Podcasts about so katie

The State of the Profession in a COVID World Curt and Katie chat about the current state of the Mental Health Profession. We give our opinion on a recent report from SimplePractice, looking at what they included as well as what we think is missing. We explore how COVID has impacted burnout rates and give action steps professionals can take to support each other as we continue to move forward as a field. We also talk about barriers in our field and what is coming next. This is the Modern Therapist Consumer Guide, a series of special episodes to help modern therapists navigate products and services specifically designed for therapists and their clients. We dig deeply into the companies, the people, and the products and services so you can make smart decisions in building your practice and serving your clients. In this episode we talk about: 0:53: What do Curt and Katie think about the report? And how do demographics and length of time in the field impact how long clinicians stay in the profession? 2:27: Who feels burned out the most and what are action steps professionals can take to help each other with this problem? 7:44: How do financial burdens and parental burnout impact a clinician's ability to work in this field? 10:50: How do insurance regulations create barriers for clinicians and clients? 15:38: How has COVID impacted use of technology in the field and accessibility to care? 18:55: Who are the therapists in the field and who are they working with (demographics)? 23:18: How do social justice issues impact burnout rates? 24:56: What comes next for our profession? Our Generous Sponsors: SimplePractice Running a private practice is rewarding, but it can also be demanding. SimplePractice changes that. This practice management solution helps you focus on what's most important—your clients—by simplifying the business side of private practice like billing, scheduling, and even marketing. More than 100,000 professionals use SimplePractice —the leading EHR platform for private practitioners everywhere – to power telehealth sessions, schedule appointments, file insurance claims, communicate with clients, and so much more—all on one HIPAA-compliant platform.  Get your first 2 months of SimplePractice for the price of one when you sign up for an account today. This exclusive offer is valid for new customers only.  Go to www.simplepractice.com/therapyreimagined to learn more.  *Please note that Therapy Reimagined is a paid affiliate of SimplePractice and will receive a little bit of money in our pockets if you sign up using the above link.   GreenOak Accounting At GreenOak Accounting, they believe that every private practice should be profitable. They've worked with hundreds of practice owners across the country to help them gain financial peace of mind and assist them with making smart financial decisions. GreenOak Accounting specializes in working with therapists in private practice, and they have helped hundreds of therapists across the country reach their financial goals.  They offer a number of monthly service options that can be catered to a practice's needs - from basic bookkeeping to premium CFO services. Other specialized services include Profit First Support, compensation planning, and customized KPI Dashboards. They help therapists achieve their clinical goals by making sure they have a profitable practice, and offer unsurpassed support along the way.  If you're interested in scheduling a complimentary consultation, please visit their website at www.GreenOakAccounting.com/consultation to learn more.   Resources mentioned: We've pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below might be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance! State of the Mental Health Profession: Impact of COVID-19 Teletherapy Good Enough Therapy For A Crisis…and Beyond!   Relevant Episodes: Fixing Mental Healthcare in America Structuring Self-Care Quarantine Self-Care for Therapists Why Therapists Quit Why Therapists Quit Part 2   Connect with us! Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group Get Notified About Therapy Reimagined Conferences     Our consultation services: The Fifty-Minute Hour   Who we are: Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making "dad jokes" and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: www.curtwidhalm.com Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt's youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: www.katievernoy.com A Quick Note: Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We're working on it. Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren't trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don't want to, but hey.   Stay in Touch: www.mtsgpodcast.com www.therapyreimagined.com Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapist's Group https://www.facebook.com/therapyreimagined/ https://twitter.com/therapymovement https://www.instagram.com/therapyreimagined/   Credits: Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/ Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano http://www.crystalmangano.com/ Full Transcript (autogenerated):   Curt Widhalm  00:00 This episode is sponsored by SimplePractice.   Katie Vernoy  00:02 Running a private practice is rewarding, but it can also be demanding simple practice changes that this practice management solution helps you focus on what's most important your clients by simplifying the business side of private practice like billing, scheduling, and even marketing.   Curt Widhalm  00:18 Stick around for a special offer at the end of this episode.   Katie Vernoy  00:23 This episode is also sponsored by GreenOak Accounting.   Curt Widhalm  00:26 At GreenOak accounting, they believe that every private practice should be profitable. They've worked with hundreds of practice owners across the country to help them gain Financial Peace of mind and assist them with making smart financial decisions.   Katie Vernoy  00:38 If you're interested in speaking with a member of their team, visit their website at greenoakaccounting.com today.   Announcer  00:46 You're listening to the Modern Therapist Survival Guide where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings to support you as a whole person and a therapist. Here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.   Curt Widhalm  01:01 Welcome back modern therapists. This is the modern therapist Survival Guide. I'm Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy. And this is the podcast where we talk about all things therapists, therapists related, and today's episode we are going to be discussing from our friends over at SimplePractice, they came out with a report called the state of the mental health profession, impact of COVID-19. And they had done a survey of a lot of mental health professionals from all across the United States. And this was published here in the first part of 2021. There's about 2500 respondents on this, and we are going to go through and talk about some of their findings, some of our reactions to this, and maybe kind of look at the way that Katie and I do the way that our profession goes forward. So Katie, what are your first thoughts on what you're finding out of this report? We'll also link to this in our show notes at mtsgpodcast.com but Katie, what are your thoughts on this?   