make sure that you're safe to add that in. If you have an infection or a small bowel obstruction, fiber will make that worse. So we want to make sure that you talk to your doctor before you do any of that stuff on your own. Julie Lanford: You know, if somebody wants to, or if they're told that they should take a fiber supplement, I think it is important that the medical team actually be specific about what type of fiber to look when you're purchasing a product, because there are some that claim, "You can add it to any liquid and it won't thicken up." But I find that the ones that don't thicken up aren't particularly beneficial, depending on [laughter] which issue you're dealing with. So you may want the gritty fiber supplement if you're trying to deal with constipation. But yeah, you definitely need to pump lots and lots of fluids if you're going to take those fiber supplements. So I feel like the progression on this since we're talking about all these bowel movements [laughter], is to talk some about colostomies because some people will have parts of their GI tract removed, and then they made have to use a colostomy. So just to explain a little bit about what a colostomy is, so essentially what happens is if somebody has to have surgery to either remove part of their GI tract, in order to eliminate stool from the GI tract, they may have to put in a temporary or a permanent exit for the stool to come out. And so the ostomy is where post-digested food would then exit the body, and then it's into a bag that's then emptied by the person who is having to use that device. And while it might be temporary for some people, for some people, it's actually permanent, but either way, there are some really great, I think, guidelines for eating after a colostomy. And most people kind of figure out what works for them and what doesn't, but especially in the beginning, as far as food goes, we really want to be cautious with adding something that might cause some discomfort or that the output would be difficult to handle. So we generally guide people to stay away from things like corn or popcorn, raw vegetables, the skins and peels of fruits and vegetables, because those can sometimes be the most difficult-to-digest pieces. And since part of the GI tract or the colon has been removed, it's extra-hard to digest, and you might not actually digest them at all, and that's why they show up in the bag as output. So we recommend kind of being really cautious with the foods that you start with, avoiding some of the gas-producing foods, broccoli, cauliflower, beans, peas. A lot of people know which foods tend to be more gas-producing. It's not to say that someone with an ostomy can never have those. It's just, especially when you get started and kind of try to figure things out, you want to err on the side of not having them. And then if you do want to add them eventually, you might start by blending or just having a tiny bit of it to test it out and see if it works for you. Suzanne, what do you tell people when it comes to colostomies? Suzanne Dixon: Yeah, I agree completely with those guidelines. Anything that you think of as kind of tough and fibrous, like all those raw fruits and vegetables, or corn, popcorn, peas, beans, all that sort of stuff, salad—you know, think about lettuce. Popular vegetable these days is either cauliflower or kale. Those are kind of 2 hot vegetables that people are always, "Oh, you need more cauliflower and kale." Those are tough to digest, so I really would encourage people to think about not having those for a while if they're first new to having a colostomy. And as you said, Julie, it doesn't mean you can never have it. If your colostomy's permanent, you can probably work your way up to some of that stuff, but you're going to want to do that slowly. Another piece of advice I think that most of us don't think about is to chew your food really thoroughly. And this takes a little bit of effort. I can admit myself that sometimes I sort of eat really rapidly and don't chew my food as much as I should. I know a lot of us, we're in a rush. We often just swallow our food without chewing it at all, and it's remarkable that our digestive tract, generally speaking, can handle that just fine, and that's because some of the action of digestion is due to enzymes, but some of it's due to kind of mechanical action called peristalsis, and your GI tracts squeezes and contracts and pushes food through, and that helps break it down, even if you haven't chewed it very well. However, if you're missing a piece of your GI tract, you're missing a piece of that digestive work that gets done, and so that means if you don't chew food thoroughly, it will show up in your ostomy bag as a piece of food. And I think the best example—and some people might think, "Oh, this is gross. Don't talk about this," but it really is true. Summer season comes. People eat corn on the cob and they joke about that—they look in the toilet after they've gone to the bathroom and there's corn pieces floating in there. That is exactly the type of food we're talking about that can be so difficult for someone with an ostomy. And so we really tell people to limit those things and to chew even the foods that are a little more easily digested. I can't even stress enough how much we need to chew our food more than we do, and especially if we have a colostomy, because that can go a long way towards breaking it down right there in your mouth and preventing some of those potential blockages of the bag. We don't want that to happen because then you can get leaks and other unpleasant things like that. And the gas-producing foods are good to limit, especially when you first have an ostomy bag, to see how your body responds because, of course, you don't want a lot of gas production. It can blow up the bag, make it harder to manage, so we really do encourage people to kind of go easy on their digestive tract and stick to some of those softer, blander foods, and to chew everything really thoroughly, meats, things like that, chicken, fish, beef. If you're having those kinds of foods, chew those pieces really well, cut them up small, and make sure that you kind of give your digestive tract that little advantage of letting your teeth do some of the work first. Julie Lanford: Right. I think we sometimes forget that just chewing is the first part of the process of digestion, and so that's why buying things that are blended or pureed ahead of time, or doing that yourself, kind of helps to make sure that, instead of eating peanuts, if you have peanut butter, it's already blended and kind of broken down before you even start to eat it. And so it can be just a little bit extra step to help your body digest it more effectively. Suzanne Dixon: Right. Yeah, I totally agree. I think we all forget about the fact that a big part of our digestion takes place in our mouth. So, I wanted to ask you a few questions, Julie, about long-term health. So we've got folks that have gone through treatment, and they're doing well, and they want to kind of transition back to their regular eating pattern. And so what do you do to guide people towards healthy, long-term dietary changes for their best, healthiest, cancer survivorship? Julie Lanford: Yeah. So especially with colon cancer, I think the challenges are that a lot of times, what we typically recommend for a healthy diet, especially after treatment is over, might not be something that people tolerate right away because of all these digestive issues. So I do just want to encourage those survivors out there who might be having digestive issues that we can tailor a diet to whatever challenges someone's facing. So while the current recommendation is that we want people to eat lots of fruits and vegetables and plant foods, I recognize that sometimes that's not possible. So I usually work with my client individually to figure out, "Well, what is kind of their best choice, given their challenges?" So for some people, they need to eat cooked vegetables. Some people need to always have blended vegetables. And in some cases, this is kind of the one time I might recommend that someone juice as opposed to blend their foods because, if they don't digest it very well, juicing is maybe the best option that they have. Suzanne Dixon: Yeah, that's a great point. We don't generally, as dietitians, promote a lot of juicing because you lose the fiber and other good components of the food. But of course, if you can't digest fiber, at least you can get those nutrients with some juicing without irritating your digestive tract. That's a great point. So as we're moving to the end here, Julie, do you want to kind of summarize some of the key takeaways? Julie Lanford: Yeah. What I would say is that since everybody has their own kind of individual issues, that I would just encourage people that you want to remember that your nutrition does matter. You want to stay well-nourished because that's going to improve your body's ability to tolerate and respond to treatment. There are so many dietary tips and tricks out there that you want to, as much as possible, kind of pick the ones that work for you, be in touch with your medical team, ask for a referral to an oncology dietitian, if you need that, and then once treatment is over, really try to work to find a nutrition plan that works for you. Suzanne Dixon: That's a great point. I like that. One-size-fits-all is not the approach. You definitely want to tailor things for your own needs. So it's really been great talking with you today, Julie, and I hope that a lot of patients can benefit from this information. Julie Lanford: Yeah, this was really fun. Suzanne Dixon: Thanks. ASCO: Thank you, Ms. Dixon and Ms. Lanford. Learn more about colorectal cancer at www.cancer.net/colorectal. And if this podcast was useful, please take a minute to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Google Play. Cancer.Net is supported by ASCO’s Conquer Cancer Foundation, which funds breakthrough research for every type of cancer, helping patients everywhere. To help fund Cancer.Net and programs like it, donate at conquer.org/support.

See all the show notes here.  Julie Ellis started her career as a representative for a semiconductor manufacturer after completing her Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering. Now she is a Field Applications Engineer (FAE) at TTM Technologies, the third-largest circuit board manufacturer in the world. Listen to Julie and Judy discuss seamless global transfer and recommendations on working with offshore fabricators. Learn how to avoid excessive technical queries and how to migrate from prototype to production while optimizing global processes. Bonus update on AltiumLive: Julie and Carl Schattke will be presenting at AltiumLive 2018, introducing new stackup and impedance tools in Altium Designer 19, so be sure not to miss them! Show Highlights: Julie Ellis did a presentation about Documentation at AltiumLive 2017. What is Seamless Global Transfer? Transferring PCB manufacturing from onshore prototype level into production and offshore. Julie started her career at Hughes Aircraft, where she completed her Electrical Engineering Bachelor Degree - best decision of her life More women (not just circuit board barbie) need to get into STEM!  #WomenInTech. Julie always encourages young women who are interested in STEM, to get a degree that will enable them to move into fascinating jobs with a variety of opportunities. Julie’s first job was as a semiconductor manufacturer’s representative; realized she liked the circuit board side of the business more than ICs and migrated over. On TTM: It’s like working at Google for circuit boards, I can always call someone for answers about manufacturing best practices. Seamless global transfer - the concept is that you aren’t just designing for the prototype but for global manufacturing i.e. avoid 100 technical queries What makes migrating over such a difficult process? Because the 6-Sigma 6Ms, are not the same when it transfers over to Asia. What are the 6Ms?  Method, Mother Nature “Environmental”, (Man) People, Measurement, Machine, Materials. Equipment sets are different for mass production, production lines are longer, there is not as much human oversight, production lines must be scheduled and you cannot stop/start the process. The tolerances are different and they need to be accomodated in the designs. Throughput and drilling is always a bottleneck and to reduce this and reduce turn time, mass production sites have tweaked processes to get the highest yield. Internationally the general rule is 4 mil lines and spaces on half ounce copper; 10 mil is the most common size drill which results in an 8 mil finish hole size. As you go up in copper thickness you need to add a little bit to the pads. Blind vias are the ones that are on the outside but end up on an internal layer. Buried vias are buried completely inside the board. Working with offshore production house while still in prototype development phase. Recommendation - design for volume and technology. Qualify the design for the final production region and technology. HDI (High Density Interconnect) is anything 0.4 mm pitch and under that has a track running through the pads. Judy wants to throw everyone inside a fab house! There are at least 30 different processes required to manufacture one 4-layer board. Julie works directly with Carl Schattke and they will do a stackup presentation at AltiumLive 2018 Materials are a significant cost in Asia, whereas here in the states the material is less of a cost (20% in USA, 50% in China). With production panels where you're trying to get as many cookies cut, you also need to consider and discuss with your manufacturer the tiny 2x2 inch pieces.   Links and Resources: AltiumLive 2018: Annual PCB Design Summit AltiumLive 2017 Presentation TTM’s Interface Between Designer and Fabricator TTM Technologies Website Carl Schattke   Hi everyone this is Judy with Altium's OnTrack Podcast thanks again for joining. We're happy to have you again. I would like to continue to invite you to AltiumLive, and I also wanted to put a shout out that we have a call for presentations right now, so if you are an Altium Designer user, and you have some tips or tricks or some kind of breakthrough you've had on design please contact me at Judy.warner@altium.com and I'd love to hear from you ASAP. We'd love to have you present in San Diego or in Munich. Munich is January 15th through 17th and San Diego we are there October 4th, and 5th so look forward to hearing from you all. Once again I have another talented and amazing guest with me; Julie Ellis from TTM technologies which as you know is one of the largest board manufacturing companies not only in North America but in the world today so Julie is an FAE at TTM and a very well respected technologist as well as a dear friend. So Julie, welcome it's good to have you. Thank you. So Julie presented at AltiumLive last year on documentation. I've sat through many of her talks and learned much from her, so today we want to talk about what it takes to move jobs from onshore prototype level into production and offshore. She calls it seamless global transfer but before we get into that we'll hear a little bit about Julie's background. We both started in the printed circuit board industry in the 80s - which dates us a little bit I know -  we're not going to say the year we're just gonna go with the round numbers the 80s but I always... -we were child savants though so we say we were 12 -we were 12 -five -okay five, yeah we were five. So Julie just came in and noticed my super cool Career Barbie of 2018, which is a Robotics Engineer Barbie. She's got circuit board patterns on her shirt and a laptop, she kind of looks like us, so we're just gonna call her Circuit Board Barbie and you know blondes... smart ladies you know. Finally, there's a Barbie we can really relate to, and we want women to get into science and STEM and everything - so go for it and aspire to be this Barbie here. Right on, yeah! Girl Power. We want to get more women in here, and it's just about exposure and motivating others, so we hope that throughout this podcast we inspire maybe somebody to give a girl a little nudge out there. We've enjoyed long enjoyable careers. So, okay Julie before we get started, why don't you kick off and tell our audience a little bit about who you are and your background - how you got into this wonky industry? I am Julie Ellis; I started as a Design Engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company. I was awarded a student engineering scholarship there, which paid for most of my schooling - the rest of my schooling after I moved out here from Iowa - so I always tell everybody that getting a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering was the best decision I've ever done in my life, so I really do encourage people. If you're interested in Math, Science, Biology - anything - get a good STEM degree so that you can always move forward into interesting, fascinating jobs with a lot of variety of opportunities. It's a really, really good way to go and I encourage youth and people to get into this kind of field. So I started as - once I graduated from Cal State Fullerton - I stayed on it until the 1990s when things got really tight in the military market, and I was on loan to one department, but I couldn't hire in, so I took the first job that was offered to me as a semiconductor manufacturer’s rep and I had circuit board industry or circuit board experience at Hughes and as a rep I also had a couple of circuit board lines and I really, really liked the printed circuit board side even compared to the ICS and memory sales and everything.  So I ended up migrating toward the printed circuit boards. Fast forward eight years, landed a great job at TTM as a Field Applications Engineer just a little over four years ago and it's been a fantastic opportunity. TTM is the world's third-largest printed circuit board fabricator, and we would probably be number two if it didn't include Flex because the top two manufacturers have a lot more flex and rigid-flex than we do, so I'm surrounded by experts in this field. It's like living in Google for printed circuit boards because whenever I really want to know something I can go call somebody within my company and find the answer, so it's it's really good working here. Really it's impressive, and you're right - like you really can go to anyone to get the latest and greatest information on manufacturing best practices which are really, really fun. So we wanted to talk today about Seamless Global Transfer, and I know that we've talked a lot on this podcast about there's no such thing as the quick and dirty prototype so why don't we just jump off from there? Like what does it mean? So you design a board it's gonna go into production, but you've got deadlines, you need to crank it out really quick, you crank it out really quick and then it's like: hey it works let's migrate offshore! [laughter] That’s right - that way exactly. That would be like the worst case scenario, like you heading for Niagara Falls and not knowing it. So why don't you talk about the myth of the quick and dirty prototype and why you really need to think about global manufacturing up front while you're just developing the circuit board and designing it? Yes, so Seamless Global Transfer is the concept that you're not just designing for your prototype to get it through a quick turn shop here in the United States in five days. Because I worked - one of the numerous positions - was as a Circuit Board Commodity Manager and a contract manufacturer and a lot of the projects we got had already been tested and proven and developed here in the United States. They sent it to us for mid-level production, we’d try to send the parts overseas, and everybody would come back with a hundred technical queries and say: we can't build it because we don't have this capability over in China. Oh, you need to change this on the design - it's not going to work, and by the time you've given your job to a contract manufacturer your engineers do not want to make changes to the design that they've already tested. So global seamless transfer plans ahead and thinks about: what is our migration path from quick turn development prototype and taking it over until long-term production and so there's a lot of background that goes into that, and that's what Judy and I wanted to talk about here.   So what is it that you think that makes that migrating over makes that a difficult process? Because the Six Ms: man, machine, materials, environment - which is another M that I can't remember. Everything is not the same when it transfers over to Asia. The equipment sets are different for mass production, the production lines are so much larger and often much more automated, so they can't get the human element,  you know. Watch this, watch that, we don't get the babysitting of our project over in China like we can here. In Asia or China, we have to schedule the production lines, and you can't just interrupt a line there to quickly throw this job in front of everybody else. The schedules are a lot different, the process tolerances are different, and because the process tolerances are different, we have to accommodate those in our designs. Okay, so there seems to be a perception anyways that once we have a pretty robust design here that we can just kind of throw it over the pond. Why is that, I mean you just talked about some reasons but what are some like tangible snags you're gonna run into if you try to do that? A lot of it has to do with the drilling. Like over in China most mass production shops, except for the really advanced HDI shops which would all go laser micro vias all the way through, as a rule don't drill using six mil drill bits because they're expensive, they break and they can't be re-sharpened and they break more easily and they have to be changed out twice as often as bigger drill bits. And bigger drill bits can be stacked, or you know, panels can be stacked. So if you can drill two or three panels at one time you've just got your throughput and drilling which is one of the largest bottlenecks in fabrication. You reduce your turn time significantly and time is money. What we're paying for in printed circuit boards besides materials, is the time it takes to get through the processes. So Asia and mass production sites have all tweaked their processes to achieve the highest yields, in the least amount of time, at the lowest cost. But there is a sacrifice to that and sometimes at the sacrifice of we need a better, bigger pad around a drill hole. We're going to stack two or three panels high instead of drilling a six mil drill and our plating processes are a little bit different so we may have to have more edge compensation. Which means that, that will drive a little bit larger requirements for line, width, and space. So on those, is there a recommended -  that's kind of a broad question - but are there recommended kind of hole sizes and pad sizes and/or trace and space sizes to help on the throughput? If you have it. Yeah kind of the general rule of thumb internationally, is 4 mil lines and spaces, on half ounce copper is a good start. Anything under that on half ounce copper is going to be a premium. And ten mil is the most commonly sized drill which would drop you down to an eight mill finish hole size. And we'd like to see the hole size plus ten mil for the pad. So if you've got an 18 or an 8 mil finished hole size, we would drill it probably at 10 or 12. We'd like to see at least an 8+, 10 and 18 mil pad on that hole. That's just for a single lamination through-hole in multi-layer printed circuit boards. As we go up in copper thickness, we need to start adding a little bit to the pads. Okay, and how does that change when you start adding buried and blind vias in? It depends on the construction. If we're talking like a real traditional blind via board; blind vias are the ones that are on the outside, and they end up on an internal layer. Buried are vias that are buried completely inside the board, and those are different technologies. But so if we're talking standard blind vias where we might have 1 to 6 and then 7 to 12, both being blind via stack-ups, we would actually stack up the material layers 1 to 6, drill and plate, and then we would stack up the materials layer 7 to 12 - drill and plate. And then we would laminate all those together, and then we would drill and plate and etch the outer layers. So those definitely have different rules because the two outer layers already have plating - additional plating - on the outer layers which means that we have to etch through thicker copper because of the foil plus the plating, and we're going to require slightly bigger line widths and spaces on that particular design. So one thing we were chatting about as we were preparing for the podcast, that I thought was obvious, but also fascinating, is the idea of working with your - you know, I kind of want to move into now, sort of takeaways for our audience. So you were talking about working with your offshore production house while you're in your prototype development stage which I think is kind of counterintuitive. I don't know, is it? Actually, if we are in the prototype development stage, it's the best way to do it because if - I always recommend that my clients design for volume. Whatever their final volume is you know, we all know the term DFM, but we really have to take it to heart to figure out, qualify the design for the final production region. Final production technology, whether it's a single lamination or a multi-lamination that's not HDI board like I just brought up, or whether it's an HDI board that has blind and buried vias, but with laser micro vias and advanced HDI board which I categorize as anything 0.4 millimeter pitch and under, that has a track running through the pads. So if you start at your before-prototype stage, qualified the design for the volumes and the technology so that you can pick your final production sites, get the design guidelines for those sites, get the stack up for those sites, and have the stack up and the design guidelines identified before you even route the board. And if