Katie Vernoy  02:06 I think a lot of the report feels very common sense, I think there's a lot that we know, intrinsically or or instinctively, maybe that's a better word that is really showing up in this report. But I think it does have some good data that shows us things more concretely, to me, there's there's definitely things that are of concern, that I feel like we probably want to address, maybe not in this episode. But like as a society as a profession. We want to address these things. And one of them is the differential way that demographics and length of time in the profession impact clinicians, because to me, there's a sense that when folks have been in the profession longer, and they actually stay in the profession, I think there's a different way that we approach it versus the time stirring, which we're new in the profession and have a little bit less control. I feel like that's a little vague, but but maybe we can dig in. And I can point out some of those thoughts. I think it's it's something where we need as the two of us being experienced clinicians who have chosen to stay in the profession for this length of time, may want to reflect on why our newer colleagues or colleagues of color and color colleagues with other types of marginalized identities are having some different struggles than we are.   Curt Widhalm  03:29 So one of the first sections of this report is specifically diving in on this is who feels burnout the most. And this was broken down into aged categories with percentages of people who've always or often have feelings of burnout, those who rarely have it and those who report no such feelings and really stark differences in some age groups here 27% of those aged 35 and under reported always feeling burnt out. And these numbers go down in the higher categorical areas based on age 20% of 36 to 45 year olds 18% to 46 to 55 year olds, 13% of 56 to 65 and only 6% of those age 66 or older. And to me there's, you know what you're talking about here of oftentimes, younger therapists don't have as much control over what their practice is, as you're mentioning that your pre license you're working in agencies, you might not have as much of an opportunity to have control over your case loads when you see people how you see people that oftentimes being in this profession longer ends up affording us either the ability to shape our practices or private practices in the way that we want from moving up into supervisory or managerial positions that give us more control over our day to day. We also in this I think are missing that there. Usually a lot of survivorship bias that comes into questions like this. And this was something that we had originally first talks about in the very first therapy reimagined conference that you had I did our presentation on that, when it comes to Later career therapists and the research that's done on them, the people who are going to burn out and leave the field have long already burnt out in the field. And so the survivorship bias here might also be that those people who have a longer career have given me in some of those older age categories, have either a learned how to deal with the stresses better, might have easier abilities to control their schedule, but also just might be more naturally inclined to handling the kinds of stresses that come because those people who are feeling beartown, to those younger categories, might be the ones that have already left the field by the time to get to those older age categories.   Katie Vernoy  06:03 Another thing that I'm thinking about too, is that this is really broken down by age, but not necessarily time in the profession. And as therapy is a great second, third, fourth career and oftentimes can be a retirement career, folks who have had other careers have different financial situations, may be less likely to be burned out in later, later ages, because they have designed it that way. They have that financial buffer that someone starting in the career in their 20s and 30s, may not have and and they also have some of the skill sets from working in potentially high intensity professions like corporate careers, and that kind of stuff, where they can then turn to those skill sets to help manage those things. So to me, it's, it's something where I agree survivorship biases here, I think there's also differential experiences when people enter the field at different ages, because I think that there's different things that you bring to the table.   Curt Widhalm  07:02 So one of the takeaways here, one of the action steps when it comes to using this kind of data is, if you're a younger therapists, feel free to reach out for some help. And if you have some capacity as an older therapist, as a supervisor, as a manager, you might notice this kind of stuff a little bit more being a risk factor with some of the younger therapists that you might be working with, if it's within your capacity to kind of check in with some of these early career therapists, younger therapists a little bit more to see how they're doing. This might be something that helps to alleviate and normalize some of the ways that we react to burnout rather than it just being kind of a well, we've all dealt with it at some point. Good luck kids sort of aspect.   Katie Vernoy  07:50 Yeah. I think the other piece, and this is something where it sounds like one in five respondents under 35 wouldn't choose their profession if they could start over. And so that potentially means that they are more likely to leave the profession, or they won't be the word of mouth to say, hey, being a therapist is cool. In our series of fixing mental health care in America, we referenced the RAND report and those types of things, where we're looking at what is needed in society. And we need more therapists, we need more mental health providers. And so as a manager, as a supervisor, as a professor, as someone who is potentially in a position to mentor or steward someone into the profession, or to succeed in the profession, you know, like help them out, it's our profession could really go the way of the dodo bird, if we don't have enough people that are actually entering the field.   Curt Widhalm  08:45 And there's things in this report that speak to this. And there's some things that Katie and I have discussed with a number of our episodes here before but the financial burdens on younger therapists these days are much higher than they have been in the last 40 years and costs of getting degrees is eight to 10 times higher than it was for people who got the same kinds of degrees in the 80s. Here's our annual shout out to saving psychotherapy by Dr. Ben Caldwell.   Katie Vernoy  09:18 But I think it's more than annual at this point.   