you do that then you're not going to route a whole board, send it over to China, and China is going to say: oh sorry those line widths and spaces, there's not enough space for us to compensate the etch and artwork during etch, we can't build it this way. Go increase your spaces, and if you don't have room on a tightly designed board, or if your pads aren't big enough to achieve the annular ring that you're asking for, your design is no good for manufacturing. So my term is ‘design for volume,’ but it means whatever your volume is. And the reason I'm doing that, or I'm saying 'your volume' is because we have customers that do 200 printed circuit boards a month, and we have customers that do a million circuit boards a month. And the shop that does the million circuit boards a month is not going to take the 200 circuit boards per month order, but they have a much higher level technology - so I can't design for that technology knowing that I could never run it in that particular site. Right, so it's both volume and technology. I feel like it's such a good service, in many ways on the prototype end, that we can kind of do push-button ordering now, but I also feel like what's has been lost is how complex the fabrication process is and I just wish -  I want to throw everyone inside a fab shop. Because it's like when you - think you can just push a button and then a package shows up on your door; you know what I'm saying? That every shop is a little unique is for a variety of reasons. It's not - for reasons that enable different types of technologies - they do it with high intention and lots of precision and all of that, and so you have to design for that shop. It's not just push-a-button and out it comes. Especially the more complex the board gets, so, on the one hand, I'm a fan to get the prototypes out fast, onshore when you can, have maybe available that kind of service. But on the other side, if you're going into volume, I don't know - I think it gives people sort of a false perception of what it's like on the other end. Talk about - I think you mentioned this stack up; getting this stack up right at the... I really like that DFM right, design for volume, that was kind of a new concept to me that you introduced me to. So you're saying that the stack up should be kind of vetted and worked out with the volume as well as, what kind of board, what kind of technology buried/blind vias, you have the space levels to also work out the stack of details. Yeah we need all that information to be able to create the stack up because most of those multi-layer boards with VGAs also require controlled impedance like for the high-speed digital that we're doing all the autopilot, industrial controls, medical controllers, everything seems to be working off some sort of USB and PCI, and we need to manage the controlled impedance. Controlled impedances based on line width, space, and how thick the dielectric is and to a little teeny effect, how thick the copper is. So we have to play all these together while creating a stack up and also keeping track of, if we're doing stacked or offset micro vias. We build those from the inside out and just keep adding layers, drill the outer layer down to the next layer, then on both sides then we add two more layers drill the outer layer down to the next layer. But each time we do that, we have to figure out how we're going to plate those and how thick the plating is going to be and those are process variances are you know. There are process capabilities and variations from site to site, and there can be unintended consequences along the way, like putting additional copper on that outer layers - it's the more complex it gets you have these: if you do this, then this you know, what I'm saying there's so many! Anybody who has seen my presentations knows that I always say that I'm always splitting hairs. Because a human hair is about 2.5 to 3 mils in diameter, and I'm always worrying about unintended consequences because if a customer comes in and they say: I want thick plating inside my hole walls you know, give me 2 mils of plating inside my hole walls. Well for one I can't think of one fabricator in China that would do that. The IPC standard for class three is 1 mil average plating in the hole walls. But the other thing is, remember whenever we plate inside the hole walls we're also plating the surface, the outer surfaces, the thicker those outer surfaces get, the harder they are for us to etch fine lines and spaces. Well, why don't you just put it through the machine that just spits out the board Julie? We need a magic machine! If I could do that I wouldn't have to be here... I'd be somewhere on my own Island in Bora Bora... Barbie we need a magic machine to spit out - maybe Barbie will get you to know either a Barbie plane and maybe she'll have a Barbie magic PCB? That'd be great. Then you know, in Barbie's world I think we'll just spit it out, I know - it's very complex and by the way. Let me stop right here and say that Julie helps every top brand that you could probably think of in Silicon Valley and beyond; helps them to do their stack-ups and come up with these you know, calculations to help work out all this hair-splitting and she's very skilled and capable. And that's why she will be presenting at AltiumLive with a senior PCB designer who she works with directly which is Carl Schattke, I cannot tell you what brand he works for, or I would get in trouble, but suffice it to say he's in Silicon Valley and works for the top electric car manufacturer and I am delighted that Julie and Carl will present on stack up on this very subject, and you couldn't get two more qualified people - I’m so excited that you're doing that. Thanks, we are too - I think it will be fun. It'll be really fun, and so they're so used to being deep in the weeds they'll be such a resource. So before you move on though, it's not just the stack up, it's also the pad stack line, widths, and spaces that need to be provided to the customer with the stack up. Because we want to make sure that they know all of those design requirements before the board guy starts routing everything. You talked about DFM and DRC's for final site and prep for the prototype. Is that - I just wrote myself a note here - have we covered most of that here? Yeah, we have for the stack up and the design rules. But one thing I'd like to bring up is everybody's trying to stay competitive and because of the processes and the way that production panels are laid out in Asia. Materials are a significant cost over in Asia compared to here in the prototype shops. Here we pay for the quick turns, for the setups and things like that which are insignificant compared to those. So the material here is only about 20% of the average cost compared to 50% of the cost in Asia. So if you can also plan your size to fit well up on a production panel so that like, imagine an 18 by 24 inch production panel, and you're trying to get as many cookies cut on that production panel, but you also want to think if you've got really small pieces your assembler is not going to be able to load those tiny little 2x2 inch pieces. Their conveyor equipment can't hold them, and it would take them forever to go through those linearly, so another really cost-saving exercise is to work with both your fabricator and your assembler to come up with a multiple up-array for smaller boards and also make sure that you know whether you've got enough clearance on the two long sides of your array, or your printed circuit board for the parts to be conveyed through assembly. There's sometimes parts hanging off the edge which really makes things fun. Yeah and that needs to be planned for in advance, whether: do you need an extra rail on a leading edge, because there's a big connector hanging there, or is the assembler going to put that on after the fact? But if you also take into account design for assembly - put all your test points on the board because once the board is designed and you can access test points, nobody's going to be able to go back in and design an in-circuit test fixture or functional test fixture and unpick those plates. So don't just design for volume. Like I said really, truly design for DFX, design for fabrication, assembly, test, and long-term reliability. Good, good, good, good advice. So can you give some real-life examples from your real life career? We won't name names of brands but suffice it to say there; you work with major consumer brands that if we could say names everyone would recognize them and tell us some of the, you know challenges that they had by actually not thinking about some of these ideas ahead. And these are the brightest of the brightest - I think what we want to share here is, everybody is challenged in this area, right? It's a challenging area, so we're not saying, oh we're so smart, and you know the audience what do they know? No, the top designers, the top printed circuit board designers almost in the world,  are challenged by some of these issues. So just talk about some real-life examples and how it went wrong or how it went right?   Okay one real-life example in the last quarter was a major commercial customer like you said, they had worked with a - probably a Silicon Valley shop - they built their boards, tested them out, proved them, and they wanted to go into mass production. Their start date is like August, to start delivering mass production so that they can you know, start shipping their product. Well it turns out they had a design that had a six mil drill - mechanical drill through a standard thickness board with a ten mil pad and when I said, remember I said like, do your finish hole size plus ten for the pad, this only gave the hole size plus four, and it wasn't enough to make sure that people wouldn't totally drill you know, have too much because of misregistration material movement. Every time you add a process, you add misregistration. Nobody in Asia would take this business, and we actually had to help the customer convert the whole design to another via structure type to be able to pull it off. And the way this happens is one of two things: if you're a major customer and you go to a, you know like a smaller shop, they are going to be so hungry for your business they're not going to say, no, no, no - we can't do that. They are going to babysit every single panel and put them in the drill machine by hand and make darn sure that they're going to get that for you. Or there are probably a few select super, super advanced shops that are just doing onesie-twosie jobs and they can meet these kind of requirements, and these tight process tolerances, using direct imaging everywhere you know, using single headed drills for the production panel rather than five or six spindles that we use. And so it's not even saying that that particular circuit board fabricator was a bad designer - it's just that they're only designing for their site capabilities and probably pushing technology to make a big customer happy. Right, and that may be their niche, that may be their niche market - but again they're not thinking particularly ahead, they're trying to help their customer be - - so it's kind of myopia. They're just designing for that, and they're great shops, they're great shops very, very capable, but not unless you tell them up front or you start this conversation up front it can go bad like that. On a consumer product that, okay it's August let's go into production and then wait, stop. Stop everything and the cost, the headache to that customer, they have to respin the board, run the protos over again and do all the testing over again. And now, schedules are lost, time to market is lost, you know so that it can become really painful very quickly and very costly. Yeah very costly. And I had another similar design that my customer had a design with 5 mil mechanical drills and 9 mil pads and most shops I know don't really drill mechanical 5 mils. So that was a tough one for him to go into production. So that's a real common example. The wrong size drill with the wrong size pad, or one that I just saw recently, was a really thick dielectric that still needed a blind hole and it was planned on being a laser hole because they wanted some big RF circuits on the outer layer. Which means they needed a thick dielectric and normally if you're using laser micro vias you have very thin dielectrics. And I was able to confirm that we can do it over in China but it's - it wouldn't have been my first choice for a design you know, and it kind of set me back but - but we were capable on that one. Yeah so, you have a saying that I like which is: pick your experts wisely. So tell us what that means? What you mean when you say that; pick your experts wisely? Well if you're going to listen to an expert, they're going to segue you to the path that they know, and if you pick the wrong expert and they take you down a garden path that nobody else can fabricate. I know that there are shops that they'll say: let's do this and let's have the customer design it this way because then they can't go anywhere else. It's a way to guarantee their business. I can confirm that you know, I've seen entirely that. It locks you into that job. It locks you into that job, and you know, I can see both sides. I'm like this ambidextrous Gemini so I can see both sides of the story. I can see an internal engineer wanting to secure future business for their location. But on the other hand, it may not be good long-term for the customer. And I'm in it for the long haul you know, I've been both sales and technical support, and a lot of times I have to work with customers to make slight modifications and design engineers; these are your babies. You don't want to have somebody coming in from the outside and saying, you know what, I really can't quite achieve that. Can we tweak your design a little bit? Who wants to hear that? But if I have credibility, as somebody who's thinking for the customer, for the fabricator, and working towards the best solution long-term. I've - you develop trust, and you can get better work done. So, I choose to do the good path even though it probably means that I tell everybody I'm a conservative designer and so that means that if you design a stack up - if I design your stack up, give you the design rules, if you can meet them chances are one of my competitors can also do the work. Yeah, but on the other hand you know, the relationship most of the time means a lot. Right it does, and not everybody has both the technical depth that you have, the integrity you have, and you have reached to top, top fabrication experts in the world. So that gives you a really broad perspective which I appreciate. So Julie thank you so much. This has been so great, and I feel like we've just scraped the surface but I would like to invite our listeners, if you are available, to come to AltiumLive and Julie will dig into - she and Carl Schattke have an hour-long presentation plus QA and, will be introducing some new stack up and impedance tools in Altium Designer 19, and so they will be giving a really rich treatment of the subject of stack up. So if you want to hear more from Julie, come on out to AltiumLive, and we would love to have you. Thanks again Julie, it's always - I always learn from you every- - - thank you. Every time we talk. So there is one other thing that we should talk about. What should we talk about? Okay the other background of seamless global transfer is that if you're working with a company that has multiple sites like DTM - we can take that - we can take the lessons learned from the prototypes, and transfer the data, and transfer the lessons learned over to the final fab site, so that it's not a new learning curve once it goes overseas. And that's a real advantage about really paying attention to this. Right, which is a good point. Yeah. Do you transfer the learning curve along with just the data files right? That's right yeah. So good point. Okay, thanks for inserting that again. This has been Judy Warner with Altium's OnTrack podcast, and Julie Ellis of TTM. We look forward to you joining us again next time. Until then, remember to always stay OnTrack.

Dave Woodward discusses freelancer agencies and all the opportunities that exist out there for people to utilize. He talks about why so many freelancers struggle and gives great tips on how to generate leads, selling price points, and maximizing profits Tips and Tricks for You and Your Business: Freelancers: What works, what doesn’t? (2:46) Joe’s Story: Using a membership site to sell his agency services. (5:24) Rose’s Story: Building funnels for other business owners. (7:37) Cynthia’s Story: Social Media Management (10:11) Tammy’s Story: Sales funnels design, strategies and ads (12:29) Cathy’s Story: Web design agency (14:56) Quotable Moments: "There are over 12 million freelancers who are out there and are fighting annually probably for about 3 million jobs." "Right now, for a lot of freelancers, one of the things they struggle with is they just don't know how to generate enough leads; and these are people who have great skills, but they're spending all this time trying to generate leads and can't get enough leads to really pay for it." Other Tidbits: -Dave shares an audio strip from three different people who have used clickfunnels to generate and sell their service. -What works and what doesn’t as a freelancer. -Maximizing profits and lead generation. Links: FunnelHackerRadio.com FunnelHackerRadio.com/freetrial FunnelHackerRadio.com/dreamcar ---Transcript--- Speaker 1:       00:00           Welcome to funnel hacker radio podcast, where we go behind the scenes and uncover the tactics and strategies top entrepreneurs are using to make more sales, dominate their markets, and how you can get those same results. Here's your host, Dave Woodward. Everybody. Welcome Speaker 2:       00:18           back to funnel hacker radio. I've been really thinking a ton about some of the stuff we've been doing and I want to change things up just a little bit here for a couple of episodes, so what you're going to find today is a little bit different at obviously you guys, you guys been list for A. I've been doing a lot of podcast, interviewed others, and I've every once a while we'll kind of intersperse some of my own bots and things into it. Today though, what I want to do is I want to address a unique group of people, and this may apply to you, may not, but it's becoming a larger and larger segment of the audience and of the world that we're dealing with and so I thought it was important that people understood how, what the opportunities are there out there and how you actually can utilize. Speaker 2:       01:00           Some of the tools and the resources available and then show you some of the success stories of what other people are doing for that. So with all that said, um, right now we're seeing a huge increase in freelancers and agencies and people who are are supplementing their income by doing other types of things. Because of this, we actually are going to be rolling out a brand new product which I'm so, so excited about it. It'll be called funnel Rolodex and there'll be hopefully launching here in October of 2018. And what it's gonna do is it's kind of like a fiverr or upwork for anything funnel related and. Well I'll talk more about that later, but I want to kind of just set the stage for that and what I dress kind of this whole idea as far as freelancers and agencies, what works, what doesn't, and how people can actually utilize some of the tools and resources that are out there. Speaker 2:       01:53           It's really maximize their revenue potential to profits and everything like that. So right now you kind of take a look as far as you know, why is, why does so many freelancers struggles so much and they just end up fighting for the crumbs on sites like fiverr and upwork and others be in. One of the things I've run across is you can take a look at these sites. It's not uncommon worth over $12 million freelancers who are out there and the are fighting for annually probably about 3 million jobs. So as I was taking a look at this, we've created a inside of click funnels. There actually is a. When you go to clickfunnels.com, there's a survey and you can take and one of the very first things out there as far as niches and verticals that we serve is this whole freelance or agency community. Speaker 2:       02:40           And as you go through the survey you'll find there's a whole bunch of case studies and things at the back. And I want to just kind of give you some ideas as far as how this is working. What's working. So what I found right now is for a lot of freelancers, one of the things they struggle with is they just don't know how to generate enough leads and these are people who have great skills, but they're spending all this time trying to generate leads and it can't get enough leads to really pay for it. So they find themselves going onto a fiverr or upwork. Uh, the other thing is when you're in that type of an environment, you're now competing for the crumbs that were left and it's all this whole idea as far as bottom, feeding up other words, you're competing to drive price to the bottom for a service that actually should be extremely valuable. Speaker 2:       03:25           And I want to make sure people understand why this is. One of the things we really want to combat right now is helping people understand that you as a freelancer or as an agency, if you're running, that you actually need to be selling your services at a higher price point and providing the type of quality that allows people to go, you know what? I want to pay that kind of a russell. I were talking the other day, it's not uncommon where we'll pay $100 just for a headline. If it's the right headline, it's the right quality because that headline, that one little headline literally will change the entire. I mean, it's the hook. It can be a little, it can be what gets someone's attention. So realize that freelancers is our, our. They've always been a huge part of my business, I know of, of Russell's as well. Speaker 2:       04:08           So what I want to kind of do is, is give you some ideas as far as what's out there. And um, what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna play an audio. It's actually, it's an audio stripped from some of the videos that we have on our site that talks about three different people and what they've done to actually how they've used click funnels to generate and actually build a funnel to sell their services, which is really the whole idea behind this. We have a lot of people who are spending all this money trying to create a website for, to sell their agency. It'll never ever worked that way. And you'll see a huge stuff coming out from me later this year on the whole idea as far as the death of the website, and I want to make sure that you understand that as websites are dying or in some industries they already are good for a lot of industries, you've got to find ways of actually building a funnel and how that funnel actually works. Speaker 2:       04:57           So what I want to do is I'm going to have a jewelry story. Ian, who is one of those amazing women in the world. I love working with her. She actually has created what we refer to as a lot of our funnel stories and she's got three different stories. The first one here is a case study from Joe Burnich and Joe's enrolling clients consistently right now are paying them about 2000 or $3,000 a month and his is an Seo marketing agency. And I want to have her basically tell his story. So I'm gonna. Uh, the next thing you're going to hear basically as Julie telling Joe's story about exactly how that works. Speaker 3:       05:29           Today, I want to bring you a funnel story about Joe. Now Joe is an Seo and marketing agency, business owner from Montana. Here he is with his family, and I wanted to tell you a story about how he's using a membership site to sell his agency services. Now, Joe tried to put funnels together for his agency in the past and I asked him about it and he said, you know, I just needed five pieces of software all the time and I would get paralyzed. It took too long. It costs too much money. Inevitably something wouldn't work, so every time he went to go build a sales funnel for his agency, he would stop because it was too difficult. Joe Discovered Click funnels one day from a marketer. His name is Brian Burt. Brian is a big fan and friend of Russell and he told Joe About Russell and then Joe went and bought Russell's 108 split test book and he was absolutely hooked. Speaker 3:       06:20           He saw how easy it was to build funnels. It was an all in one solution and not only that, but split testing was super, super easy inside the editor. So here's Joe's funnel on step one. You can see he's giving away a free book is free book is for business owners who are in the service industry, so they put their information in. He, he gives them the book, the book is free. When they finished checking out, then it goes to a registration page. It says, hey, three secrets to get more high quality jobs in 2018, so they register for the Webinar and from there they go into the big West Academy. Now this is a membership site, so he sells a membership where he teaches business owners the basics of seo, google ranking, facebook ad domination, things like this. So his membership doesn't make a ton of money, but the. Speaker 3:       07:08           The funny thing is that his membership actually teaches his customers about the things that is agency does. So he gets a little revenue, he gets the leads for free, but then what ends up happening is the customers realize just how much work it is and so they want someone to do it for them even though they understand it and they're learning. So we sells them on services that are two to three k a month. This is brilliant. He's making money getting as leads for free as well as closing his high ticket sales. Now Rose is another agency owner. She told me, she's like Julie Click funnels. It gave me my freedom. She worked as an oil and gas engineer for 14 years and then she started building funnels and she loved the technology. She saw how easy it was. Now she is the funnel nerd and she's making a proximately, 100,000 dollars a month in her agency and she is not us based. Speaker 3:       08:01           So for her, this isn't near millionaire status and she is exclusively building funnels for other business owners. So I'm both. Joe and rose did not need to know code fancy design. They didn't have to hire their own tech team. And you know, what is so amazing about this is that as business agency owners, because they're selling agency services, um, digital marketing, Seo web, all that kind of stuff, they're able to use click funnels for sales funnels in their own business as well as building sales funnels for others. They're not only are they not wasting time, but they're making so much more money. In fact, uh, the funnels are generating leads, helping them close sales, and they're also starting to make affiliate revenue because when they set up their clients with click funnels, they're getting money from the clickfunnels affiliate program. In fact, you can make about 450, $6 per year per customer that you sell quick funnels. Speaker 3:       09:01           So if you're a website designer, graphic designer, sales funnel designer, videographer, you can make a simple funnel where you send people into a low cost membership site where they start to learn about all the services that you offer it. And the funny thing is psychologically we expect that people won't hire us if we're an agency because we're giving away the content. But usually the opposite happens. They realize, oh my gosh, this person is actually, you know, really talented and this takes a lot of work and time, can you just do it for me? And so the education process in the membership not only provides joe with revenue, but also helps him close the sale. Now, if you're a full service digital marketing agency and maybe you don't want to do a membership, you don't have a product to sell, maybe you want to just start focusing on building more sales funnels for people you can be like rows and you can create the simple, get a quote funnels what I'm calling it, where she has a service page, a little, a little, um, survey element to ask what they're interested in and then it goes to a video sales letter and explainer video. Speaker 3:       10:05           And then they hop on the phone with you. All right. What'd you think of the crazy? This next door I want to let you know is actually from synthy Marion. So Cynthia, Cynthia, a digital hold nine to five job and is, has really been able to replace her income and now has the income and the flexibility she needs to, to raise her kids and to be a stay home. Stay at home mom. And she's a social media manager. So Julie's not going to go ahead and tell you cynthia story here as well. Today I want to bring you a funnel story about Cynthia. Now, Cynthia, it's a social media manager as well as a single mom. Now she told us that she had to work full time and are nine to five like most of us and as a single mom, you're carrying the weight of kids and a job and all the other things without an extra parent to help, so as you can imagine, time was definitely a resource she was limited on. Speaker 3:       10:57           Now one night she discovered click funnels on facebook. She'd heard about it from some friends. She wasn't really quite sure how click funnels or sales funnels would work for her, but then she started to do some research and what she found completely changed her life. There were lots of people working virtually in jobs like a social media copyrighting, facebook ads, virtual assisting. These were remote jobs where you could work from home, but do agency work done for you services for business owners, especially online business owners. So Cynthia decided to get into this world. She thought she would start with social media since she really loves social media and got a little bit of training on how to do facebook specifically. So here is her funnel, very, very simple. You can see on page one, it says social media marketing for local businesses, book your free facebook make over now. Speaker 3:       11:49           And so she gets name, phone number and email address. She has a little video, she has little countdown timer and she gives this away for free to get the lead. Now once they opt in, you can see that it says, schedule your free make over in our calendar. You Click that button and choose your time and it takes them over to her scheduler. So I asked her how this was working to attract new customers and she said that she's currently making $3,000 a month from the clients who come through that funnel and get their free facebook may go over. So obviously what she's doing is selling them services on the back end. And she said that's more than her full time income, but she's doing it in half the time. Now, Tammy is another sales funnel, freelancer. She had the same thing. She realized that there was, there were all these remote freelancer jobs in sales funnels and ads and social media. Speaker 3:       12:39           So you can see here she chose sales funnels as her specific industry. You can see her services page here where it says work with Tammy, she offers digital marketing as well as sales funnel design strategy in ads. When people hit the I'm ready or the get started button, it takes them to her calendar where they book a 15 minute discovery call. Now on that discovery call, she sells a $500 VIP business intensive, which basically is a two hour project intensive where she helps them build a strategy for their business and build a report. Um, and she's getting $500 to build this. Now this vip funnel completely changed Tammy's business and helps her generate leads. It helps her get paid to actually do the planning and strategy. And if you are an agency or a freelancer, you know that that whole pick your brain syndrome can be really problematic because people expect to pay you for services but not for your brain. Speaker 3:       13:33           And yet that's part of the most valuable part. So people are paying her $500 per session. And the best part about it is that once that session is over, she's able to sell her high end $5,000 done for you proposals, and she closes the deal. So neither Cynthia nor tammy and needed to understand code fancy design, and they didn't need to hire a tech team or a marketing team to build their own funnels. They're also able to recreate funnels for their clients, saving incredible amounts of time, overhead and money. They also both sell the click funnel software as part of their agency offerings and they're getting about 450, $6 per year per customer that they sign up. So if you are like Cynthia and Tammy, if you're a freelancer or small agency, you too can create these very simple service based funnels where you offer something for free, whether it's a free discovery call, a free facebook makeover. You get them on the schedule and then you upsell them to hire programs and offers. Speaker 2:       14:34           Last but not least, I want to share it with you, Cathy Olsen. Kathy Wilson is generating her leads on autopilot. And by doing that, she's able to spend more time providing massive value to our clients and to her to get new clients as well. So she works in her whole thing is really more a web design agency. Speaker 3:       14:52           So Julie's going to tell you kathy story right now. Today I'd like to bring you a funnel story about Cathy. Cathy owns a web design agency and she's a talented web designer, but her biggest struggle was always trying to figure out how to handle a full plate of clients and generate leads at the same time, if you've been in this industry at all, any kind of service based. Usually when you're fulfilling orders and services with clients, it's really hard to go out and get leads and then you run out of clients and then you go chase leads and it becomes this really vicious cycle. So that was Kathy's issue. She also said she had no low end offers and so when leads would come in and they weren't able to pay for her high end webdesign, she had nothing else to sell them. And so the lead would just go away and she would lose out on, on the money. Speaker 3:       15:37           So Kathy discovered click late one night on facebook. In fact, I know Kathy, I was the one who introduced her to click funnels. She was at an event and she was hearing about sales funnels, but just didn't understand how click funnels could work for a web design agency. She doesn't build funnels. She builds websites. So how is this going to work? Well, eventually cathy started to learn, she read Russell's books and she realized that she could create a low end offer for all those people who couldn't afford her high end web design. So she created a 50 perfect brand pairings free guide. You can see it here on the left. And then on the thank you page, she offered a $27 logo template project. Think of this, almost like a template where you can print it out except you don't actually have to print it. Speaker 3:       16:23           So this was $27 and she would teach people how to use the templates and how to create their own customized beautiful logo. Super affordable. So you can see here, brand designer for a day, kickstart order form. She also had a little order bump where she would add the social media pack version for an extra $12. And then on the next page she offers a one time offer for a web template training program. Maybe you don't want to have a full high end web design, maybe you want to do it yourself. And that was $97. She's generated over 7,000 leads and made $40,000 in the last three months alone. So this has created an unbelievable amount of revenue as well as leads. It's created so much visibility that her web design business is always packed with a waiting list of two to four months. So the sales funnel has generated revenue generated leads and kept her agency completely packed all on autopilot. Speaker 3:       17:22           So Kathy did not need to know code. She did happen to know fancy design, but she didn't need to know fancy design. She didn't need to hire a tech or a marketing team to create this automated sales funnels that served customers that she wasn't able to serve before. As well as generate leads for her high end website design company. She also opened up this entire market of people who might not ever buy her high end services, but that's okay because she's continuing to create other small do it yourself products to continue to serve that customer Avatar. So like Cathy, if you're a web designer, graphic designer, sales funnel designer, videographer, maybe you can create some lower end products and a funnel like Kathy has done where you offer something free, low cost and in a one time upsell to generate leads and revenue for your business. Now, if you are a full service digital marketing agency and you do not have a low end product to sell, that's okay. You can still give something away for free and then on the thank you page you can offer a demo case study webinar. You can offer the gift and maybe a video sales letter and invite them to get on the phone with you so that you can sell your done for you services. Speaker 2:       18:35           So understand these three stories. These are the types of people were running across all the time. Her utilizing click funnels and what we find for a lot of people is you have to find a way of generating leads and then you've got to nurture those leads and too often people are spending a ton of traffic on facebook or other things and ascend into a website where a person gets lost. I want to make sure you understand the importance and the value of a funnel and if you need more information on this, please, please check out clickfunnels.com and you can actually go through the survey. You can get a ton more detailed information on exactly how all this works, but the whole idea behind this is making sure that. I mean there's already templates for agency owners specifically in there, so you can pick your sales template. Speaker 2:       19:16           You pick the page design, go ahead and you basically. A lot of guys understand you're gonna, modify your page. I can say one of the big things we've seen for a lot of agencies is even membership sites and how they're actually working in helping them, but the most important thing is what you'll be hearing me spin a ton of time in October talking about, and that's the whole idea as far as followup funnels, but with that said, I get, I encourage you guys take a look@clickfunnels.com and go through the survey and see which of the 10 different verticals or niches that you're in. I appreciate your time today. Again, this is a kind of a different type of a podcast that I've done in the past. Please leave me comments. Let me know what you think of this. If this is helpful for you. I'm trying to provide other people's stories in a very quick, in a quick manner that you can kind of capture them and see how it actually would help you in your business. Have an amazing day and we'll talk soon. Speaker 4:       20:06           Hey everybody. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to the podcast. If you don't mind, could you please share this with others, rate review this podcast on itunes. It means the world to me. We're trying to get to as a million downloads here in the next few months and just crush through over $650,000 and I just want to get the next few $100,000 so we can get to a million downloads and see really what I can do to help improve and and get this out to more people at the same time. If there's a topic, there's something you'd like me to share or someone you'd like me to interview, by all means, just reach out to me on facebook. You can pm me and I'm more than happy to take any of your feedback as well as you'd like me to interview, more than happy to, to reach out and have that conversation with you. So again, go to Itunes, rate and review this, share this podcast with others and let me know how else I can improve this or what I can do to make this better for you guys. Thanks.

The best business ideas are often borne out of a personal desire to find something better than what is already available. That’s certainly what led to the birth of Modern Pop. Julie Podolec and her husband, Brad, wanted to give their teething infant a frozen fruit bar. But when they began reading the ingredients, they were dismayed to find that these bars contained too little fruit and too much sugar and fruit juice. And, there were some ingredients they couldn’t even pronounce. So Julie set out to create a frozen fruit bar that was healthy and safe enough for her child. Modern Pop was born. Modern Pop’s frozen fruit bars have taken off. The company recently launched three new flavors and expanded nationally into over 3,000 retailers. 

Interview – Julie Nelson In today’s episode we have Julie Nelson, who has been in the real estate business in Austin, Texas for 18 plus years. Julie started out in a small brokerage then transferred to Keller Williams, where she also served as the Director of Crew Development. After resetting her business and life, Julie transitioned to eXp Realty. Today, Julie is a realtor, trainer, coach, industry author and career strategist who coaches agents for success. Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.   In this episode Julie’s experience with eXp Realty Culture and mentality at eXp Realty Agents are shareholders Customer service set up Lead generation systems eXp Realty is currently bringing in more than 250 agents per week Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Julie to inquire or ask questions. Contact Julie via email at thenelsonproject@gmail.com Find Julie’s book Success Faster on Amazon Connect with Julie as a coach at www.thenelsonproject.org Noteworthy “At eXp, the majority, hands down the majority, of agents are their producers, their cappers and I like being in that environment.” – Julie   PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION  KEVIN: Welcome to the show Julie. JULIE: Thanks Kevin. KEVIN: I'm looking forward to the conversation you and I have like some great overlapping background we both came out of the Keller Williams system and we're both at EXP realty now. Now for somebody that doesn't know you like I do in your background why don't you take a couple of minutes and give your background in real estate and what you have done. JULIE: Sounds good. 18 plus years in the business. First two was with a small brokerage with a couple friends and I moved to Keller Willimas in I think 2001. I'm dating myself here a little bit. So 16 years with Keller Williams in the last five of those I was the director of crew development at the Austin Southpaws Market Center or at least at the time was the largest Keller Williams office in the world and I oversaw the training program in that market center and left that position and kind of hit a reset in my business and my life and had to restart my business again and that's a story in itself. And then last fall I joined the XP. KEVIN: Excellent excellent. So you know for listeners that aren't as familiar with some of the terms I know you and I both do I think we probably joined Keller Williams I think it was the same year. I think it was 2001 2002 that I was working with Andy Allen near Lancaster on the team here in Austin and then I was later a team leader productivity coaching and they'll be a link obviously to your book which we'll be referencing here in a minute. You spent a lot of time advising agents on success and I know one of the things you're pretty passionate about and you have a chapter in your book on this is helping agents at Keller Williams which is a great company but there's lots of agents at different companies that are joining you EXP. People seem to have a hard time figuring out this brokerage thing don't they. JULIE: You know it's an interesting topic I think the truth is we actually all think about it and talk about it a lot. But nobody wants to have that conversation with their broker in terms of whether it's the right fit for them. I always like to say when I'm talking to an agent is the best place for an agent to run their business is simply the best place for that agent to run their business. And if somebody is re-evaluating their brokerage choice it's a possibility that the best place for them is exactly where they're at. I think agents need to hear that because folks relax a little bit around the topic to say oh OK you know what that's a good point. So then you could have just an objective look at where you're at in your business what you need what you're currently getting, what other brokerage options may offer. And then what's the right fit for you because the last thing any... Well hopefully the last thing any broker wants for an agent is for them to make a switch and then realize it's not really the best place for them to run their business. So let's help people make really sound and objective decisions around where they're choosing to hang their license and the individual's needs. That can change over the years. So for a very long time. Keller Williams was absolutely the right place for me to be running my business and creating the opportunities that I needed. But things change people change. And I started to re-evaluate. So I've been in the business for a long time. I swear I re-evaluated every year. If I was in the right place. KEVIN: And I did the same thing I've been with ReMax I've been with Marcus Millichap on the commercial side. I originally got licensed in 1986 joined Keller Williams in 2001. So I've done a lot of stuff and one of the things that I've heard Jean-Frederic talk about and I'm seeing come up more and more. I'm glad you brought up sort of the re-evaluation and things change over time because I'm hearing more and more now because we're having actual examples of it. - And I know this is going to resonate with you Julie - of agents. That doesn't matter it's not a Keller Williams story. Keller Williams is a great company it's just that in their career wherever they are they're realizing I'm not saving enough money. I have a great practice right? I'm listing and selling and working with clients. But they start looking at going I don't want to do this forever and then in a lot of the historical models KW is one of them, I did the production based or I'm going to make more money in production. I had the number three team from scratch in St. Louis but then I started looking going great. The team did 240 transactions we were number three in the market. Now what do I want to be doing 800 transactions do I want to go into mobile markets? I look at my PNL my cash flow my savings. I wasn't saving money and building wealth. And so the comment that's being made is and Daniel Beer said this on his episode if anybody wants to listen to it it's like the other buckets are empty. Right. People have production Daniel beer and his case in San Diego is that like 165 million in production. But he started looking at what kind of residual income do I have. What kind of wealth in forming equity do I have. And we're starting to see this and this is where I think you could talk about this Julie in terms of your decision process. I know it was a big deal for me. I didn't have a whole big stock portfolio and equity I can't make a comment like Sherri Elliott where she's in less than two years sitting with 700000 in equity in the EXP I stock or another agent in Austin that I just met and she was in a lunch and learned and she popped up when the Sherry Elliot comment was made. She goes I don't have a big team like Sherry and I'm at 155000 in equity and she's like I didn't have equity before. I was just an agent. I was worried that I was going to have to list and sell forever. And so when you think about because you spent a lot of time coaching agents either it's not part of the process right. We're talking about in the case of EXP a lot of these agents are building this wealth by taking 5% of their gross commission income and investing it like an insider at a 20% discount. The outside world doesn't even know that and most agents don't save any money do they. JULIE: It's a problem in our industry. An agent is as good as their next deal. So unless they've been an extremely disciplined saver flèche investor over the years the majority of agents do not have a good exit strategy. Retirement is a concept that's not well executed in our industry and that was very attractive for me with the EXP. I'm 56 years old and I don't care if you're 40 or 50 or 60 I think most of us have retirement on our mind. And I know I don't want to be selling real estate when I'm 70 years old. So it really took a look at that with the EXP is very attractive with a combination of the stock and the revenue share was very attractive to me because I've felt like I can do something with that. You know I was at Keller Williams for 16 years and five of those in a leadership position. And Profit was never a big deal for me. It never materialized. Now granted it wasn't a top priority for me but I just felt like the opportunity was limited and it was never going to truly be a solid piece of my retirement plan. KEVIN: It's not that there's anything wrong with profit share I'm vested and remove which for anybody listening means that I've spent more than three years at Kellems like Julie did or Gene-Frederick or anybody else. But the fact the matter is that as you listen to my interview with Gene we talk about this. This is what Daniel Beer just said in his interview that I did with him today where that bucket where you're paid like a regional owner off the top and then for listeners that haven't heard this before in a franchise system like KW they take the money off the top and they pay the regional owner out of that money. EXP does the same thing. And so even somebody like myself who had a fairly decent profit share and still get profit share from Keller Williams. Gene does as well. What we're realizing very quickly is this starts to look a lot more like you if you are focused on it get to act like a regional owner in a franchise system. Now the EXP is not a franchise system but the cash flow is so much more predictable from that residual income that you can build a business around it. In other words if I was at Keller Williams and I started to figure out what my profit share would be I'm sure you didn't try and do this because you're going to make the comment I did which is it's like black magic at the 21st of the month you get this payment you're like ha I don't know how that happened. They give you a calculation and report with it. But there's no predictability to it. And for people that have been in both systems the thing that we're seeing consistently in other words people that have a decent profit share check the revenue share if they're purposeful in their claims and they come over to EXP there's plenty of people I could point you to that are at 10x note it is also very predictable in other words they can look and go. I know what I'm going to make in 2017. I know what I'm going to make in 2018 and 19 just based on the number of people I'm going to have in my revenue share group. You can't do that. I can't go to Gene-Frederick and go: How much are you and Susan going to make this year and profit sharing. I've asked him that. He says I have no idea. It's so variable that I have no idea. JULIE: And he gets as you know a huge profit share check yeah I have found I'm doing the math right now and I am predicting everything that I made in profit share last year in 2017. Okay so that's after 16 years at KW. I'm predicting that within six months at EXP I will match that. So MY 2017 profit share I predict in my first six months at EXP I'll hit that number. KEVIN: That is not a typical I don't want anybody listening to this to think about it. And if you're not in a system like KW where you get profit sharing you don't have anything to base it by. But just what you should take away here is this is very very predictable and you can model it. The math is simple when you look at who comes in in revenue share and who's in your revenue share group and you can start and look at it and Daniel Beer said this perfectly because there's a lot of noise and