Curt Widhalm  09:23 But something that is in this report is also the parental burnout that is likely going to be associated with younger therapists that younger therapists are going to tend to have younger kids, but we've talked about this in one of our previous episodes about just kind of the therapist, partner responsibilities sorts of things, but younger therapists tend to have younger kids biological demographically, that it's a lot harder to parent a infant to three year olds than it is going to be to parent a later teenager, when it comes to just self sufficiency sort of things. And those are going to be harder to parent than adults, kids who have launched out of the house and are fully independent on their own. And this is likely a contributing factor to part of this report from simple practice here just about how much this parental burnout is contributing to people trying to balance the work that they do find the right space to be able to work from home and have kids in the other room, and how it affects their ability to work with clients.   Katie Vernoy  10:36 And I think that oftentimes, and we've seen this in the larger society, is we do have a very feminized field. And we have another conversation to have about that. But a lot of women end up doing or, or a female identified folks end up doing parenting, that they end up being the ones that take that responsibility on. And so many folks who were required to do the parenting ended up either decreasing or leaving their work in order to do that during the pandemic. And oftentimes, it's very hard to kind of go back from that, whether it's with, you know, with a private practice, you can kind of add clients and stuff like that. But I think with within our field, it's not as easy just to kind of pop in and out of jobs. Because there there are different kind of parameters that people are looking at. And work gaps oftentimes are very feared because of the impacts on clients. And so to me, I feel like being able to really understand who therapists are, and how life and society are impacting them is very important, because we want to support people, all people with all situations being able to be therapists, because if we don't, we don't have the lived experience that a lot of our clients need.   Curt Widhalm  11:51 Shifting to chapter two of this report on talking about the state of insurance, and looking at insurance regulations and barriers in the insurance system that's making it stressful and expensive for clinicians to take insurance. There's a number of quotes that are listed in here. Things like current insurance, reimbursement and time spent with billing are driving people away from accepting insurance. And I fully resonate with that kind of stuff. Currently, insurance reimbursements and time spent with billing are driving people away from accepting insurance. I know I can resonate with that you take insurance, you might have a little bit more of a background into this year.   Katie Vernoy  12:37 I think for insurance, there is a double edged sword to it a little bit because there is the reimbursement and time spent that's that's awful, right. In some places it is improving, I think there is room for negotiation, different states have different insurance, reimbursement rates that actually are more aligned with cost of living California is pretty awful. But I think other states kind of do better with that. The thing that I'm really seeing related to insurance, and I don't know that it's necessarily addressed in this report, but I think you and I've talked about potentially doing another episode on this is that there are large provider networks slash group providers that are negotiating directly with insurance companies and bringing on therapists to kind of take away all of that. But that means that that can increase availability of insurance. for insurance providers, I think there's a lot of folks who are worried that if they don't take insurance, that they won't be able to have a full caseload, there's access issues. And yet, with the state of the insurance right now, at least as I perceive it, it just isn't sustainable to do a full insurance practice on your own in some areas. Because there's there is all that oversight, there is the negotiation that you want to continue to do with insurance companies to get your rates increased. There's a lot of chasing things down. And if you don't want to have a biller that can be onerous, and create a lot of that busy work that is inane and exhausting. And so to me, I feel like I think we're going to be seeing a shift and how clients access therapy when they want to use insurance. And I think that providers who are in private practice may end up at best having a hybrid practice, at worst may not really be able to be competitive, and consistent with other types of therapists that are providing insurance or that are using insurance because of some of these systems that some of these kind of things are that are being built up about it. But I know you and I have talked about doing a whole other episode on kind of the future of and the commoditization of therapy and kind of large companies taking over the healthcare space, including therapy. So I'll leave that there. But I think that there has been for me anyway, there's been a big need to be able to provide insurance because people were struggling financially. I think that's not necessarily really the case in the economy didn't really have the tank that people thought it was going to. But it is a lot more work for a lot less pay. And so I think there's going to be a mismatch unless clients start going to these bigger providers that are willing to take on all of the burden and have therapists do that just do the therapy. So more to discuss there. But I think insurance is still going to be a big player in mental health. It's just whether or not kind of you and me as private practitioners are going to be involved in that at all.   Curt Widhalm  15:30 I think geographically, this has a long known place in our fields that appear in large, wealthy urban areas, there's less of a pressure to take insurance. And as a state of the profession report points out said places where it might be more rural, specifically pointed in this report is like the Midwest, where it's significantly more clinicians who would have to be on insurance panels. And the numbers here in the report say that 75% of clinicians who responded to the survey in the Midwest are on an insurance panel, compared to a national average of 64%. So regionally, this is going to affect some people more than others. And those people who are on insurance panels are also the ones who were reporting that they're taking more clients than they feel that they can handle right now. 30% compared to only 19% of those who do not accept insurance. So just putting some numbers to what you're talking about here. We do have a episode coming out here in the next couple of months that we'll be talking about some of this stuff like Katie previewed here as well. Chapter Three, state of technology. I think most of us are going to be doing at least some telehealth continuing on.   Katie Vernoy  16:47 Yeah, we'll link to CAMFT, the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists did a similar report and talked about, you know, kind of telehealth and that shift and the pandemic. And the majority of providers were not doing telehealth prior to the pandemic, you know, or not doing a significant amount of telehealth, and now the majority of providers are going to keep telehealth. And so I think that's actually great. I was doing telehealth prior, I think you were too maybe a little bit of telehealth as well. And it's nice to have a hybrid practice. And so, in the simple practice report, it says only 2% are not going to continue offering telehealth and I know that there are definitely therapists who absolutely hate it, I see you Ofra. And I also know that there are people who absolutely adore it and want to do 100% telehealth because they don't want the overhead of an office. And so we talked about this and post pandemic practice. But I think that there is a lot of access, convenience, different types of therapy you can do with telehealth that may be very accessible for folks, or beneficial for folks so that you can kind of keep a practice that has a little bit more opportunity for you. I guess.   Curt Widhalm  17:59 One of the things that simple practice report points out that we haven't talked about yet is the infrastructure problem of good internet. And this being a issue across the country of being able to have good enough internet to have regular, good quality video Sessions is a problem that many people face. And while this is definitely a necessity for reaching clients in those areas that a lot of these telehealth laws are designed to help those who can't be reached by clinicians that there's too few mental health workers who are there. It's a necessity, and really to continue to build and provide on our national mental health system, telehealth is going to have to be a cornerstone of it. But it goes hand in hand with the ability to have good internet in those places. We're no better if those people cell phone coverage. If it sucks, and you're only hearing every fifth word, it's more frustrating to be on it than it is to not really be a part of the conversation at all. And the same thing is gonna be happening with our our telehealth here that we're reliant on getting good internet to people in those places in the first place. And some of the clinicians responding to this report are facing that on the delivery end to that further places a burden on those clinicians and a further frustration for them.   Katie Vernoy  19:30 Yeah, I think we did talk about this a little bit in the conversation with the RAND folks and I, I feel like the call to action in this regard is maybe identifying and understanding any kind of laws or infrastructure around internet so that we can actually provide better coverage for mental health care, because I think that would that would make a huge difference. So before we close up, I do want to circle back to something a little bit earlier in the report, because I think it is important to look at and it's it's something that I think was very resonant for me. And it also, I think I have a personal response to it because of the way that my practice is evolving. And, you know, I am currently a hybrid practice but may not continue to take insurance, which then would would impact this for me, but looking at who are therapists, demographically, when we look at 66, and older 95% are white clinicians, 3% are other and 2% are black, when we go down to 35, or under, so people who are aged 35 and under, it's still inordinately more white people, it is 77%. But now we're up to 7% black therapist, 4% Asian therapists, 4% Hispanic therapists and 7% other therapists, and there is an increase in diversity with newer therapists. This is exciting. And I hope that trend continues. Because I think that there's a need to have more lived experience opportunities for clients and folks that can, you know, people will go to therapy, if they see that therapist look like them. I think the thing that I'm I'm looking at, as well is in this next part, it says that 53% of white clinicians reported not working with any underserved populations. And so there's a few things that I'm drawing from this one is white people are generally working with rich white people. I think. And I guess it doesn't talk about in this section, it doesn't talk about demographics. But I'm also thinking about income potential because of reimbursement rates from insurance, I'm thinking about access. And you know, if we have so few therapists that are black, Asian, Hispanic, or I guess it says other specialty, so I don't know if that what that means on this report. But I think if we don't, if we don't support our younger clinicians, with that have a larger, you know, it's a more diverse population of therapists. Access for some of these underserved populations and simple practice lists them as low income or unsecured clients, LGBTQ population, Medicaid recipients, populations with disabilities, and veterans. If we don't address both the access issues, as well as the diversity issues, I think mental health stays broken.   Curt Widhalm  22:36 As you're talking about this, I'm looking at some of these comparisons here. And well, not quite to the same extremes, I'm seeing some very similar trends with Asian therapists, as white therapists have not working with as many of the underserved populations, black and Hispanic therapists seem to have similar numbers to each other. Just by comparison here, and looking at traditionally where the demographics of these two different groups come from that we've known historically, that way therapists, as you pointed out, tend to come from wealthier backgrounds to start with. And this gets maybe even into some of the model minority influences that has led to Asian therapists into some of the same similar trends, I don't know that would be kind of the area where I would want to research more into this to see if that's where that trend comes from. But speaking to black and Hispanic therapists, what we do know as far as trends go, is that a lot of white therapists enter into this field because they had a good experience with therapy, typically as a child or as a young adults that led them into this fields, whereas a lot of the research that's emerging about black and Hispanic therapists is that they're entering into this field because they didn't have those good experiences, and are more likely to be returning back to working with the communities that would be underserved in the first place. And so the motivations for entering into the profession are quite different. Just from the get go on this. Yeah. As I'm also hearing you talk, one of the thoughts that I had is going back to the burnout question, and especially around age groups. This is also a year with a tremendous amount of social justice action, which tends to be things that younger people are involved with in the first place. And before anybody shoots us off an email or complains on social media to us. I'm not saying that older people don't but statistically, yes, younger people are the ones who are more involved in these social justice movements, which has been a huge emotional piece of this last Last year for a lot of the world, but especially here in the United States. And so if you add the social justice burden on top of everything else that we've already discussed, I can see how that's potentially another factor that can be explained in this report or that isn't specifically called out in this report.   