misinformation out there he said the revenue share is not only very easy to calculate and predictable but you can also count on it because producers are the people that are coming over to EXP. You know what their production as you know what the math is. It's not like we're getting people to switch to the company and telling them to sell essential oils. This is what they do for their livelihood anyways. They're going to work with buyers and sellers. And as such because it comes off the top it's not black magic. It's not. Oh I have to line up profitability for a particular office with the production. And they're not capped. The complexity of trying to get all that and model it accurately is virtually impossible in Daniel Beer said the same thing you did which is I couldn't pay a lot of attention to it because I couldn't figure out how to make a business out of it. JULIE: Yes I had little to no control over that. And in this i feel like I how I can drive it. I'm in the driver's seat. KEVIN: And that's a great point. And you know there are great places and you and I come from probably the best franchise system out there. Keller Williams you and I both get profit share from there. And this is just a inflection point in the brokerage business in my opinion. We're at a major major inflection point. The agents at EXP are in the same alignment. Their equity holders and it really is an agent centric business. I mean I look back at my very first family reunnion I went to and I heard that term agent centric and then I went into leadership and I ran some market centers in South Florida and did all that. And now being outside of it and watching how things line up at EXP I realize that we coined a term there and certainly Gary would aptly say you can do your brand you're the brand build your business build your database etc. But when you look at the execution of the business it was not an agent centric business. They allowed agent branding. But EXP truly is I mean the best examples on my guests on the podcast people will say I'll get on the phone with anybody. I'm a shareholder in this company. Doesn't matter who they were exposed to EXP and I know you Julie you think the same way where somebody could be sitting in Boston Massachusetts and you're going to be the perfect person for them to talk to. Maybe they're coming out of a franchise system like you and I did. And they need to hear from you or they knew you. Maybe they took a class from you and they want to hear your words. Maybe they will listen to the podcast. It doesn't matter if they're going to be in your revenue share group. The culture of this company is something amazing that people don't see from the outside they might experience it. If somebody introduces them to the EXPE and then all of a sudden they're thinking wow the agents really are driving this thing all in the same direction because they're all shareholders. JULIE: Yeah I've experienced that on both sides so I've had other agents and readers around the country that have been super responsive to helping me get on my feet or just to answer questions. I've had the opportunity to do that for quite a few people myself so there really is this you really do feel like an equity owner in the company. It's a mentality I've been extremely pleased and impressed with the customer service side of how easy EXP is set up with the cloud and your ability to go online. I have a question just even a simple question it might be a question on a transaction it might be a broker question. It could be an accounting question. A basic kind of administrative questions and I can jump online in the cloud and nine times out of ten I actually have my question answered with a real live person under five minutes. It's kind of like you can go into any office whether it's here Banker or your own brokerage and you had an accounting question saying go to that office and you knock on the door. You just hope that they're there. Or you might send them an email and you're crossing your fingers that you'll get a quick response and answer to your question. And that's normal business for the majority of the business world. KEVIN: Absolutely. And that for agents especially if you're doing transactions and you're going to get an adjustment on a closing and all of a sudden you realize the night before something's got to get change. Like you said you hope to God you can go in the morning to accounting and get them to do it. Well because we operate multiple time zones at EXP. Like you said you show up in the cloud. Somebody is going to help get that thing fixed you know and because agents are in all different time zones. There's pretty much somebody there for an extended period of time and tech support for a lot of agents is a big deal you and I are both fairly tech savvy now. Lots of agents especially agents that are listening to this or not. I can tell you the number of times not just in the cloud but in workplace which is the collaboration environment that EXP is rolled out to support the cloud and it is a completely different platform. But it's very very interesting to watch especially with the lead generation systems. Obviously people are rolling out Cavey core now in 2018. They are they want to set up conversion. They'll come in and say I'm not tech savvy. I need help with this. I'm trying to figure out how to do this this and this and in XP agent will chime in in the comment and say hey I'm in a different state. Doesn't matter. I got this wired. I can probably get you on the phone for 15 minutes and tell you exactly how to do this. That does not happen in a franchise system or offices independently operated certainly doesn't happen in a small brokerage or an independent where you don't have that wealth of knowledge and experience across the country and that's in addition to the great customer service that the company offers. And that's just the culture of the agents. They're like hey you know what you might be in Alabama. But I can get you on the phone and get your conversion site up and running in a 15 minute call with you. JULIE: Yeah. And there are thousands of examples of that online. So it's a real community. It's very helpful. It's interesting because sometimes you think if you don't have experience with something cloud based like this you might think on the surface before for experience. You might think that it may be an impersonal system. It's exactly the opposite. There's so much engagement there's so much easy access. And it's a community where everybody is helping everybody and whether that's in just in Austin the Austin group is so helpful in itself. And then there's Texas group and then there's just access to everybody nationally. It's pretty impressive. I've been very pleased. KEVIN: The one thing I would tell for people listening and it doesn't matter for an independent you're at a big franchise system or you're in some regional brokerage. The level of collaboration right because the franchises tackle this this way right. They've got top producers and people and certainly Julia you would fall into this category where when you are doing what you're doing in productivity coaching there will be an event and they would have you up there and people that traveled to that event would get to experience you or if they're in your market center you would be heavily visible and the agents would be able to catch you and hear you and learn from you. Well in the EXP model we have icon agents we've got other agents and the level of masterminding across the country that happens every day and every week blows away one event or two events per year and that's something that I think when I looked at this when Gene first approached me a couple years ago I didn't get that that was going to happen when I joined with Gene last year it was really at the point where the company got critical mass right. I think that you know there were 400 agents when you first talked to me. He likes to kid me inside me that I'm a real slow decision maker and learner and I didn't join. There were about 35 agents when we reengaged. We just passed 8500 agents were we going to be 10000 agents. So now imagine my point. You're in a company with 10000 agents predominantly you know in your world if you're a franchise there are cappers or better there are big producers the kind agents have a wealth of knowledge. Not only are there sharing within themselves but part of what they're doing is they're giving back to all agents. So your ability to plug in. I know this is preaching to the choir with you but I'm sure I want to get your opinion on this. I've never seen the level of high level skill knowledge and experience being shared every day and every week have you? JULIE: No and I think in my I'm now part of my read and this is I don't know the exact statistics but I'll just make the point is that at EXP something like 80 percent of the agents are producing so in Real Estate there are a lot of agents out there that actually don't sell any real estate. They're not producing. I didn't experience that before. Managers of real estate offices. They analyze their agent count, production who's producing who's not because that's how they have to run a business and they have to be profitable. At EXP the majority hands down the majority of ... and are producers their cappers and I like being in that environment. KEVIN: Absolutely. The number that I heard I think Jason Guessings shared this last summer haven't seen it since but this is right before EXP got on that the number was like eighty eight or nine percent. There's plenty of people like myself or Gene who don't list and sell anymore. We're helping mentor and coach and bring people and we're helping the business expand and we're attracting agents. So we count in that you know call it 12% that are not producing this will ring true to you because we're in Austin we're in central Texas you and I see each other because we're also there at the face to face lunch and learns whenever we can because we're supporting from a cultural standpoint being there regardless of whether we have somebody we attracted at an event. That's the model right if you're listening to this whoever introduce you to EXP ask them to invite you to a EXP explain lunch and learn. You'll see people like Julie and I everywhere in the country there that can share our knowledge help you in the due diligence process. Let's go to Austin right everybody knows we've been talking about KW mostly because we both come from there the large office that you were with is the big office right. Highest agent scout in Austin. Production. You know the franchise recently touted the fact that they're number one in a lot of metrics. Gene asked me to poll the numbers and I went and did some research work with some of my title company contacts. We polled the most recent numbers that were available. That was Q3 of 2017. Number one office is the Southwest market center for Keller Williams right people that are listening this week. Well that makes sense. They've been there for more than 25 years right. That's where it all started. And there a huge office now if you look at it from production. I think that I don't know what the exact age account is but it's more than 800 agents and EXP is at 315 agents. It was not in Q3 it was probably 270 or so the number one office is absolutely colorway homes in the market. 800 plus agents. Number two is the XP in production that's an aging count that came in less than two years. So the easiest way to connect the dots for anybody listening if this isn't crystal clear to you is you have to have high producing agents. Everybody's in production way at that high number of 80 or 90% to make it with 300 agents and I had this just come up in an EXP explain where somebody said well but you don't have this many agents. Right. The big franchise system just talked about having way more than 150000 agents and you guys have eight. How is this going to play out. I said well let's just look at Austin 315 agents. There probably were 270. They're number two in the market. 800 agents they have production at number one. But if you start looking at the fact that in Dallas two years ago we had 14 agents Sherry Elliott was the fourteenth agent. They now have 800 agents. You start looking at this happening all over the country. You can close the gap on production with highly producing agents and that's who's being attracted to Keller Williams. Right? But then they stay there for a while and then they look at the next step and I'm going to bring it full circle back to your career piece. Now they're looking at I don't want to be in production so that segment not just at Keller Williams but across the board independents other franchises now go - I need to figure out what this business model is all about-. Those are the people that are moving right we're not attracting any new agents in the parlance of where we came from cappers or better. So Julie if somebody is listening to this and you can kind of describe your due diligence process. They've been introduced to EXP. I always tell them get to explain explain face to face if you've got a complicated business right. They've got a team maybe they're an expansion team and they're in multiple markets. There a major agent. They have plenty of resource. I know you mentioned that you went through the process of talking to people both before you came in after you've witnessed this and probably had people that joined that did this know how powerful do you think it is that you can get senior people in terms of production and experience in EXP regardless of how you were introduced to it. JULIE: I'm a cautious business person meaning a bit of an over thinker. I really like detail and I will take my time with big decisions. Now some folks they may watch a Gene Frederick video and they are all in and then they're signing up the same day and that's awesome. My wiring is a little different. And so I really needed to take my time. I spoke with numerous people I pulled together a spreadsheet so that I could manage my transition really smoothly. I had phase 1 phase 2 phase 3 phase 4 of making it all happen because I didn't want to forget any of my detail and I had people around the country helping me with helping me be my over thinker self just to manage the process. It was about all its work to change brokers. I had that vision and I was really excited for the vision so Christy Davidson helped me out quite a bit. The Lewises helped me out. There were just a number of people that I tapped into and it said Okay help me. Help me understand this help me put my pieces together here. Help me with this plan. You know I like things now. It was about three or four weeks really just kind of planning and putting the pieces in place so that the day that I made the switch I really fell quite organized. It was a smooth process. So for the owner thinkers out there we can help you. KEVIN: Well absolutely. Before we wrap up Julie is going to give her contact information and what she's describing is not unusual right if that's your behavioral style and you want to do detail due diligence or your business is mission critical right. You and your team sell a lot of property and you have a lot of pendings and a complicated business. Doesn't matter who introduced you to EXP ask them to tap into the network. You can go to anybody on any of these interviews or anybody within the company and say I really liked to talk to somebody who is in a similar situation to me and that person or whoever they can reach within the company. And this is the culture of the company. They will take the call. You can text them or e-mail them and they will help you through the process. We're all shareholders. We all want to make sure you make a good decision. The EXP is not a perfect fit for everybody as Julie said sometimes people make the decision not now or not the right thing for me or I decide not to do it and we're okay with that. We have plenty of people in the company at this point while we're recording this is bringing in more than 250 agents nationwide per week. So we've got plenty of people that are interested. We want great agents to make a good decision. We realize it's not a fit for everybody but we want more than anything is for you to get real due diligence information. We don't want you. And that's why Gene and I started this podcast we want you to hear in agent's own words how it should work so that you're not hearing something that secondhand or god forbid a thousand comments on a Facebook post where people are going between a franchise and EXP at the end of it you've heard 500 different opinions and you're just confused right you're like well I don't know what to believe anymore. And so the best practices get plugged in get great advice real advice from people that have made the change. Some of them can say OK here's where I came from. Here's what I did and here's what I know now that I've been here and there's plenty of people I'm sure you did that as part of your process and you're phasing. JULIE: Yeah. So I mean for anybody listening to this podcast if you've been in one of my classes if they've seen me speak on stage at some point if we're connected some way online and your you're thinking about this or you're considering the EXP just call me. Shoot me an email. Shoot me a Facebook message and let's chat. I'm getting messages like that almost every day. I will help you have an objective conversation about making that decision. KEVIN: I want to tie this down because there's got to be somebody listening to this to say oh my god I'm happy with my franchise I'm happy in my business. I'm not a disgruntled and upset. You were there. That was your position when you first started your diligence. Don't let that stop you from... JULIE: I like to say I wasn't running away from something so my move was not an anti move. I wasn't running away from something I was moving towards a new opportunity and our industry changes. It evolves it changes and you have to pay attention and figure out where do you want to be. What works for you and what is the best fit for you. Initially when I was analyzing kind of my five and 10 year plan and trying to figure out some solutions for my business and my personal finances and really taking a look at that I have a coach and I asked her I said this is everything I'm trying to figure out. I need a roadmap. And initially I said my intention is to stay at KW okay so will you help me figure it out? And she said I'll help you figure it out. But if you're open to this kind of removing your blinders a little bit so we can really objectively analyze your options. That's it that's fair. Was that fair enough. So so it really initially was my intention to stay stay where it was. But as I allowed myself to be objective and look at my choices the EXP opportunity and the solutions it provided for me and my business and my personal life became so clear really fast and I tried to poke holes in it because I didn't want to make a mistake. I really tried to poke holes in it. I even challenged my coach said am I making a good decision here. You just play devil's advocate with me and help me be extremely sure and confident with what I'm doing. And it passed all of those tests. KEVIN: No and that's a great point. So I want to come back to talking about your book because before we wrap up I think this is a valuable tool. Whether you're looking to make a change or anything like that this has nothing to do with that Julie's book is something I would highly recommend. I want you to be able to at least plug it will have a link in the show notes to it as well. JULIE: Thanks. One day I did when I left my leadership position is I felt like I had so much information and knowledge in my head. As far as helping agents and particularly what I call new and emerging agents but especially this group and I was in this group of what I call relaunching agents. So maybe agents I don't care if they're three years and or 13 years and for one reason or another they're in a position where they're kind of re launching their business. In my case I had been in leadership and was moving back into production. So I was really launching my business. Sometimes it's an agent who just isn't particularly happy with how their business is running or the money that they're making. And the beauty of that is they can actually start over. You could just start over today in this business. So call that relaunching. So I wrote this book it's called Success Faster. Quickly launch or relaunch a real estate career. It's on Amazon so you type in Julie Nelson Success Faster it'll pop up on Amazon and is getting some really good reviews it's helping a lot of people. And that's my goal. It's just for content to help people that help realtors be more successful and really enjoy their businesses. There's an entire chapter in the book on evaluating broker choice. So someone who has a brand new agent or somebody who is in the process of getting their real estate license nobody has taught them what options are out there and how to make an objective analysis. So we take a look at that and then part of the chapter is for somebody who is mid career and reassessing their broker choice. So that's the book Success Faster. KEVIN: Excellent. And again I would highly recommend it for anybody regardless of where they are in their career. There's one in there for you regardless of where you are on your 10 year in the business. Julie if somebody is listen to this what's the best contact information for you. JULIE: I'm really easy to find online. SO if you can't find me need to try just a little harder. But as Julie Nelson you can find me on Facebook and my e-mail is TheNelsonProject@gmail.com or you can find me on Facebook if you type in Julie Nelson Austin Texas or Julie Nelson EXP Realty. KEVIN: Excellent. Julie thank you so much for coming on the show. JULIE: Of course. My pleasure.

HI EVERYONE!!! Wwwwwwww.... long time no see!! We are SOOO excited to bring you the new, revamped PhotoSpark... season TWO! This season is going to be full of awesome guests, new topics, and maybe even a few special get-togethers to meet you guys!! This first episode is just a quick one to catch you guys up on what's been going on in OUR lives since we last chatted, so tune in to hear some updates from the PhotoSpark ladies! Julie Ferneau For those of you who don't already know Julie, she's the wedding photographer of the group! She is a social butterfly who is amazing at keeping up with networking on TOP of her booming photography business! The past few months have been packed with second shooting gigs in addition to her own clients. Julie has had a few THREE wedding weekends over the summer, which to me is completely crazy! There's really no end to the "wedding season" in San Diego. The weather is amazing year round, and couples take advantage of the cooler fall and winter weather in addition to the spring & summer! So Julie has been knocking it out of the park all year! Julie gives some tips in this episode about second shooting, as well as outsourcing editing, which she has done for the very first time! For the listeners who have been with us for (almost) two years, you'll love to hear that Julie is outsourcing to Lauren Nygard, one of the original PhotoSpark hosts! She's a new mom now, living in North Carolina, and is helping Julie with editing & matched her style perfectly! Julie is loving the smooth process & having a little less on her plate! Ashley DuChene Ashley is a family & child photographer, who also takes on some corporate clients throughout the year! She is keeping busy for sure!! It's been a long road, but Ashley now officially has an assistant, who she trained to help with her photography business. The training process was lengthy; Ashley had to make training videos and teach her assistant all about photography, but she is SUCH a great fit for Ashley! Ashley is enjoying having someone write emails, make/answer phone calls, and help at shoots too! Her assistant has been taking behind the scenes video for Ashley's Instagram feed, so make sure you follow her to watch her stories/live updates! Ashley gives some tips about having an assistant in this episode. She talks about the benefits of an assistant, as well as the time it took to get everything in place. There were some financial commitments she had to make to get her started, and it's still a little tough for Ashley to be spending more money. She's DEFINITELY making more money though, so it has been worth it for her so far! Having an assistant & being able to delegate tasks has helped Ashley plow through this busy season successfully! Be sure to tune in to hear about her process! Kate Mills Kate is also a family & child photographer who is laughing at the term "busy season" because really it feels like we go from one busy season (summer) to the next (fall/holiday shoots). There isn't anything super new or exciting in her life at the moment, she's just trying to find that work/life balance & chats about how she is starting to wonder if there really IS a balance or if that is just a myth! Currently, she's doing her best to streamline her business better, which will really help get through this NEXT busy season and come out alive! The best thing she did this year was automating her mini session scheduling! She used BookedIN and set it up so clients could pick their desired date & location from her calendar. They'd click on the time slot they wanted, fill out their contact info, and pay their session fee via PayPal right then & there. This has helped TREMENDOUSLY and has cut out the back and forth that mini sessions usually bring! It also ensures Kate isn't chasing down any session payments. It took some time to set up, but saved a lot in the long run! Kate also speaks about mini sessions... a lot of photographers are moving away from them which is totally fine, but she finds that they do provide some financial security during the holidays. She talks about why she does them, some regrets about them, and how to make them work for you! THANK YOU so much you guys for your patience with the launch of Season Two! I promise we'll be good with our weekly episodes from here on out! Please feel free to check us out on social media & drop us a line!    