Katie Vernoy  25:21 I agree. I think there's so much that younger therapists clinicians of color, especially have been facing in the past year given, especially the racial injustices that have been increased or spotlighted this year. And so I think that has to go hand in hand with some of these other types of burnout that people were experiencing. And so call to action here, I think is take care of each other. I don't know. I mean, it seems like this is a pretty systemic issue.   Curt Widhalm  25:58 There is a summary at the end of this report. Now, what comes next. And this is even where some practices wording on this. And the challenge with kind of this institutional support is not really been clear of what it is. You know, I see Dr. Caldwell floated here directly, but I just know from a lot of our conversations with him that a lot of this whole section has his fingerprints all over it.   Katie Vernoy  26:29 Thanks, Ben.   Curt Widhalm  26:30 Yeah, there's, there's no quoting here, there's no way to put the industry on pause. People are always going to need mental health care. We can't tell people stop coming to therapy. Well, we just reorganize what we do. Yeah. And we do, as a field end up placing so much emphasis on individual responsibility for things like self care. And self care has been hard, especially if you're in one of those groups that we've been talking about the you know, do you have kids, it's not like you can like, keep the babysitter an extra couple of hours during the pandemic here. Like if you're overworked, seeing a bunch of clients and having the parental responsibilities in the background and the educational responsibilities of teaching them from online school and all of that kind of stuff. Back to Caldwell does, but that, as far as getting some structural fixes, means having laws, policies and practices insured, fair and timely reimbursements, things that make telehealth care easier, and enables providers to lead more balanced lives. I will point back to the presentation that we did right before the pandemic, at the foundations of connection conference in Hawaii, about some of the structural self care things too. And if you're in a place of influence within your organization, or even if this just means for yourself, of being able to really help create systems around nice closures to your workday, having a balanced flow throughout your work week. These are things that can be applied on both the micro and the macro levels. But just Dr. Caldwell suggesting here. We do need some systemic influential changes when it comes to things like insurance, and our ability to continue to practice here.   Katie Vernoy  28:27 So I'm looking forward to kind of continuing the conversation on what's next. I think that there's a lot of innovative things that are exciting, and they're innovative, things that are terrifying, that are coming about that may impact some of these areas for good or for ill. And I think that there are opportunities for advocacy that may come out of the huge mental health need that we're seeing at this time. And so if you haven't started listening to our series on fixing mental healthcare in America, I would suggest that we'll link to it in the show notes. We'll also put the structural self care, or I think it's structuring self care. I don't know what the podcast title is, but we'll put some links to some of the relevant episodes, as well as this report and the camp's report in the show notes. But really, what this is saying is, this is hard. We know it's hard. We're gonna keep doing therapy because people need therapy. But let's see if we can find ways to support ourselves but also fix the system.   Curt Widhalm  29:30 You can find our show notes at mtsgpodcast.com, follow us on our social media. And till next time, I'm Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy.   Katie Vernoy  29:38 Thanks again to our sponsor, simple practice.   Curt Widhalm  29:41 Simple practice is the leading private practice management platform for private practitioners everywhere. More than 100,000 professionals use simple practice to power telehealth sessions schedule appointments, file insurance claims market, their practice and so much more. All on one HIPAA compliant platform.   Katie Vernoy  29:59 Get your first two months of simple practice for the price of one when you sign up for an account today, this exclusive offer is valid for new customers only. Please note that we are a paid affiliate for a simple practice I will give a little bit of money in our pocket if you sign up at this link simplepractice.com/therapyreimagined. And that's where you can learn more.   Curt Widhalm  30:20 This episode is also sponsored by green oak accounting.   Katie Vernoy  30:24 Green oak accounting specializes in working with therapists and private practice and they have helped hundreds of therapists across the country reach their financial goals. They offer a number of monthly service options that can be catered to a practices needs, from basic bookkeeping to premium CFO services. Other specialized services include profit, first support, compensation planning, and customized KPI dashboards. They help therapists achieve their clinical goals by making sure they have a profitable practice and offer unsurpassed support along the way.   Curt Widhalm  30:55 If you're interested in scheduling a complimentary consultation, please visit their website at greenoakaccounting.com/consultation to learn more.   Announcer  31:05 Thank you for listening to the Modern Therapist's Survival Guide. Learn more about who we are and what we do at mtsgpodcast.com. You could also join us on Facebook and Twitter. And please don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any of our episodes.