Final Clickfunnels webinar? On this extra long episode Russell talks about doing a webinar for Clickfunnels today, and why it’s the last time. He talks about where he was a year ago, and how things have changed for Clickfunnels in that year. Here are some interesting things you will hear in today’s episode: Why Russell thinks doing a webinar a week for your business is still a must, but why his business is different. What revelation led to The Expert Secrets book and the possibility of doing an infomercial with Dean Graziosi. And what you can expect to see with Clickfunnels when things change in January. So listen below to hear what kind of changes are coming for Clickfunnels in 2017 and why. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson I want to welcome you guys back to Marketing In Your Car. Now, it’s funny I get people all the time that ask me what microphone I use due to its amazing audio quality, and it’s just my phone. I don’t do microphones, I just hold it and talk into it. I figured if I had to get a microphone set up I never would have done it. I just want to be able to do these whenever I want to. Whenever I want, so I need at least the most simple, easy setup possible and that’s how we did this, which is really cool. I actually just got a brand new iPhone, so this is my first time recording on this new iPhone, which I’m kind of excited about. With that said, it snowed last night, if you follow me on Snapchat….I may be killing Snapchat, I haven’t decided yet, but it’s kind of frustrating but it’s also kind of fun. I may be moving it over to Instagram Stories or something, I don’t know. But we went, half my kids are out in the snow playing in it. Norah and me were in the hot tub, it was really fun. Then the kids want the fireplace on, so I ran in my bare feet in the snow to turn the fireplace, it was some good times, but I survived it and lived to tell the story. Today is exciting day because today is webinar day. We’re doing a webinar, I was doing the stats, 4500 people registered. What? Which is going to be exciting. It’s funny, we’re getting towards the end of the year now and I want to share a message that’ll loop back to the beginning of this year. For those of you who have been listening to the Marketing In Your Car podcast, if you haven’t been, go and binge listen to all of them and catch up because there are some important things you’re missing. Just kidding, kind of. There was a podcast I did, I think in January. I was driving home and it was snowy as well. I think it was called the business model for the next twelve months. So if you go to marketinginyourcar.com and search on the page for business model, or twelve months, it should pull up and you listen to it. But I walk through a challenge I give to everyone, that basically do a live webinar every single week for the next twelve months and transform your life and business and it’ll be amazing. What’s interesting is that, as I’ve been saying that over and over and over again, very few people have. Surprise, surprise. But the people that have are doing some amazing things. Some are speaking at Funnel Hacking Live, some are doing different things. One of them, I’m going to brag, I hope they don’t mind. I’m sure that they’re probably listening to this, but Brandon and Kaelin Poulin are examples of people who just, every time I’m like, “Hey you should do this.” Just do it and it’s amazing. And last month, and they’re in the weight loss space, they sell $147 product and you might think, well how much can someone make doing a webinar a week every single week for a year? And I tell you it compounds. It’s a compounding interest game. I remember some famous guy said something about compounding interest, which was cool, but I don’t remember the quote or the actual concept behind compounding interest. I only know how to sell stuff. But it’s the same thing I think. It compounds. Just to put into perspective, when I met them at Funnel Hacking Live, they were doing about $100,000 a month that was in March or April, whenever Funnel Hacking Live was. Then they joined Inner Circle and kept doing it, and kept compounding and compounding. November, I actually sent an email out the other day, I was like they did almost half a million dollars in November. And Brandon messaged me back, “What? We passed 600 grand in November.”  So I want to put it in perspective for you. $600,000 selling a $147 information product in the weight loss industry. That’s the power of what we’re talking about, this compounding interest, this compounding effect of consistently doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. And I’ve shared it with some of my friends, people who are successful, I had one friend I won’t mention his name. A great marketer and super cool guy, and his company has been stuck at about $3 million dollars a year for a couple of years. Which is funny, for some reason, I was stuck at 3 million a year for a long time, that was my sticking point. There’s different sticking points, for me to break a million dollars was really hard, took me four or five years in a row, I was trying to break a million dollars from January 1st to December 31st, and I missed it multiple years in a row by a couple tens of thousands of dollars, like 20 or 30 thousand dollars. There’s some mental block, and after I broke that I shot to 3 million and stuck there for a long time. Could never really break through that, in fact, I broke through it one time, when we built a big company up and had a huge staff, but our profits were horrible, then we shut that down and I was stuck at 3 million again for 3 or 4 years consistently, could not break that mental barrier. What changed it for me was that transition to selling a lot of different product, because that’s the mindset of marketers, I gotta create the next big thing, to make more money to how do I make something consistent that I just keep pushing people through. For me it was the webinar. We did the webinar and I committed to our team, because everyone….it’s funny, when we launched Clickfunnels, a lot of my friends, and I saw it in forums, in Facebook groups, people were like, “Clickfunnels looks cool, but it’s Russell’s flavor of the week. I don’t want to move my whole platform and then next week he’s on to a new thing.” I was like, “Crap, I have to show people that I’m serious about this. This is the future, this is my focus.” So a lot of my friends actually, didn’t sign up for a year and half to two years because of that. They were afraid I was going to move on, because that was my pattern. That’s all of our patterns. We do something initially to build a big audience of people. Then the way we start making money is create new things to sell to them. And that’s part of the strategy, there’s value in that, but what’s more valuable is creating a front end offer that’s evergreen, consistent, that you’re always driving people into. There’s a consistent message, consistent onboard, everyone comes through the same channel, buying the same thing, understanding the same concepts, then as you’re building your culture and all these other things, come off of that. So I started doing these one things consistently, that was kind of my promise to Dylan and Todd initially, “This is going to be my focus, don’t worry guys. I’m not chasing the next shiny object. We’re going to focus on this.” It took me three months before we figured out how to sell it right. We had multiple failed product launches initially. Then we figured out the webinar was how we were going to sell it, and it worked. We did the webinar over and over. And I did the webinar every week for almost a year, probably more than that. Some days I would do two to three webinars in a day, which is a lot. I don’t know if I could handle that nowadays. When we first got started, that’s what I was doing. I’d do a webinar and get off, then do another one and get off. If you do it, those of you who have done a webinar, a two hour webinar, it drains you. All your energy is going into it, and to do two or a couple times three in a day, it was tough. But I was learning my message, finding my voice, understanding where people were getting stuck, perfecting it and going over and over. And the nice thing about doing it live is it gets everyone on your staff and team focused on this thing. This last year, we had so much success and the webinars were kind of shifted over to automated webinar, and that’s been running for most of this year, so I haven’t been doing them live that much this year. But I paid my dues, so it’s okay for me. For you guys, you gotta pay your dues first then you can. After you’ve done it 50 or 60 times live, you’re allowed to automate it. So we automated it a lot this year, it’s been good, a consistent stream of money, but it hasn’t been this big focal point. So we wanted to do one big last hurrah, which is happening today in a couple of hours, to do the funnel hacks webinars. So we did a big push and got 4500 people on it. 4500 people means we’ll get a thousand on the webinar. We consistently close 20 percent, that means 200, so we’re looking at probably 150-200 thousand dollars live on the webinar. And then from replays we should double that. Gets us to 3 or 4, but then we’ll also have a big urgency and scarcity scare since this is the last time we’ll be doing this webinar, in fact we’re doubling the price of this offer and changing the webinar as a whole coming into the new year. So there’s a lot of built in urgency and scarcity. So my guess, we’ll probably end up with 5 or 6 hundred thousand from this in immediate sales, but the lift from that is huge as well, because even people that don’t buy, now they are indoctrinated into our process. They sign up for Clickfunnels, they start buying the books, all the other pieces start happening and there’s so many big benefits that come from the consistency of the webinar. So I just wanted to kind of circle back to when we talked about, almost a year ago, and get back to that. Like I said, my friend who’s stuck at $3 million I told him, “This is the model. You gotta do a webinar every single week.” He was like, “I can’t write a new webinar every single week.” I was like, “No, you do the same webinar every single week.” He was like, “I can’t do the same webinar every week, my audience will get tired of it.” I was like, “Exactly, that means you gotta bring in a new audience.” And he was like, “No, that won’t work. We make our money by creating new things, and it takes me a couple of months to create a new thing.” And I was like, “That’s why you’re stuck at 3 million dollars, because you can’t.” It’s a hard, hard road to grow past that until you find…… I know that, from a decade, ten years of me trying that and launching and re-launching. No, focus on creating a front end, it becomes so amazing, good, and powerful that you can consistently bring new blood in that brings new blood in. The second half is that you’ll find these businesses that are stuck at 2 or 3 million dollars a year. Usually after a year or two of that they start getting atrophy and it starts shrinking and there’s usually a couple of reasons. One is the entrepreneur is burned out of creating new offers. Number two the audience starts shrinking. I don’t know what it is, we all get good at bringing in an audience initially, and then we have it and we stop focusing on that. We’ve gotta be focusing consistently on new leads coming in. It’s a life blood of your business, even if you don’t want to grow, just want to maintain, it’s essential to have. It’s interesting, I have been listening to an old course, an old Kennedy, actually Bill Glazer course, it’s called Think and Grow Rich for Renegade Entrepreneurs, or something like that. I found it somewhere. So I’ve been listening to that and the firs thing he talked about is renegade entrepreneurs thinking to grow rich is that they all have a focus on consistent new lead generation. No matter how good their business is doing, they are always focusing on consistent new leads coming in. As I move into this new year, we are changing the webinar offer. We’re changing the pricing. We’re doing a lot of cool things inside of Clickfunnels and how we sell it, but I’m not going to be doing this webinar anymore. So for me it’s like, what’s the new horizon? What are we shifting to? I still recommend for 99.9% of all business, the focal point should be a front end webinar. In fact, we will still have webinars that are selling on the front end. But for me, I think I’ve talked about this with you guys before, my whole goal now, we just passed, it’s crazy. This week we passed 25 thousand active customers inside of Clickfunnels. That’s not people who signed up and left, that’s people who are actively being billed, happily. It’s…..we never thought we would get to that. We talked about that, “Oh yeah, when we have 100,000 customers…” but we never thought that was a real thing. But a little over two years in we’re at 25 thousand active customers, which is crazy. So for us, it’s like how do we expand that market? How do we get it bigger? We can keep doing it through webinars, and we will, but I think for me and my business, and again, I’m not saying this for all businesses, because I do not think this is across the board, but for Clickfunnels to grow….we’ll continue to grow in the channels we are, people that have existing businesses that need a funnel, but the big opportunity for me and our team is, and it’s funny because a year and a half ago when I started down this project, for new customer acquisition, how do we keep the fuel in the pump? It was funny, we were looking at, trying to figure out, what’s the offer I create so that all small businesses will start using Clickfunnels? I was stuck for 3 or 4 four months, trying to think through that, trying to figure things out. And it’s funny, I may have told this story before, if not it’s worth telling again. So you guys may hear it twice. A year and a half ago I had joined Joe Polish’s 25k group and the night before the first meeting, I got invited by some cool people to come to this little dinner party. It had about ten people in it, so I come to this dinner party and Dave Woodward came with me to the trip, but he wasn’t able to come to the dinner. And prior to that Dave and I were talking about it, “How do I create, a book I need to write, or is it a webinar? What do we need to do to penetrate and get all of small businesses to start using Clickfunnels? And we’re thinking through it and thinking through it. And it’s funny how when your brain is on something how things just open up. So I’m at this dinner and sitting across the table from me is Dean Graziosi and Dean is someone I’ve always looked up to and he’s been on TV for 15 years selling his books. I think he’s probably sold more books through direct response marketing than any other human on earth. The person who might be closest is Kevin Trudeau but he’s in jail right now so I’m not going to work with him. But Dean’s the best, and he does things in a really clean way that aren’t cheesy, that aren’t like the dirty stuff. And I’m sitting across, looking at Dean and we’re talking about, I don’t even know, something unrelated, and as we’re talking I had this epiphany, I don’t know, I look at it probably more like a revelation from Heaven, but who knows, whatever it is. That thing that is like, “Russell, you are going to be writing a book, you’re not going to be targeting small business owners, that’ll take care of itself. You have to expand the market and the book you’re going to write is going to be called Expert Secrets.” I own that domain, but that was never in my vision to write a book called that. “The book’s going to be called Expert Secrets and somehow Dean’s going to write an infomercial for you.” I’m sitting there listening to Dean talk about his kids or whatever, and I was like, “What? Did I just hear that right, because I don’t know if that makes any logical sense whatsoever. Then my brain comes back and its like, it doesn’t need to. I was like, alright cool. All I had was this little glimpse, “Okay, you are writing a book called Expert Secret, it’s going to help you expand the market and Dean’s going to write an infomercial.” I’m like, okay do I tell Dean that he’s writing an infomercial for me? No, don’t tell him, he’ll think you’re weird. It’s like on a first date, I think this is my wife, should I tell her? No, don’t tell her on the first date, hold that in. That’s how I kind of felt. So that was kind of the beginning of it. So I went back that night to the hotel room and I saw Dave and I was like, “Dave, I’m writing a book, it’s called Expert Secrets and the whole goal is to expand the market.” And he’s like “I got chills. Yes, we need to do that.” I’m like, “Alright.” So Julie, who is my writer, helps me with my writing projects, I voxed her that night. “Okay Julie, I’m writing another book.” She’s like, “You said you were never writing a book ever again.” I was like, “I know, we’re doing it anyway. I’m wiring you some money, give me the info again.” That night. I wire her and then I start writing this book and we start going down this process and I have no idea how all these pieces are going to take place, I just know that it’s supposed to. So I’m going to start running that direction. So we start running. Some of you might already know I wrote the whole book and then this summer I was editing it and trying to get it ready for the publisher and I realized that I hated the book. So on Snapchat I highlighted all 250 pages of it and deleted it. Messaged Julie and said, “We’re writing a new book.” And she’s like, “What? We just wrote a book.” And I’m like, “Yeah, we’re writing the same book again, but this one is going to be way better.” And started over, I’d been working on that project, in fact, today I finished Secret number 7, which is chapter number 7. For some reason I have to name everything secrets, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I just like secrets better than chapters, so whatever. And the book is legitimately, I’m so proud of it. I can’t even….so proud of it, so excited to share it with everybody. It’s gonna change a lot of lives. Change how people look and view how we sell and how we influence and how we can affect people’s lives. So it’s gonna be awesome. And then I’m in Genius Network, I go to that….Excuse me, now I’m going to rewind back. This is the next morning after hanging out with Dean, I’m in the genius network and I love Joe and Genius Network…..Just the way that…..I’m not a super huge fan of some of the way that…….I’ll leave it there. I’m out in the hallway talking to Jason Fladlien. Jason’s a big mentor of mine and I’v e learned some things about belief that….I was telling him the last time we were hanging out, “Do you realize those things you told me about belief have changed my whole life.” He was like, “ I don’t remember talking to you about that.” I was like, “Really? It was a really big deal to me.” He’s like, “I don’t remember that.” It was funny. I was talking to Jason and I told him we had launched a certification program, I was like, “We’re shutting it down.” He was like, “Why would you shut it down.” I was like, “It’s not working.” And we tried to talk through it and we were going to shut it down, and he was like, “Why don’t you find some rock star to run it for you?” and then I was thinking, if I can find the right person, then yes I would do it. But I don’t see that vision. Then a couple of days later, we’re sitting in a room talking about shutting down the certification program and all the sudden, I can’t remember who it was, but someone mentioned Norah and all of us in the room got chills, it was like, yes, she is the right person. She will take this to the next level. Norah is that person. We called her up, begged her and she came in and built the certification program. And what’s interesting, the certification program, we’re certifying all these amazing people now who were building funnels… I just pulled up and Steven is looking through the office window in a Santa hat, waving at me going crazy and saying Webinar Day. Anyway, this certification program is certifying all these amazing people who are now going and penetrating getting funnels into local businesses, which is cool because I was trying to figure out how to get that, how to go that direction and it didn’t make any sense. Now I know that those markets will be filled through the certification program, which is so cool to now see the vision later. So we’re working on the book, go to the next Genius Network, and I went to the last one and I was like I was not planning on re-upping, so I was like, it’s been good and I like it but it wasn’t what I needed right now in my business. The night before the last meeting, Dean’s like, “Hey come to my office.” So I swing over to his office and we talk for a bit. He shows me his infomercial studio, I’m sitting in this thing and I’m like, this is where he’s going to be filming an infomercial for me, but he doesn’t know that yet, how do I not awkwardly bring it up? “Hey man, just so you know you’re building an infomercial in this studio.”  It was pretty cool. And then, I was talking about how cool it’d be to have him do an infomercial. I just dropped it as if it just came in my head, not that I’d been plotting it for a year and knew it was going to happen someday in the future. I was like, “Man, that’d be so cool to have you do an infomercial. What does it look like?” an d he’s like, “I don’t do infomercials for people, but I might be willing to do one for you.” I was like, “Really.” And he’s like, “Yeah.” And he gave me some cool compliments and I was like that’s cool. And then he kind of mentions in bypass, Joe Polish and I are thinking of doing a 100k group, would you be interested? And I said, “If you help me do an infomercial I’d definitely be interested.” And he was like, “Alright, I think we can make that happen.” And we kind of left it at that. I was like, oh my gosh. That night I was all giddy, this may actually happen. There’s now a path that this could actually, that this might possibly happen. So the next morning at the 25k meeting, the first thing Joe and Dean do is they launch, “Hey we’re launching a 100k program.” Dean’s like, “Brunson’s thinks he’s in.” and I was like, “I’m in.” and they handed me an order form, I filled it out and joined the 100k program. I’m like, I don’t know the answer but I know that this is the path. Somehow Dean’s making the infomercial and I just need to be closer to him. So that was kind of it, and now the 100k program, we had our first meeting a couple of weeks ago, I think I talked to you guys about that. And what’s cool, is at the meeting he asked me if I would train for a little bit. I was like, “What do you want me to train?” and he asked what I thought would be best for this audience. And I said, “I know what would be best.” So I shared some stuff in expert secrets book, it’s almost like a test to see how this audience would respond to it, and they went nuts. Insane. I was like, yes the message is right. The book is right. And I told Dean, my book’s about this concept. And Dean’s like, “I want to help you with the infomercial.” And I was like, “I want you to help me with the infomercial.” And he text the other day, “I think I have the perfect host for your show.” I’m freaking out that all this stuff is happening. For me the market expansion is the book, Expert Secret and using it through an infomercial. I mean we’ll be doing a normal book launch and pushing through channels that we’re good at. But I see a very clear vision of how we can use Expert Secrets to create the market to get people to…… Because the hard thing with a small business owner, let’s say it’s a chiropractor. If I go and I’m like, “I want to show you this thing called Clickfunnels.” And he’s like, “Alright.” And I show it to him, “Look you can drag and drop and move things on the page.” And he’s like, “Isn’t that how all website builders work?” because he doesn’t build his website. It’s the consultant that they hired or the webmaster that does that. To them it’s not a big deal, so the only way to get to them is to become a consultant, which is why the consultant program is working so well. I’m like, if we want to expand, we have to create people who are going to be using Clickfunnels. How do I create somebody? I show them the value they have within themselves. I show them that they’ve got talents and hobbies and skills and the thing that they goof off on the weekends because they love it, could actually become a career for them, if they learn how to structure it right. As soon as I can convince them of that, which is the goal of the book, then they need Clickfunnels the tool to be able to actually implement it. And that’s the magic. So that’s how we are going to be expanding our market. That’s going to become our new front end. Don’t forget, unless you’re worried I’m shutting down webinars, after they go through the book the next funnel is the webinar. The message will be a little bit different. In fact…..it’s already been 21 minutes. I’m sorry. I’ve been sitting in the parking lot freezing because I’m so excited to hang out with you guys. So I’ll just tell you some more. So what’s going to happen is they’re going to get the book, through radio, infomercials and online, all these different channels are gonna be pushing it. After they get the book, then there’ll be a survey they take. The survey will identify what type of business they are and then there’s a different webinar based on each of those types. And that’s the future, where we’re going. At least I think so. It could definitely change in the next few months. But that’s where we’re going. And Dean may decide next week that he hates me and not do an infomercial and I’d be totally cool with that. But so far I said, that’s the direction I’m going. But for most of you guys, the book is a much harder direction, longer and I think that for every one of you guys, if you join the inner circle, 99% of you guys, I’d say, you need a webinar and you need to do it every single week. And you’d say, “I want to automate it.” And I’d say, “Go back to this podcast episode.” And I’d make them go back and listen to it and say, “After you have perfected your message then you have my permission to automate it, but not before.” And that’s kind of the same thing I wanted to mention today. It’s been a year now. And those that heard that message a year ago, if you’ve been listening, you could be in the spot where Brandon and Kaelin are, where you did 600 thousand in sales on a webinar in November. Or maybe you haven’t done the webinar yet, and it could be both ways. There’s a kid, I’m learning his story, 4 or 5 people keep telling me, I haven’t met him yet. In the Clickfunnels group, he’s an 18 year old kid who was a pizza boy a little while ago and he learned the perfect webinar and he did like, I don’t know, 3 or 4 hundred grand selling something through a webinar. And he’s a young kid, first time he’s ever done it. But he did it and he’s doing it consistently and that’s what you guys gotta do. So I’m asking you right now to recommit. Because I don’t want to have this conversation next year with you. The conversation I want to have next year with you is, “Russell, I made so much money this last year. What should I do?” I’m going to say, “Come to Kenya with us and let’s build some schools together. But first we gotta get you to a spot where you can.” And the way we get you there is by having a consistent funnel. You’re bringing leads in every single day, new blood into your business every single day. And it’s happening through a front end webinar. And that’s the model. So go back, marketinginyourcar.com search for the next twelve months, or business model for the next twelve months, something like that. And listen to that, and follow that like it’s the gospel truth, because it is. There’s times for all these other funnels and all these cool things we’re doing, after you’ve acquired the customer. What’s cool is that you can focus on doing the live webinar once a week and the rest of the time you can focus on cool new products and services you can create for the existing audience, but all of your ad money, your time, your effort, your focus, should be on getting new people in through one consistent message. After you have that, then you can go back and create new things for those people. But that should be your focus. There you go. This may be the longest marketing in your car in the history of all time. We’re at 24 minutes and 15 seconds. I’m going to bounce. I got some work to do. We’ve got a webinar today. I have no idea what the numbers will be, but I’m excited to do it. And then retiring this message, which is kind of sad. Not completely retiring, I’m just definitely changing it for the new funnels to be very specific. The one…… for people wondering why, this webinar I talk about supplement funnels, which has been a double edged sword. It’s got a lot of people excited about supplements, but people who don’t have a supplement, there’s always just gap after bridges. So the new version webinars, webinars-plural, we identify who they are, and if they’re a retail store, we have a webinar showing them retail funnels. If they are an expert, we’ll show them expert funnels. There an ecommerce person will show them ecommerce funnels. We’ll be very specific to funnels we show in the webinar to the type of person who’s listening. So that is what we’re doing. Because the first two years of this has been brute force. We try to get everyone with the best message we can create. The second ten years will be more like a sniper war where we craft the message perfectly for each audience. It will hopefully increase conversions, stick rate, decrease churn, and build the culture even better. Thanks everyone for listening. Appreciate you all, have an amazing day and I will talk to you all again soon. Bye everybody.

Who is behind the voice of our podcast introduction? Who edits The VBAC Link podcast episodes? Meet Brian Albers, The VBAC Link's secret weapon! Listen to this episode to find out why Brian has earned this title time and time again. We also learn some fun secrets and ask him some of your burning questions. But in all seriousness, we are SO grateful for all Brian does for us. He is a quality, genuine guy that they just don't make these days anymore!   Additional linksThe VBAC Link on Apple PodcastsHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsThe VBAC Link Community on FacebookThe VBAC Link ShopFull transcriptNote: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words. Meagan: All right, you guys. Guess what? This is an episode that I know you guys have all been waiting for since we posted a picture of our secret weapon wearing, “Don't be all up in my perineum.” If you haven't seen the post, go scroll back in our Instagram. We have Brian, who is our secret weapon. Julie started calling him that, I don't know, forever ago.Julie: Because he is.Meagan: He really is. He has proven it. So we today are going to be recording an episode about Brian. Brian is the voice of our intro on our podcast. Review of the WeekMeagan: We have a review, and Julie is the best review reader. We all know this. I can't read.Julie: Oh my gosh.Meagan: She can. So Julie, go ahead and read your review. I hope you picked a big one. I think strategically, you probably pick the big ones knowing that I can't read them.Julie: Yeah. That's exactly what I do, actually. I pick the bigger ones and leave the smaller ones for you.Meagan: I always hope. I always hope.Julie: We have so many. I don't even think we are going to get through them all, so I am trying to pick more recent ones because I know that you pick older ones and so I feel like maybe we have a little bit of both worlds in our review reading. All right. This review is from Apple Podcasts and it's from carrie.vic so we can totally Facebook stalk her if necessary.Her title is, “OMG, the best VBAC resource out there” and then she says, “Thank you so much to Julie and Meagan for this podcast! I began listening to it right after my C-section in August 2018. Then, when I found out I was pregnant in June 2020, I re-listened to every episode. So. Much. Information. So much positivity and hope. I had my VBAC on 02/11”That was just this year.“and I don't think I could have done it without The VBAC Link. This podcast helped me ensure I had the most supportive birth team and provider, provided so much useful information, and all of these mamas made me truly believe in my capability to do this!“Thank you, thank you, thank you a million! Sending so much love to all you mamas out there! ❤️”I love the heart emojis. I love the reviews. I love carrie.vic from Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much and congratulations on your VBAC.Meagan: Yay. Congrats, congrats. I love when we hear the reviews and we don't have to go stalk them. So if you leave a review or if you have left us a review and then gone on to have your baby, let us know how things are going because we kind of stalk you on Facebook, not on Facebook Facebook but on our Facebook community to see because we love following up and hearing about the stories. So leave us a review and if you have already had your baby, drop us an email or tag us on Facebook and let us know.Julie: Yeah, because we really need closure on these things. Like the ones from last year that you read, I'm like, “Oh my gosh, they had their baby eight months ago. I don't know what happened.” Closure is always good.Meagan: Okay, without further ado, we are going to have Brian give us the intro.Brian: All right, here comes the music. You are tuned into The VBAC Link podcast with Julie Francom and Meagan Heaton, VBAC moms, doulas, and educators here to help you get inspired for birth after having had a C-section. Together they have created a robust VBAC preparation course, along with this uplifting podcast, for women who are preparing for their VBAC. Although these episodes are VBAC specific, they encourage expectant moms to listen and educate themselves on how to avoid a Cesarean from the get-go. The purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. It is not meant to replace advice from any other qualified medical professional. Here are your hosts, Julie and Meagan after we hear from today's sponsor.Julie: “Here are your hosts, Julie and Meagan”Meagan: Yay. I love it.Julie: I love it. Brian is amazing. I call him “our secret weapon” because he is our very first person that we ever paid to do anything from The VBAC Link. He literally saved my life because when we first started, I was editing our podcast episodes using a free program that I downloaded, and every Tuesday night I would be in a rush trying to get-- I'd spend two hours editing, and trying to crop out “um's” everywhere, and putting the intro and the exit there, and get it in the right spot, and get it uploaded, and get everything posted in time for our Wednesday podcast runs, and then Meagan connected us with Brian.Meagan, you're going to have to tell the story because I don't even remember how you guys met. But then he literally saved two hours of my week and that's why he is our secret weapon. But not only that, he is our video guy. He records the videos for our courses and we also give him a whole bunch of random audio/video stuff to do here and there for us. So he is called “our secret weapon” because he saved our lives and we want to keep him nice, quietly tucked away in our own little package so nobody else can use him because he is ours.Meagan: Brian, you belong to us.Brian: Yep.Julie: We will lock you in a dungeon with a computer and some audio equipment just in case you ever decide you want to stop editing.Brian: And honestly Julie, what you described Julie, just cutting out the um's-- that's pretty much what I do. That's the bulk of it because there are so many, really.Julie: Yeah, because me and Meagan don't know how to not say “um.”Brian: Well, I mean, everybody says “um”.Julie: I know.Brian: It's just a natural, normal part of speaking, but when you're trying to present it as a podcast, you want to sound as pro as you can. And cutting out those “um's” is working towards that goal.Meagan: Yes.Julie: Yeah, and then not saying “um” is another step.Brian: Yeah.Meagan: Yeah.Julie: Maybe when we are grown up we will stop saying “um”.Meagan: It's seriously one of the most, it's one of the hardest things for me. What's funny though is I don't recognize myself saying “um” or “uhh” but I totally recognize anybody else saying “um”. I'm like, “Oh my gosh that person says--” like I recognize “um's” more, but in myself, I don't. I don't know why that's a problem.Julie: Until Brian sends us a message that says, “You guys are saying ‘um' a lot more than usual. Just pay attention.”Meagan: “Can you guys drop the ‘um's?”Julie: And then we are texting each other during podcast episodes and saying, “Oh my gosh I am saying ‘um' so much.” No, but I have learned that I replace that with “so”.Brian: Uh-huh, or “and”.Julie: Yeah. And “and”. Yeah, and “so”. That's awesome.Brian: And that's okay. That's okay too.Julie: Yeah. So let's get going. Um, we-- see? There I did. Oh my gosh, I just said it.Brian: Yep.Julie: You'll probably have to edit that out.Brian: I'll leave that one in.Julie: Yeah, you can leave that one in because, um-- oh my gosh. Now I am going to be so hyperaware. Oh, this is not going to go well.Meagan: Oh my gosh. Okay, so I was just reflecting back on how I got a hold of Brian and I feel like-- okay. So I had a client who, crazy enough, yeah. Anyway. So I had a client and he does video and then his wife does sound. I asked her, I sent her a text or something. I was like, “Hey, do you know about anybody or do you know anybody?” And she was like, “Yeah.” I can't remember if she sent Brian to me directly or if she sent me to someone else, but I'm pretty sure she sent--Brian: You're talking about Michaela, right?Meagan: Michaela, yeah.Brian: Yeah.Meagan: Michaela knew you, right? I thought she sent me directly to you. She was like, “Yeah. I know someone.”Brian: Yeah, because I work at the NPR station here in Salt Lake City and Michaela does as well. She is a weekender and that's how I know her. She still does work there and I still do work there so we still do know each other.Meagan: Yes, yes.Brian: And so she approached me and she asked me if I was interested in helping out some friends of hers start a podcast or do a podcast or something. I don't know if she just didn't have the details or just didn't give me the details, but I had no idea what anything was about. I just knew it was something about audio editing and a podcast and I said, “Yeah, sure.” I love doing audio and I love helping people if I can pursue what they want to pursue. If I can help out, I will help out. Especially when it comes out to audio stuff because I've been doing audio forever. And so I said, “Yeah. Throw them at me. Give them my email. Whatever happens, happens.” And that just got the ball rolling.Julie: And then you became our secret weapon.Meagan: Yeah. She sent me your email. That's right. I was like, “I was pretty sure it was direct.” And then I sent it to you. I remember emailing you and it was such a big step for Julie and I because Julie was our editor before and she did a wonderful job, but she was tired of it. And we are not professional. We are not professional. It's not easy.Julie: It was so much work. Oh, well and Brian can edit a podcast episode in 30 minutes that takes me two hours to do.Meagan: Unless we say “um” all the time and then it's two hours. But yeah. But no, it was just such, I don't know. The stars aligned so perfectly. I will forever be grateful for her and we are forever grateful for you, Brian, and we are so excited that you are with us.Brian: And that was when? That was the fall of 2018?Meagan: Two years, mhmm.Julie: Yeah. Right about that.Brian: And you hadn't done too many episodes before I came on board, right?Julie: I think we were 30 episodes in.Meagan: I was going to say, I think it was 30 or 40.Brian: Wow.Julie: Yeah.Meagan: We really hadn't done that many and they were a mess.Julie: Brian was like, “You guys really need to find a studio and I actually know one that might be available.”Meagan: Yeah. He's like, “You need to have better audio.” So it's just been so awesome and then we were like, “Oh, we are going to do this online course. Hey Brian, do you know how-to video?” “Yeah.”Brian: “Yeah.”Meagan: And you guys, he spent an entire Sunday--Julie: It was like, 10 hours.Meagan: Yeah. With us in an empty duplex sitting there as we were just talking about-- like seriously, yeah. It was amazing and yeah. I am so grateful for you.Brian: And actually, videoing is the easy part. It's all the editing and post-production that takes forever.Julie: And so you know so much about birth, and Cesareans, and VBAC--Brian: And do you want to know? The funny thing is when I started editing the podcast, I, first of all, didn't know it was a birth thing.(Meagan and Julie laughing)It was just a podcast. Seriously, I had no idea--Meagan: He didn't know.Brian: --what it was about until I heard the first audio. I had no idea what a VBAC was. I had no idea what a VBAC was. I had no idea what a doula was. I had to look that stuff up.Julie: And now you know way more than you ever thought you would know about birth.Brian: Oh, I know way more than I thought I would ever know.Julie: Probably way more than you would ever care to know.Meagan: You could be a doula, Brian.Julie: I want to read your bio really fast.Brian: Oh, go for it.Julie: You wrote out a really well-thought-out bio and I want to read it because I think it is transitioning to what we are talking about right now, but I want you guys to know a little bit more about Brian and then we can talk some more, and share some really embarrassing stories, and all that fun stuff.But Brian is a SoCal native which-- I did not know that about you. Meagan probably did. Meagan is a bigger people person than I am. But you moved to Salt Lake City in the summer of 2015. You are a lifelong musician and we have seen some of your stuff on YouTube. It's pretty amazing. You have been an audio engineer since the early 90s. You worked in radio, big-time nationally syndicated stuff as well as small-time local stuff as an engineer and on-air host since the mid-90s. He is currently an on-air host at 90.1 KUER NPR Utah, headquartered in Salt Lake City, heard throughout Utah, and video editor in marketing at Salt Lake community college. I did not know that either.You run Humorless Productions. That's his business name. Remote audio, video recording, and post-production, primarily concert recordings, primarily noisy undergroundy, aggressive, electronic music. Obviously, not recording too many concerts these days. You are an avid skier. I did know that. Avid road bicyclist-- also knew that, and hard-core introvert. Also knew that.And let me tell you, people, Brian‘s never married and has no kids. Brian is such-- this is why I call him “our secret weapon”, right? He literally edits a birth podcast. He has never had kids. He has never seen somebody or helped somebody have a baby, but he is sitting over here being the biggest trooper for us. He came to our first birthday party and took pictures with us in our little made-up photo booth. He is just always so willing to help out and is just so-- I don't know. I just think you are a good-quality, genuine guy. They just don't make people like you anymore. I don't know if that makes sense.Brian: Well, if you think about it though, if you put yourself in my position, I mean, I don't really have to know anything about birth specifically. I'm just doing the audio.Julie: That's true.Brian: You know? I just pull it up on my computer and put it in my editing program and start editing. At that point it's not about birth, it's about audio and it's about making the people sound good.Julie: Which you do a great job of.Brian: So the podcast could be about anything and I'm still going to do the same process.Meagan: Right.Julie: Yes.Meagan: But at the same time, you are so willing to go the extra mile to do so many other things. In fact, even wearing your “Don't get all up in my perineum” shirt.Julie: “Don't be all up in my perineum.”Brian: The perineum shirt.Julie: Actually, can we talk about that shirt? I'm going to have that available in our VBAC Link shop. So if you go to thevbaclink.com/shop, you can see exactly what we are talking about and buy your own. “Don't be all up in my perineum” shirt straight from our VBAC shop. So by the time this episode airs, I will have it up there and live for you. I am pretty sure we can include a picture of Brian rocking it. In fact, that might just be our main product image.Meagan: Yes. Yes. I love it. Okay so, Brian. What got you into-- I mean, you've been doing this for such a long time. What sparked your interest in this? Like as a kid, what did you do as a kid? Did you want to do stuff like this as a kid? Like in editing and audio and video and all that?Brian: No, I mean, as a kid, like as a teenager, I would ride my bike around the neighborhood or ride my bike just as much as I could, so that's always been a lifelong thing. I started playing guitar at 12 or 13 years old and that pretty much instantly became my main focus forever. I wasn't good at it instantly. I wasn't a prodigy, but I got fairly good at it in some short amount of time. I was sort of a natural musician. It was just a language that I understood.Meagan: Yeah, it just came to you.Brian: It just kept going and going from there. I was in bands back in the 80s which-- we didn't go anywhere. We didn't record anything. But I was always playing and I was always getting better. Eventually, the first thing I did out of high school was, I went to a guitar school in Hollywood. It's the premier West Coast guitar school via Musicians Institute and the Guitar Institute of Technology. I graduated in 1990 and from there, that's what got me interested in audio. In playing guitar, and playing with bands, and playing with other people and recording as well, I was interested to know how exactly. You know, you mic up a guitar and why does it sound different if you put the mic here or if you put the mic here? Or if you use this microphone or that microphone? I was interested in that sort of stuff. I just dove into it headfirst while all along being a musician, but also being interested in audio.Once I eventually went to proper college, I was a music major at first, but then I switched to audio engineering and graduated as an audio engineering major. That was in the mid-90s. That's when I started in radio. I eventually did my own music shows in LA and I was an engineer for some big radio shows in LA. It all just came together and that's how it's been since then.Meagan: That's awesome. I didn't know that about you.Julie: Yeah. You're pretty good at it. You've got a natural talent.Meagan: Yeah. Oh my gosh.Julie: Alright.Brian: Isn't that what they say about kids? Because I'm a middle kid. I have an older brother and a younger brother.Julie: Aw, that makes sense too.Brian: Isn't the middle kid supposed to be the artsy one?Meagan: You know, my middle kid is. She is very artsy. I mean she seriously, she was 18 months old and I remember we were in this group of people and there were some coloring books. She sat down and started coloring and this lady was like, “Oh my gosh” because she was color blending and coloring in the lines so perfectly. She was like, “What in the deal?” And then now, she can just look at something and she just draws it. And she's like, “Look, this is--”. The other day, she brought home-- it was Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss's birthday, or whatever, and she brings me this Cat in the Hat picture. I am like, “Oh my gosh.” She is so good that way, and then she is really good in the arts like dance, and music, and things like that. She is really good at the piano and she is six. So, yeah. I would say my middle kid is good at it.Brian: Cool.Julie: I have two middle kids and I would say my third is definitely the more artsy one. But again, they are three, four, six, and seven. My seven-year-old has really mild cerebral palsy so he has always hated handwriting. He's always hated coloring because it's hard for him because of his right hand. It's his right side that is affected. He's not severely disabled or anything. It's really, really mild cerebral palsy, but it affects his right extremities and so he is forced to be left-handed when his brain operates in a right-handed way. He's never been good at that type of thing. I wonder if that's true. I don't know. We will see. We will see as my kids get older I suppose.Meagan: So tell us something else unique that no one would know about you that we don't even know.Julie: Yeah. Behind the scenes.Brian: About me?Meagan: Yeah, because you are. Like we said, you are just like this secret weapon. You just have all of these hidden talents. What is something that you-- I don't know. What is something secret?Brian: Well, I have a good one. I don't know if I have told you before, but I lived-- so I am from Southern California. That's what I say. That is the short answer. But the long answer is I was born in San Diego and I grew up in San Diego. But I lived all of my adult life in LA and so LA feels more like my home, which sounds sort of weird than San Diego, but if you press me, if you asked me where my home city is, I will say LA. But then, I also moved to Austria twice.Julie: What?Brian: Yeah. I lived there for most of 2005 and then I moved back to LA, and then I moved back to Austria from late 2009 to late 2010, so another year there for no reason. It wasn't a work thing. It wasn't for anything, I just wanted to live there. So twice, I sold all my stuff and quit all my jobs, and moved.Meagan: Oh my gosh.Julie: Oh, to be free.Meagan: That's amazing. That's amazing.Brian: Yeah. I didn't really know the language too much. I mean, I took some classes beforehand just so I was a little bit familiar, but I went over there and that's actually where Humorless Productions started my mobile audio/video recording system. That's where I really cut my teeth because there were so many more shows over there at that time that I could record as opposed to LA, at least for the music that I was interested in recording. And so I went over there, and I brought some equipment, and I would record all sorts of shows every month. It wasn't easy, but I worked out a system. It's evolved over the years and now I have a really good system.Actually, the first time I lived in Austria was in Vienna. The second time I lived there was Linz, which is a smaller town about an hour and a half west of Vienna. But if you really asked me if there's anywhere in the world that feels more like home than anything else, I would say it's Austria.Meagan: Really?Brian: Yeah. I have five more friends even today in Austria than I do in the States.Meagan: Wow.Julie: That is super cool.Brian: Yeah.Julie: Gosh, I used to travel so much when I was single. I guess maybe it was because I was in the military. I lived in a couple of different places and then once or twice a year before I got married, I would just travel somewhere on a plane. I was just talking to Nick the other night about this and I just miss that so much. You know, you get married, and you have kids, and you're just stuck forever until your kids get old enough to travel with you. I love that.Brian: And actually when I was over there, I wasn't really intent on traveling or going around, but that just ended up where the shows were that I would record. Vienna is fairly centrally located, so I would hop on a train and go up to Prague, or Budapest, or to Venice, or to Zurich, or to Munich, or to Berlin, or wherever. So it was all sorts of fun.Meagan: That's awesome. So cool. Yep. I did not know that.Julie: Yeah. I did not know that either.Q&AMeagan: So I posted on our Instagram what questions people have for you and a couple have come in. Can I ask them to you?Julie: Yeah.Brian: Yeah.Meagan: One, what is the most interesting thing you have learned from this podcast?Brian: I've learned all sorts of stuff. What's the most interesting thing? I don't know the most interesting thing.Meagan: What's something that stands out to you that you've learned? Obviously, you learned what a VBAC is in general.Brian: Yes, in general.Julie: Maybe if somebody asked you, what is The VBAC Link? What