Welcome to part 2 of the 5 part Atlas Shrugged interview! On today’s segment you’ll get to hear Russell and Josh discuss being a producer and how important it is to continually create content. They talk about being a good steward over the ideas that God gives you, and how you should be preparing for even bigger and better ideas. And finally, they explain how “motion is the key”. So enjoy part two of this fun interview and don’t forget to go to tshirtsmackdown.com for your Atlas Shrugged swag! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up everybody, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. All right, my first question for you, is how'd you like the first part of the interview with me and Josh of Atlas Shrugged? I hope you enjoyed it. Today, I'm going to give you guys part two of a five-part interview series. We will pick up after the intro song, we'll pick up where we left off. We'll keep diving into these topics, these concepts. Again, throughout this interview, we talk about religion, we talk about politics, and we talk about all these things through the lens of the Atlas Shrugged book. So with that said, we'll cue up the theme song, we'll come back, we'll go into part two of my interview with Josh Forti about Atlas Shrugged. Josh Forti: Because what I'm trying to figure out, this is open discussion here... I am a pretty motivated, driven person. I never would've described what I was doing as greedy. Russell Brunson: Would you have thought that when you were an athlete, or thought when you were a kid- Josh: Yeah. Russell: ...no. But what is it? Josh: Well, yeah. And that's why I asked you the question. Because I don't know the answer myself. Russell: I feel the same way, because I never... it wasn't until I was reading the book, The Utopia of Greed- Josh: Yeah, yeah. Russell: ...and all of a sudden, I started thinking, all these things we're doing... we call them growth, we call them whatever, which is awesome, but it is... it's a greedy time in your life, right? Josh: Yeah. I wonder what the actual definition of greed is. Russell: Yeah. Josh: I'm going to look this up. We'll see. Definition of greed. Russell: It has a def-... negative connotation in our world today. Josh: Intense and selfish desire for something, especially money, power or food. Russell: Or food. Josh: Well- Russell: There you go. Josh: All right. Money, power or food. Russell: For me, thinking about the lens of wrestling, when I was wrestling, I had a selfish desire for, I wanted to be a state champ, I wanted to be an all-American, I wanted to be a national champ- Josh: But why? Why? Russell: Because I wanted my hand-raising. That was all I thought about, all I dreamt about. I couldn't... I'm a very obsessive person, that's why I don't gamble. Because I was like, I put a quarter in and I win, I'm broke. It doesn't matter how much I started with, it’s gone. And I know that about myself. So when I started wrestling, and I got my hand raised the first time, I was like, that feels good, I want to feel that every day for the rest of my life. And I just went, blinders on, and that's all I did, that was my... and I mean, I wouldn't have thought of it as greedy, but by definition, it's like, you need to focus on these things about yourself. Now I'm in the phase of my life where I'm coaching wrestling, coaching my kids and stuff like that, and it's different, because there's nothing in it for you, except for seeing their hand-raising and that light in their eyes go off, and it's just like, that felt way better than my own. But you don't know that until you're in that phase. Josh: Yeah. Did having kids change that for you at all? Did it help solidify or give you a different perspective on that shift from greedy to- Russell: I think... maybe not so much solidify as much as I'm experiencing that in multiple parts of my life, not just the business part. Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: A lot in part, you think about our success stories and our business are our children, the children of ClickFunnels, whatever you want to say, they're the people that have come off it. So I think I'm experiencing it now with them, and it's been interesting and fun and... yeah. Josh: How long did it take you to finish the book? Russell: I think about two months. Josh: Oh, wow. Russell: You read it way faster than I did. Josh: Well, it's one of those things... it's funny because my mom was like, have you even read the book? I'm like, what do you mean, you made me read in high school. And I went back and I was like, oh, I didn't actually read... I knew the book, so I assumed I had read it. And then I realized it was 1200 pages and I was like, I don't remember reading a 1200-page book. I feel like I would've remembered that- Russell: I got to do it right now, because Russell's going to be talking about. Josh: Right. And that's exactly what happened. So it was like, oh, we want to do this, cool. And I could've sat down and had the conversation without reading the book. Because I knew the concept, the premise. And so then I went through it and... every night, two-and-a-half speed, couldn't sleep, I'd get up and like, oh, man, it's 3:00 in the morning. Close the book, go back in there. So- Russell: Can I interject? Josh: Yeah. Russell: Because there is something you started on that I want to make sure we don’t miss, because I think it was... you started leading real good and there is somewhere I want to wrap it because it’s an open loop in my head now. Josh: Okay, okay, okay. Russell: You started talking about how you agree on the left side of social helping people, but not the way that they do it- Josh: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Russell: ...is that how you said it? Okay, so- Josh: I agree with what they want to do- Russell: Yes. Josh: ...i don't agree with how they want to do it. Russell: Okay, so, this is something that was powerful. So after I read the book, I was geeking out, and I'm like, who is this Ayn Rand, I want to see. So I started searching her and I found an interview she did on Donahue, 1980, three months after her husband passed away. And it was a fascinating interview- Josh: Oh, dang. Russell: ...she's atheist, does not believe in a god, all these things like that, so- Josh: She even made a statement about how part of the reason she wrote the book was to prove that religion was fake and to destroy all belief in any form- Russell: So once again- Josh: Super different. Russell: ...this is not the Bible for me, this is just... stimulating book that got my mind spinning. One thing she said during the interview that was so cool, because Donahue's like, "So based on this, you believe that we should all be producers and greedy and keep all our money and we should never... we shouldn't help anybody." And she said, "No, no, no, that's not what I said." She's like, "I never said that." She said, "What I did say, is that it should not be the government coming to you with their guns saying, 'Give me your 50% of your taxes.'" That's what's messed up. You think about this, if you give a gift... if someone comes to you and gives you a gun like, give your friend a gift, are you actually giving them a gift? No, you're not. Josh: Yeah. Russell: If you don't pay the taxes, they put you in jail. That's the thing. She said, "People should go and support people on their own." This comes back to... this is the whole thing we talked about before, the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, unless he yields to the enticing of the Holy Spirit. Us yielding saying, "Hey, I have all this money, I should go help other people with this." That's God saying, you should not be greedy, use what you've blessed with and help other people's lives. Right? Them coming to you with a gun saying, "Pay your taxes or go to jail," is not you giving a gift. It's them taking it from you and giving it away. So you're not a better person because you did it, right? And then we get into the whole depth of... this is the government now who's the worst run organization in the history of all time, which… I won’t even rant on that. You want to trust them with the money, right? So I just want to share a practical example, because people are like, "Well, you wouldn't give money if you didn't..." whatever. Right now, I'm taxed more than 50%, so more than half my income goes to Uncle Sam. He's doing whatever the crap they do with it. Josh: Well, you just need some Cash Flow Tactics. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Shameless plug. Russell: Yeah. Anyway, I have no idea, I don't actually do my taxes. That's the tax bracket. But then you look at... when you yield to the enticing of the Holy Spirit. So there was a time when my friend Stu McLaren is like, "Hey, we're building schools in Kenya, and this is mission and we believe in it, will you help?" It wasn't greedy Russ like, "I'm going to help and this is going to be awesome." Josh: Yeah. Russell: I felt something, I was like, "Oh my gosh. That is a great cause. Yeah, how can I support you?" In that process you can see, here's pictures of Stu and Amy in Kenya, we've been to Kenya four times now. We donated money, we built schools... that is a gift, versus give us money so we can go do something with it, right? And then a couple years later, I heard about Operation Underground Railroad, and I was like, oh my gosh, and I felt the spirit saying, "This is a good cause, you should serve, you should do this thing." And I put time and energy and money into this thing. We raised multiple millions of dollars now to save children from sex slavery. And not everyone's willing to do that. Again, there's a segment of people who will... it comes back to, the natural man is an enemy to God and has been since the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever. A lot of people never get off the greed boat. But most people, as you start making more and more money, you look at anybody, you look at Bill Gates, look at Elon Musk, anyone who's making much money, what do they do with their money? Eventually they start giving it to charities or helping people... all these things, because there's that transition point where you feel that, you hear the voice, you hear God, whatever you want to call it. You should be serving more. And I think... I know that if my tax went from 50% to 20% to 10% or whatever that thing was, I would and could give so much more, and everybody could. Right now, half the money goes to organizations that... what's happening with the money? Do we know? Do we see any ledger of what's happening? No, it's insane. Josh: Even Bill Maher, who... do you know Bill Maher? Russell: I know who he is, I don't follow him- Josh: Stupid... super left, right? Definitely would not align with our political views, or your... or my political views. But even him is like, I have no idea what my tax dollars are going to. I have no idea where my millions of dollars I pay every- Russell: Isn't that scary? Josh: Isn't that crazy. It's wild. Only the government. It's crazy. Russell: And then they go like... sorry, this is a plug for OUR and Tim Ballard. Tim Ballard, I know does not take a salary. His payment for being CEO of Operation Underground Railroad and risking his life day in and day out is zero dollars they pay him. He funds it himself. All the money he makes is from his books, his speaking, other things he does, externally to pay for himself, because he doesn't want to take money from an organization saving kids. Can you say that about any of the government- Josh: Yeah. Russell: ...no, it's insane. It's... anyway. But, yeah. So for me, it's like- Josh: Somebody's going to mention that Trump takes a zero dollar salary in there. That's not what we're talking about. Russell: But for me, it's like, that's my big thing, understanding that I think there's this blend of left and right. If we're not producing, the fact that I'm going to wake up every morning and kill myself, even though I have more money than I'm ever going to need, now we have 400 plus people who have full-time jobs here... excuse me, full-time jobs here at ClickFunnels. It's 144,000 people who have active ClickFunnels accounts. Each of those people, if they had one employee, it's 144,000 jobs. If they had two to three, that means... you're looking at... it's probably half a million to a million jobs have been created because of ClickFunnels, because we get up every day and we're chasing something, we're producing, producing, producing, right? If you take away incentives of that... I'd have to lay off half my staff, which then... and then everything starts disappearing really quickly. Where it's like, if they took that away, now we can go and how much more could we do? We did the OUR... we talked about OUR and showed the documentary at Funnel Hacking Live, and since then, four or five dozen people who were in our community showed the OUR documentary at their events and made money, and it's like this ripple effect keeps growing, growing, growing, versus the other side where it's just... it shrinks and- Josh: Okay, so, I want to get non-specifically political here for a second with this and... I don't want to say play the devil's advocate, I just want to understand your thoughts on this. So the argument on the other side, if you will, the people that are more traditionally higher tax bracket, you should be taxed even higher. We want to take more of your money away because it's this. Basically, the thought process is like... listen, you have donated your money to Kenya and to Operation Underground Railroad and things like that, but guess what, there's probably people here in your own community, like in Boise, for example, right, or wherever these entrepreneurs are, that you have millions and millions of dollars, there's people that are homeless. There's people who can't afford medical payments, or there's people who genuinely need help. And so the argument is, yeah, you've given some, but you have so much of it, you could do that and be taxed higher. We could take even more of your money and your life wouldn't change at all, and we're also like... not talking about your business money, we're only talking about profit, we're only going to take that part of it away. And so the argument on the other side is, if collectively... and I'm just going to make up a number here. Let's just say there's 10,000 entrepreneurs like you in America, that have millions of dollars or billions of dollars... I know you don't have billions.... billions of dollars, we could take all that money, and hypothetically, we could solve a lot of these issues. We could tax the top 10 richest people, whatever. Why doesn't that work? Or, A, I guess it's a two-part question. A, are you... A, why doesn't that work, and B, what is your solution for