would you say?Brian: Well, here's the thing. For anybody listening, Julie and Meagan don't necessarily want you to have a VBAC. They want you to have the birth that you want. If you want a Cesarean, that's super great. More power to you. The thing is, you're going to learn stuff. Even if you do a Cesarean, you will learn stuff for your pregnancy that will benefit you if you listen to this podcast. If you are a first-time mother, you will benefit. You will learn stuff from this podcast. It doesn't matter if you have never had a Cesarean, doesn't matter if you have never had a vaginal birth. There is just so much good information that you will learn in this podcast.Meagan: I would agree. So another question is, do you share what you have learned with any expectant parents in your life?Julie: Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a minute. Hold on a minute. Thanks for that Brian. That was really nice of you to say. I really like that.Brian: Yeah.Meagan: That really was.Julie: Thank you.Meagan: So to me, Brian, you just answered it a little bit, right? Because that's one of the most interesting things you have maybe learned, right? We're pro VBAC, obviously. That's why we are here and that's why we created the course, and the podcast, and the blogs, and all of that jazz, but you nailed it. It's not that we want you to have your VBAC. It's that we want you to have the birth experience that you want, whether that be a VBAC or not. So I totally love that so much and that seems like the answer to me too. Maybe it's not the most interesting, but it is something that you have definitely taken away and realized that through editing our podcast, that's what we are here for. That is exactly what we are here for is to help these people get the birth that they desire no matter what that may look like to them.Brian: And one other thing, it might sound like not the best way to say this, but a lot of these women who come on the podcast have learned lessons the hard way. They want to share their experiences of learning things the hard way so that other women don't have to learn the hard way themselves. You know? You never ever want to say, “Well, I told you so I told you so,” but I think that's one of the best things about this show is that women don't have to go through all the trauma and all the pain that these other women have gone through, not unnecessarily. You know how birth goes. You never can plan it out 100%.Julie: You know how birth goes now.Brian: Yeah, more than I used to.Meagan: Yeah, and I love that. Yeah. I don't think it was saying it like that or anything. It's true. We have all learned things in hard ways a lot of the time and that for sure was me with my second provider. I didn't switch and I learned the hard way to follow my gut. I didn't follow it the first time. I had to follow it the second time. I am glad that I did so I had the outcome and the experience that I had. So, yeah. I love that.Do you share what you have learned through this podcast with expectant parents in your life? Do you have many expectant parents in your life?Brian: Yeah, I would in a heartbeat. I have only had one friend who had a kid last year sometime in 2020 and I definitely recommended it to her when she was pregnant. I said, “Hey if you want to learn some stuff, listen to this podcast.” I don't know what her plans were as far as her birth plans, but yeah. I said, “There is all sorts of stuff that you will learn listening to this podcast.”Meagan: That's awesome.Brian: And she was a first-time mom.Meagan: Yeah. I know, I think that's something that is so interesting. A lot of the times it's like, “Oh, I have had a VBAC so I don't need to listen to that,” but really like you said, the first-time parents can almost learn just as much, if not more, than the people who have had Cesareans. Right?Brian: I mean, how many episodes do you have on the pelvic floor? That is something that every first-time mother can use.Julie: Yeah. At least four I think.Meagan: Exactly. Mhmm. Yeah. And chiropractic care and working through your fear.Brian: Yep.Julie: And big babies.Meagan: Oh yeah and big babies. Things like that and learning what is evidence-based. You know, we really focus on a lot of evidence-based. So yeah. I love that. I love that you referred us. Thank you for referring us. Do you know how her birth turned out?Brian: I don't know.Meagan: Did she talk to you about that? Most people, probably not.Brian: She hasn't talked to me about it. I've seen pictures of the baby on Facebook and everything looks like it's rolling just perfectly.Meagan: Going really well. That's awesome.Brian: Yep.Meagan: So you said you have two siblings. You are the middle child. Did you say, two brothers?Brian: Yes.Meagan: Are they married?Brian: Both of them are. Older brother has no kids. Younger brother has two kids.Meagan: Oh awesome. Do you know how his wife's experiences went?Brian: I don't know. I haven't asked her.Meagan: Right. It's not really something you probably would. I was just so curious if now--Brian: I mean, I don't think she'd hesitate to tell me if I asked because she's an adult. I'm an adult. Yeah. But I just haven't asked.Meagan: Yeah. Okay, what other questions do you have, Julie? Or what else do you want to tell us, Brian?Julie: I mean, I guess unless you want to embarrass us or roast us, I am so disappointed that there is not going to be any roasting. Throw us under the bus. What kind of dirt do you got on us? Tell the whole world.Brian: I don't have anything embarrassing about you. I have something embarrassing about me.Julie: Okay sure.Meagan: That's the thing is, I want to know more about you. I want this episode to be about you. So tell everyone about you.Brian: Well, here's one thing. First of all, I said in my bio there that I am a hard-core introvert and that's 100% true. This story sort of reflects that a little bit. It was when I first started the podcast. I think I had met Julie and I had met Meagan maybe once. I forget. Maybe not at all at this point, but one of you called me. I forget who it was. One of you called me on some afternoon and just wanted to say, “Hi. I just wanted to chat on the phone for a little bit.”Julie: That was definitely Meagan. I don't do things like that.Meagan: Probably me.Brian: I felt so bad because when you called me, I was at the main library and I couldn't really take a call. I couldn't really talk but I was totally whispering. I felt bad because I wanted to talk. I wanted to say “hi” but I was just not in a position where I could do any of that because there were people all around, and I was in the middle of something, and you can't make a whole lot of noise in the library. And so the call ended up being 30 seconds. It was like, “Yeah, hi. Thanks. Okay. That's cool. Okay, bye.” That was more impersonal than I usually am. You know, in the first place, I really am not the most personable person. I am not friendly at first.Meagan: Really? I think you were. You were friendly.Brian: But I felt bad about that call. But now we all hang out and we are all cool.Meagan: Yes. Now it's like, “Brian!”Julie: COVID has put a serious cramp in our style. We don't get to see you anymore.Meagan: I know.Brian: Yeah.Julie: One day. One day, maybe.Meagan: I know. COVID. Darn COVID. How've you been during COVID Brian? What have you been up to during it?Brian: It's been pretty great for me. I call it “working from home”, but at the same time I have been an essential worker at both of my jobs, and so I have really not changed my schedule at all too much. But it's been great for me as an introvert because everybody else in the office doesn't show up. They are all working from home.Julie: So you get to be all alone and enjoy being an introvert.Brian: So at both of my jobs, I pretty much have the whole building to myself. I can work at my own pace and I can play music as loud as I want. So it's been okay.Meagan: That's good. Have you taken on any side projects or anything other than everything that we send you?Julie: Everything that we send you?Brian: Everything you throw at me? No, not really. I mean, I have all my regular stuff. I have about a dozen blogs and a dozen side projects. I have always a thousand music projects at home which don't really have a deadline, so I have a mountain of stuff I can always work on. Sometimes I get to it. Sometimes I don't. Right now it is ski season, so I am skiing every Saturday and every Sunday for months on end. I am working both my jobs quite a lot these days so I don't have much time to do much of anything.Meagan: Where do you like to ski, Brian?Brian: Well, living here in Salt Lake City is pretty much the center of the universe. We have all sorts of good skiing here. I have one of those multi-resort passes so I have gone to Big Sky Montana this year. I've gone to Steamboat Springs this year. I actually have weekends coming up for both of those coming up shortly. I don't think I will hit Jackson Hole this year. I don't think I will hit Sun Valley this year. I don't think I will hit Aspen this year, but I have skied all over the West Coast.Meagan: What's your favorite resort here in Utah? What resort would you suggest of someone to come to Utah and try out?Julie: Megan is our skier. She probably wants to go catch you on the slopes one day.Meagan: Yeah.Brian: It's probably not the one that most people would come up with as the number one resort here in Salt Lake City at least, but I go to Snow Basin.Meagan: Snow Basin is awesome.Julie: I like Snow Basin.Meagan: That's the first place I go.Brian: At least for me. I was going to say, Snow Basin is better than any of the four here close to town. We have Snowbird, Alta, Brighton, Solitude. But Snow Basin is the one I prefer. Just got the best terrain for me. I am an advanced skier. I've been skiing my whole life.↔Julie: You got a lot of that in SoCal huh? Just kidding. I'm sure the slopes were amazing in Austria.Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I went skiing at St, Anton in the alps for a week. I skied Kitzbühel.Julie: Aw, what a dream.Brian: I skied the racecourse. The Hahnenkamm racecourse at Kitzbühel a week before the race. It was the day before they actually shut down the course for the race, which was totally cool. So I skied the Hahnenkamm in Austria.Julie: That's pretty cool.Meagan: That's super cool. I just started skiing this year.Brian: Really?Julie: Did you? For some reason, I thought you've been skiing for a while. I used to snowboard back in the day when I was cool and now I'm just a boring mom. I still have my snowboarding boots. I used to go to Brighton because it was the cheapest one. You could buy a half-day pass for only three of the lifts and it was only $40 instead of having to pay $90 for a full resort pass and so me and my friend would go up almost every weekend. We would go boarding and then we would go to the Porcupine Grill at the face of the canyon afterward and have nachos and hot chocolate which you wouldn't think go together but after you go snowboarding, they definitely do go together.Meagan: Oh wow. That's in my neighborhood. Yeah. No, I actually begged to snowboard as a kid. I begged my mom every year. “Mom, I want to snowboard. I want to snowboard” and she was like, “Nope, nope, nope. Too dangerous. Too dangerous” and refused. And so this year for Christmas, my husband surprised us with also a multi-pass and said, “We are--” because you guys probably know I hate winter. I hate it. I hate it. I hate being cold. I like being at the pool feeling the sun and going outside on hikes, and sports, and obviously, as of last year I really took up cycling, and so I just like to be on my bike. So yeah. “We are going to make your winter better.” I will just tell you right now, if you haven't ever skied before and you have snow In your area and you are listening, go skiing. It has changed my winter life completely. So I love that you ski, Brian. I always remember we would always try to get the podcast recorded at the end of December, or really November, so we weren't driving in the winter and we would try to get enough through February because we were like, “We don't want to drive to the studio in winter.”Julie: The studio is an hour away from my house. In some of the snowstorms, it took me two hours to get home, and then there was that one time Meagan made me run out of gas on the freeway.Meagan: Yes.Julie: That was at midnight. It was awful.Meagan: Yeah. We were recording with Brian. This is how much of a champ Brian is. He would literally stay with us at the studio until 11:30 PM. It's insane what this man does for us. So we just are overly grateful for you. But I always remember he was telling me-- I swear there was two years or something that you were like, “Yeah. I'm going to Jackson this week.” And you would go and ski in Jackson. It's one of my dreams to go and ski because we have a cabin there and now that I ski, I want to go skiing there because I have heard it's amazing. I've also heard it's pretty steep though. Is it steep?Brian: Great one. Yeah. They have something for everybody.Meagan: Good, because I am still not as advanced or confident. My husband says I am a really really good skier. I just lack confidence.Julie: We need to get your confidence for skiing just like we want people to have their confidence for birth.Meagan: I know. Okay, one last thing. What advice would you give to parents listening to the podcast? What do you feel is one of the most important takeaways from listening to all of the stories?Brian: The biggest takeaway, and it's the most obvious thing in the world. Birth is not easy. It is a monumental challenge. You can only be as prepared as you can. You could write down every single thing that you think is going to be a part of your birth plan and both Julie and Meagan will tell you there is not a single birth plan in the existence of the history of the universe that didn't go 100% according to that birth plan. There's always going to be some curveball in there that you were not prepared for. It's impossible to prepare. You can't prepare for absolutely everything. You can make a birth plan. You can make a backup plan. You can make a backup backup plan. The best thing you can do is just learn, research as much as you can, listen to the podcast, I don't know what else to tell you. You can't be prepared for everything but you can just try.Julie: And trust your intuition.Brian: Yeah. And the other thing is that-- I'm sure you've said this Meagan or Julie in the past on one of your episodes and I know it's easy for me to say, “Well, keep this in mind.” But keep in mind that you are the mother. You are in charge. All the nurses, doctors, the providers-- they can tell you, “Okay. We need to do this,” and if that doesn't line up with your birth plan, you say, “No, wait a second. I am doing it this way.”Julie: Boom.Brian: “I'm doing it this way.” You say it twice. You say it loud if you need to. “I'm doing it this way.” And if they say, “Okay. We'll work with this.” It might get to a point where they say, “You know what? This is medically unsafe or medically unwise.” At that point, you say, “Okay. I will listen to what you have to say.” Otherwise, you are saying, “I'm doing it this way. I'm doing it my way.”Meagan: Yeah. And it's okay to say, “Why is this medically unwise?” It's okay to question that.Brian: Yeah. You are in charge. Not them.Julie: Love it.Meagan: Okay. You're awesome, Brian. We love you. We love you so much.Julie: Yep. Don't ever go anywhere. We are going to keep you forever as our secret weapon. Our not-so-secret weapon anymore but I am still going to call you our secret weapon.Brian: Awesome. Okay.Meagan: If you ever decide to go back to Austria, are you still going to stay with us, or are you going to be like, “Peace out Meagan and Julie?”Brian: Well I mean, we haven't actually ever been in the same building for a year now.Julie: Yeah, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter where he lives.Brian: And we're still making a podcast, so whether I'm in Salt Lake City or in Vienna, we can still work it out.Julie: Boom.Meagan: Perfect. All right, okay. Well, if you guys want to know more about Brian after this episode, message us and we will get your answers. And Brian, seriously, you are just a miracle in our lives. So, we love you. We appreciate you. Thanks for joining us today and telling us more that we didn't know about you. And for the ski trips.Brian: Totally awesome.Julie: Wonderful.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan's bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We have both been so busy with moving, remodeling kitchens, parenting, soccer, gymnastics, being a good wife, (trying to do) self-care, record podcasts, keep up with business, and EVERYTHING that we haven't even been able to catch up with each other. So, we decided to have a fun episode about life and what's been going on with us and the different births we have attended. You will be sure to get to know us a little better and have fun while we shoot the breeze. Birth topics we discuss: Our doula careers at @tinyblessingsdoulaservices ( https://www.instagram.com/tinyblessingsdoulaservices/ ) and @juliefrancombirth ( https://www.instagram.com/juliefrancombirth/ ) Overcoming emotions as birth approaches How we feel as doulas when our clients don't get the birth they prepared for Inappropriate things we have heard providers/staff say to parents in labor Video content on our YouTube Channel ( https://www.youtube.com/thevbaclink ) Clearing our minds as doulas and for parents as we enter the birth space Releasing fears and emotions Our signature course How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents ( https://www.thevbaclink.com/vbac-class/ ) Episode Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by our very own VBAC Doula Certification program! Find out more about how to support parents who have had a Cesarean in the most effective ways at thevbaclink.com. Full Transcript Julie: Good morning, women of strength. It is Julie and Meagan here today and we are just going to talk because we have both been so busy moving, remodeling kitchens, doulaing parenting, soccer, gymnastics, trying to be a good wife somewhere in there… Meagan: And still trying to do self-care. Julie: And podcasts. We really haven’t even had a chance to catch up with each other and find out what we’ve been doing birth-wise, doula-wise and things like that. So we wanted to have a fun episode where we talk about life, different things that are going on with us, some births we’ve attended and different things like that. Hang along the ride with us. You’ll get to know us a little bit better and brain dead Julie, man. That’s my life right now. But first, before we do that, Meagan has a review of the week. Review of the week Meagan: Yes I do. This is actually from Google, so I was excited to see this. We are on Apple Podcasts ( https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-vbac-link/id1394742573 ) and that’s probably where we get the most reviews. But this one is from Google and it’s from Hannah Troyer, Doula. Her subject is “5 Million Stars”. She says, “If I could give the VBAC Link 5 million stars, I would. It’s just that good. I have been a doula for three and a half years now and have supported multiple VBAC mamas. The evidence-based information, positive attitude, professionalism, education, encouragement and JOY I have received from Julie and Meagan leave me at a loss for words. I have tried to listen and read other podcasts, blogs, and trainings done by other doulas and most of them have left me with a bad taste in my mouth. As soon as I stumbled into the VBAC Link podcast, I could hear the joy of the doulas who actually LOVE their jobs. This was the first step into grabbing my attention and eventually making me fall in love with you two. Your podcasts are so educational and it brings a smile to my face every time I hear your voices. I could listen to them over and over. I am grateful I found the incredible source of information on VBAC’s. I am sharing it with everyone I know. Thank you, thank you, thank you VBAC Link.” Julie: Aw, that makes me so happy. Meagan: Yes. We do love our jobs. We love our lives, even though they’re crazy. And we do love bringing this podcast to you guys. The stories, the people that we meet all over the world. It’s just been so much fun over the last couple of years. Julie: Oh my gosh. It’s been two and a half years. I can’t even believe it. Meagan: Crazy, right? We’ve come a long way. Thank you so much, Hannah. We’ll dive right into the episode. Episode sponsor Julie: Birth workers, listen up. Do you want to increase your knowledge of birth after a Cesarean? We created our advanced VBAC doula certification program ( https://www.thevbaclink.com/vbac-doula-training/ ) just for you. It is the most comprehensive VBAC doula training in the world perfectly packaged in an online, self-paced video course. This course is designed for birth workers who want to take their VBAC education to the next level so you can support parents who have had a Cesarean in the most effective ways. We have created a complete system, a step-by-step road map, that shows exactly what you need to know in order to support parents birthing after a Cesarean. Head over to thevbaclink.com ( http://www.thevbaclink.com ) to find out more information and sign up today. That’s thevbaclink.com. See you there. Doula careers Julie: Alright. It’s been a little while since we’ve had chitter chatter. Meagan: I know. This is going to be a really random episode for you guys, catching up with what we’re up to. Julie: Why don’t you tell a little about yourself, Meagan? Then I will share a little about me and we’ll see where we go. Meagan: A little bit about myself. Crazy, all the time. I for some reason, like to be an energizer bunny with a half-full battery. Even today, recording podcasts, I’ve had to bail four times because I’ve had the paint people here, the countertop people here and the appliance people coming. All the things. I’m always crazy and I love projects. I struggle when my life doesn’t have a project in it. I have three kids and they keep us pretty busy. They’re all in soccer right now, so Saturdays look like us being at the soccer field all day long, because they’re each an hour plus games and we’re going from back to back to back. Then my daughter’s in gymnastics, and my other daughter is in dance. It’s been so much fun. They’re all out of the house a couple days a week because they’re all in school. That’s been really different for me, but honestly really fun. I get to do self care, work, do podcasts, go do prenatal cares with my clients, things like that. It’s been super fun. That’s kind of what we’re up to. Always crazy and going. My husband has been quite the trooper for supporting me through all of it. Julie: Don’t forget, Meagan the doula, supported her husband while he was in law school by being a doula. She’s awesome. Meagan: Yes. Doula life was crazy there for a little bit. But it’s been awesome. It’s been nice to take a little step back. Last month, I only had one client due. It was really nice to be here and take care of the family. Julie: I think taking breaks is so important as a doula. Meagan: Yeah. It’s how you avoid burnout. Julie: Totally. I’m Julie, mom of four. I had four kids in a little less than five years. Not on purpose. I mean, well, you kind of half to do certain things to get pregnant, obviously. But the timing of baby number three-- she wanted to come sooner than we were planning. So, we have them all squished, right together. Currently their ages are seven, five, four, and two and a half, which is much better than when they were four, two, one, and a newborn. That was nuts. That was really nuts. But it all works out. It’s fine. Sometimes you hear kids running around in the background when I’m recording podcasts. That’s just the way it has to be during the digital age of quarantine and coronavirus. I also have a dog and a husband. My kids do soccer, just my two boys. One of my daughters is enrolled in gymnastics. Then the two and a half year old destroys everything in the house. That’s her hobby. My kids are very creative and problem solvers. I get caught off guard a lot by them-- which is probably a good way to say it. I am an Army veteran, computer geek, data junkie, very analytical, and I just moved. Same town, really exciting move. I am really excited, actually. We’re getting everything unpacked and unloaded still. I feel like lately my life copies Meagan’s. Whatever Meagan is doing, my life will naturally get there. She was remodeling her kitchen while I was looking at houses and then I kept coming back to this house with an ugly kitchen. An ugly, ugly kitchen. We even called it the “ugly kitchen house”. My seven year old was like, “We’re not moving to the ugly kitchen house, are we?” Then my four year old would say, “It’s a beautiful house!” Then Meagan got me in contact with her kitchen guy. Now we are moved in. We are remodeling the kitchen as well. Meagan’s my hero. We each have our own doula businesses, too. Let’s do a plug-in. Tiny Blessings Doula Services ( https://tinyblessingsdoulaservices.com/ ) is Meagan’s doula company and she has a partner that she runs her doula business with. My doula business is called Julie Francom Birth ( https://www.juliefrancom.com/ ). You can find us both on Instagram and Facebook. We would love the “likes” if you want to “like” us. Overcoming emotions leading up to birth Meagan: If you want to follow our personal doula careers, check us out. This month, I have a lot of VBAC’s coming up, actually. So it’s quite exciting. At Tiny Blessings, we do a lot of first time moms, fifth time moms, but it seems like we go in spurts where we’ll have no VBAC’s, then the whole month is VBAC. It’s so fun. But it also brings a busy month because, as a VBAC parent, there’s a lot of stress that comes in the very end. Do you find that, Julie, with your clients? Julie: Yeah, a lot of emotion. Meagan: It’s a lot of emotional stress at the end. It can be heavy, but it’s fun. It’s not fun to be stressed for them, but it’s fun to work through it with them because when it comes down to the birth, we’re that much closer with our clients because we’ve been able to work through the nitty-gritty with them. Julie: I think that with VBAC parents, it’s definitely a little more natural to fall into that more intimate knowledge of them. But  I’ve had a really strong connection with a recent first time mom and I had a four-peat client, so a client that’s been with me four times. My last three births, which have actually been in the last four weeks, have been a four-peat client, so her fourth baby with me as her doula, a VBAC, then a VBAC attempt that ended in a repeat Cesarean. It’s really fun because I love connecting with these people. Even the repeat Cesarean mom, she entered into her Cesarean smiling. She was so happy, laughing and confident. We created a really great environment for her. Her midwife was very supportive. It was night and day difference, she had said, from her first Cesarean to her second-- how she felt more supported and she felt like she was the one making the decisions. Meagan: Which is a powerful thing. Julie: It really is. It’s really different to go from an experience where you feel completely out of control and that decisions are being made for you to being an active decision maker in your care and being the final one to say, “Okay, let’s do this.” Even if your provider is offering you all different types of suggestions and things like that, being able to be the one to say, “Okay, let’s do it,” instead of your doctor being the one to say, “Well, we need to do this now.” It’s great and I love it. That mama was wheeled into that Cesarean with a big smile on her face and wheeled out of it with a great, big smile on her face. It was a totally, completely different experience for her. That makes me happy. When clients don’t get the birth they prepared for Julie: I’m always sad when somebody doesn’t get their VBAC. It always makes me sad, especially when I’m sitting alone in the empty birth room whenever I’m not allowed in the operating room. You sit there and reflect, “Did I do enough? What could I have done differently?” I put a lot of responsibility on myself. But I know that a lot of these things are not in my control and that I support the best that I can. I’m always sitting there questioning and trying to see what we could have done differently. It’s kind of a lonely time when you’re just waiting. But coming back and seeing them so happy-- baby was so happy, and dad was so happy. It makes my heart more full when I can see that. Meagan: Any birth workers out there, you may be able to relate. If things don’t go exactly as planned or desired, we sit back there and we take it home. It’s hard not to take it home with us and question, “Could we have done something more?” It’s my absolute favorite when the client says, “Yeah, it didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted it to. However, that was the most healing experience for me and I wouldn’t have changed it.” You know? Because they were in control, or because they felt like they were advocated for, or they were given options and they were able to make the decisions. It’s a powerful thing to be as in control as you can in a birth situation. Julie: I agree with that. That’s actually a number one indicator about whether someone will have post-traumatic stress related to birth. It’s not necessarily the birth outcome as much as whether they felt like they were listened to, heard, and that they were a decision maker in their care. Even VBAC’s, you can have post-traumatic stress disorder if you feel like you weren’t in control of what was being done to you or what was happening to you, as much as you can be in control with birth. But I mean as far as the decisions go, your care team, and all of those things. Inappropriate comments said during labor Julie: I’m going off on a little bit of a tangent, but can we talk about inappropriate things that we have heard providers, nurses, or hospital staff say to parents while they are in labor? Do you want me to start? Meagan: Yeah, go ahead. Julie: I actually had a client tell me that somebody had said this to her before, two years ago or so. But this same birth that I was just talking about, the nurse was a little rough around the edges. I think she was just really nervous about VBAC. There were two things she said that didn’t really sit very well with me. I know that she had good intentions. I want to preface it with that. I don’t think that this nurse had any ill intent or anything at all. But when my client was in labor, before it had been decided that she was going to have a repeat Cesarean, the nurse came in and she was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I come in here every time the baby falls off the monitor. I just get so nervous with TOLAC moms because I had one TOLAC mom, when her baby fell off the monitor, I came in to check on them and baby was outside of the abdomen and her uterus had ruptured. It was really scary and we had to do a repeat crash Cesarean.” She said this to my client while my client was laboring with a VBAC. So every time that baby dropped off the monitor, that nurse rushed in there as fast as she could. And now we knew why. I feel like part of that created a subconsciously stressful environment for my client. Every time the nurse would rush in, we would change positions, baby would fall off the monitor, nurse would rush in, and then there was all of a sudden that fear of uterine rupture again coming in with that nurse. The other thing she said-- I really had to bite my tongue, hard, during this speech she was making. Before my client was wheeled back for her Cesarean, they were getting everything prepped. The anesthesiologist was in there and everything. You know how they do. The nurse put her hand on my client. I really do think she was trying to be nice, kind and supportive. She said, “You know, sometimes things just have to go like this and we don’t know why. But we’re so grateful that we have these life saving measures like Cesarean birth. Because if this would have been 200 years ago, you and your baby would have died. You and your baby would have died if it was a couple hundred years ago. So we’re grateful that we have these Cesareans so that we can save your life and we can save your baby’s life.” Well, I’m not going to analyze that birth to death because I’ve been analyzing that birth to death in my head. 200 years ago, things would have been very different. I had a client who said a nurse had said that to her before, but hearing it directly come out of her mouth, I was like, “No. Not the right time. Very inappropriate.” Even if it WAS true. EVEN IF it was true. And who knows? Maybe it is true. I don’t know. But not the right time. Bad timing. That was hard. Meagan: I had a client, it was really hard. She had a different ethnicity. She was a VBAC. She was doing really well, actually. She just needed some more time and more support. They kept telling her that due to her ethnicity, the likelihood of her getting her baby out vaginally was extremely low, but the likelihood of her having rectal incontinence for the rest of her life was extremely high. They encouraged her to really think about if she was willing to poop her pants for the rest of her life for a vaginal birth. Julie: Oh my gosh! Meagan: Yeah. I was dying. I was sitting there cringing inside. “Due to her ethnicity.” Julie: Can we talk about ethnicity and inappropriate comments? I had a client who was a TOLAC and oh, this nurse. I love labor and delivery nurses. I think that they are undervalued. But I think that some of them don’t understand the impact that they have on the overall birth process. The vibe, the energy, and everything like that. I had a nurse once who still gives me the creepy crawlies every time that I talk about it. My client was Mexican and her husband was Mexican. They were born in Mexico and they were here working in the United States legally-- work visas, and everything. My client was a VBAC. But every time I would say the word “VBAC”, the nurse would look at me. I think she just had a problem with doulas. She must have had a bad run-in with a doula or something. I don’t know. But she would look at me and be like, “It’s a TOLAC.” And I was like, “Okay, TOLAC. I need to remember to call this a TOLAC.” So I would start trying to remember to say TOLAC instead of VBAC just so that we could get that negative tone out of the room. My client was very fluent in English and she understood English very well. But that nurse would speak to her like she was a kindergartener, with slow sentences. She said, “You have this. Do you know what that means? Do you understand what that means?” and my skin was crawling. This was probably one of my most educated clients that I have ever had. She was speaking to her like she was completely ignorant just because she had a really heavy Mexican, Hispanic accent. It was really frustrating. She was an older nurse. She had been around the block a time or two. She wouldn’t use the machine to administer the IV fluids. She preferred to let them drip instead of go through the machine. She thought it went better that way. They didn’t have the Monica Novii monitor, but when the next nurse came in, she said, “Oh, let’s get the Novii monitor out for you to use.” You could tell she was set in her ways, from an older generation. Especially in Utah, where we have a very, very, very high population of white people and not very much diversity, it was really hard to see her treat my client like that. It was hard. Meagan: It’s hard as a doula to see stuff like that and hear things. But as a doula, we have to stay professional and we have to respect the entire birth room. It can be hard and it can be super easy. It just depends on the staff and everything. Julie: I think it goes without saying that different personalities don’t vibe well together perfectly. As a doula, it’s very hard to change your personality to match the vibe of the staff’s personality and learn how to interact with them. Sometimes, you just can’t match your personality. But I do a pretty good job. I think that’s one of the only times that I have really not been able to be happy with a nurse. And not only be happy with, but I mean, be fun, and part as friends. You know what I mean? Leave feeling that everybody in the room was supportive and enjoyed the experience together and things like that. That one nurse was particularly hard. Clearing minds for the birth space Meagan: I wanted to touch really quickly on a couple of questions. This last week on Instagram, it was my weekend and I asked to have people ask me questions, and one of the really frequent questions that came through was how to prepare mentally and let go of past experiences. I wanted to talk on Julie’s Youtube video up on our channel on YouTube about releasing fear, tension and past experiences and things like that. Because I think it is so valuable and it’s something that you may have to do multiple times, but it’s something that can be very powerful during your preparation. I encourage you to not even wait until you are pregnant. Do it now and process what is going through your mind now. As more things come up, do those. Same thing with birth workers. We see a lot. We hear a lot. We go through a lot. I think it’s important to notice that for birth workers, there are a lot of things that we need to release because just like providers, we’ve talked about this before, providers see a lot of stuff. They see things that are amazing and things that are so scary. Sometimes they can let those experiences come into other people’s births. Julie: Yeah, like that nurse who kept coming in when the baby would drop off the monitor. Meagan: Exactly, and it’s hard. That’s life. It’s human. It’s normal. I have a very relative personality and so I tend to relate from my own experience to relate to people. So it’s so important for us in the birth space to keep other situations and other stories separate from what’s happening then. Now you can take those experiences as learning experiences and use them as a tool to certain points, but it’s so important to not bring either negative feelings or negative situations and things like that that you’ve seen into a new birth that is completely different. After I saw my friend who did rupture, I was nervous to go to my next VBAC because I was nervous that I was going to overanalyze things. Does that make sense? I didn’t want to make anything that was happening from my friend’s birth go into my mind and think, “Oh my gosh, maybe this client is rupturing too.” I feel very proud of myself. I would give myself a cookie for not carrying that in, but I was nervous that I would. Of course, my education and things like that have helped me not have that situation. Anyway, I just think it’s so important to go and do these fear clearing releases and things like that. So Julie, do you want to tell them where we can find those? Julie: The fear releasing activity video? Meagan: Yeah, on YouTube. It’s your video. You did it really well. YouTube video content Julie: Thanks. I love it. It’s a really fun fear release activity that you can do. It’s on our YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/thevbaclink ). You can go and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Our podcasts are also published to YouTube automatically, so if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, you’ll automatically get notified when a new podcast episode comes out there if that’s easier to watch than listen wherever you are listening right now. We also have it on our IGTV, videos on Instagram and I think it’s on Facebook somewhere, but probably the best place to find it would be on YouTube. It’s under the education playlist. Meagan: I’m going to look right now. I want to figure out exactly what you can type on YouTube. Painless fear release. Actually, you can just search the VBAC Link and it’s on there. It’s number four. VBAC Without Fear: 5 Minute Fear Release ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9-WIkEls5U ). So get on there, check it out. You’ll see cute Julie’s face, pretty much everywhere, because let’s be honest. I have been terrible at making videos and she has been amazing at making them. Releasing fears Julie: Do you know what else, Meagan, that I have figured out for getting emotions out? The nervous system, our brain and our body, the neurological system and the sympathetic nervous system, is that what it’s called? I don’t know, I’m not a brain junkie. But there are feelings and emotions stored in our body. Sometimes you don’t even know what those feelings and emotions are, but they need to get out. One of the ways for them to get out is by crying. Sometimes, if I don’t have time to do a full fear release with my client, or they don’t quite know what’s bothering them or what they would even write down, I just tell them, “Go do something that will make you cry.” Watch the Notebook. The Seven Minutes movie with Will Smith in it is the only time I have ever left a movie theater sobbing. Or, I don’t know, slow dance with your partner, or watch your wedding song or your birth video or whatever. Do something that makes you cry. Your body will do the rest. It will turn into this huge cry fest and emotional release for you. You don’t even have to write it down or burn it or do anything because your body will process it once that release starts. Pretty, pretty cool. Just cry. All you’ve got to do is cry about it and then it will be better. How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents But yes. The smokeless fire fear release. We have a fear release activity in our course for parents at How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents ( https://www.thevbaclink.com/vbac-class/ ) and you can find that on our website thevbaclink.com ( http://www.thevbaclink.com ). But this is in addition to that. There is also a supplementary video in our course that you can find on our YouTube channel and it talks about a really cool, smokeless fire fear release. Basically you put Epsom salts and rubbing alcohol in a fire-proof bowl. I usually use a glass bowl. You light it on fire with a lighter. Obviously fire safety is encouraged. Then you shred up your paper that you have written down all of your thoughts on and burn it. It burns without smoke unless you have, like, eight people putting their papers in. Then there’s some smoke and you might set off a fire alarm when you’re doing an in-person class. Hypothetically. But it’s super fun and super easy. When you’re done you just flush it down the toilet. The Epsom salts dissolve in the water and it’s perfect. Meagan: Awesome. Is there anything else that you want to add for this really quick, random, short episode? Julie: This is something that is good for doulas and parents. Whenever you leave a birth, write it down on paper. Brain dump everything on your mind. It doesn’t have to be legible. Don’t go back and read it. Write it all out. Don’t proofread. Don’t worry about punctuation or capitalization or anything like that. Write it all down as fast as you can. Off load it from your brain and then destroy the paper. You can burn it using this five minute smokeless fire fear release. You can shred it up and throw it into the wind. You can flush it down the toilet, whatever you want. Just destroy it and then your brain creates this dopamine response. The brain dump, with the dopamine response by destroying it, actually causes your body and brain to process and heal the things that just happened. That would be my last tip. Meagan: We are going to start doing more of these where we randomly chat with you. We want to answer questions or talk about topics. If you have a topic that you would like us to touch on, send us a message either on Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/thevbaclink/?hl=en ) or Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/thevbaclink/ ). We’ve got some that have come in and we’re going to get them rolling out on episodes here soon, probably towards the end of the year or the beginning of 2021. Holy cow, hopefully by then it’ll be a lot better than 2020. We are excited to keep talking to you about things you want to hear about. Julie: And as always, we love you and we believe in you. We are proud of you. Meagan: Do you want to do me a really quick favor? We are needing more reviews to read on the podcast. If you could go over to Google, Facebook, or wherever, leave us a review and let us know what you think of The VBAC Link. Julie: Do you know what else you could do? If you’ve taken our course, go to our course page on our website, thevbaclink.com ( https://www.thevbaclink.com/product/how-to-vbac/ ) and leave a review there. We should start reading some course reviews as a review of the week. Meagan: Yeah, let’s do it. Closing Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share ( http://www.thevbaclink.com/share/ ) and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. 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