that, if any? What's your perspective, your view on how that would help? Russell: Yeah, I think- Josh: Or can you not help everybody? Russell: This is the fun part, politics, right? It's tough, and I'll preface this before we dive into the actual question... it's tough because there's good on both sides and there's bad on both sides. That's the hardest thing, right? And so that's the hard thing, is you can argue both ways. Let's say me as an entrepreneur, because I only know experiences through my own self, right? Josh: Right. Russell: I know what I pay in taxes every single year. I know how much goes away, I know how much I make. And it's tough because the more... the less you make for the more you work, the less incentivized you are to keep working. If my take-home was $100 grand a year, I'd be like, why am I killing myself? I could work three hours a day and make that, so why would I keep doing this stuff? If there's no reward, then it's hard, right? It's like, what's the purpose of doing any of this stuff? And it'd be really easy to then shrink back, and the company shrinks, employees shrink, everything shrinks because there's no incentive for us to risk everything. It's a risk reward thing. That's a big part of it. How do you solve it, I don't know, I don't think the solution is the government to come in with a gun and saying, give us half your money so we can go solve this problem. I think it's, man, what are the things in you're interested in saving? What are the things that touches your heart, what are the things that you're inspired to actually help? For me it's Kenya, for me it's this, for me it's... there's other things that we give money to that I don't talk about publicly. But there's things that... what are the things that I care about? Let me focus there. Everyone's got different agendas. I had Matt Maddix, someone who I... Caleb Maddix is the father, he's super awesome guy. He came to me and he's like, "Hey, my mission is to save these kids off the streets and this stuff..." all these kinds of things. I'm like, "That's amazing," he's like, "Can you help me?" I'm like, "That's not my calling. My calling are these things here. That's your calling, dude, I respect it, I support it, I'll help give money or whatever I can do to help. But that's your calling. God gave you that. That was the thing that you were given, that's the mantel you're in charge of." And everyone's got a different mantel. So your calling might be different from mine, people come to me all the time like, "Oh, that charity's cool, but I support this." Like, good, I don't care who you support. Everyone's got different callings and they're all good. So I think we should be able to say, what's the thing that speaks to our heart that we're passionate about, and that's what we should focus our time and our energy and our money on, not... again, don't come with the guns saying, "Give me 50% because I think it should go over here." Josh: But what about the people though, that... let's pretend, and I have... guys, I love Elon Musk, I'm going to use him purely as an example. Clearly I have no idea what he does with his money. But let's pretend. So, Elon Musk and all his money... what if he wasn't charitable? Should the government, or anybody, be able to come in and be like, "Yo, you have so much money." Or Zuckerberg, or whatever. "You have so much money. We're going to... you got..." I don't know, he's worth $90 billion. Let's say he has $3 billion in liquid cash. I'm just... hypotheticals here. "You got $3 billion here literally sitting here. We're going to take that away and we're going to give you... you can have $500 million if it, but we're going to take $2.5 billion and give it to people who actually need it." Do you think that there needs to be some overriding law or power or something that's like, "Yo, you can't just hoard. You got to... if you have more than enough, you got to go and give it back." Or do you think that's a personal choice? Russell: I think it's a personal choice. Think about, how many jobs has he created? He's giving that stuff, and this is the reward for this risk and reward side of thing. And his $3 billion, let's say, what's his next thing? He's not just going to sit on it, that's stupid. For him, for anybody, right? Josh: Right. Russell: He's going to go invest in the next thing, he's going to create more jobs, do more things, to stimulate the economy in different ways. He's going to go and start PayPal, and then he's going to start Tesla, and then he's going to start sending rocket ships to space. A producer's going to produce, because they want to produce. It's the art for them. So let them create art because the byproduct of art is jobs, it is stimulation of the economy, all those things happening. And so for me, building funnels is my art. I couldn't care less about the revenue that comes from it. I need the revenue to be able to hire the teams and the people and the things that we need to be able to continue the art, to pay Zuckerberg, to show my ads on the thing. All these things are part of it. So I think, yeah, if he's sitting on $3 billion, it's just sitting there, but producers don't typically do that. They're reinvesting, they're doing stuff with it that creates more. Josh: I want you to come up with a story on the spot, go. Which you're pretty good at. But I want you to talk about that. Producers produce. I think that might be one of the... actually, I'm curious to know... I feel like that is one of the most misunderstood things about the ultra-wealthy. The people that are actually... not like, I inherited $200 million because I'm a trust fund baby. But the actual Elon Musks of the world, the Jeff Bezoses of the world, the Russell Brunsons of the world, what ultimately drives you to go keep doing more? You have all of the money. And I know... we talked about the... you want to contribute back part, but there's a million different ways you can contribute. Why do you do the things that you do? Because I feel like one of the misunderstood things is... and this is something I don't know how to explain it to people that don't know it, I told my fiance, I was like, "You should listen to Russell." Because I'm like, "I think like that." You know what I mean? If you don't understand me, maybe you could see it from somebody else and know that I'm not weird. I mean, I am, but there's other people like me, that think like this. But it's like, how would you explain to somebody that Elon Musk is going to do what Elon Musk does. He's Elon Musk. Zuckerberg, or whoever- Russell: Hank Reardon. Josh: Right, right, whoever. Russell Brunson. You're going to do what you do, because that's who you are. You build things, and the result of... because you need to build things, you need resources. So you're like, man, if I want to go build this thing over here, I need $100 million, or I need $10 million. I'm just going to go make that money, and I'm going to go do it here. And you're basically just organizing things. You're either creating or you're organizing. How does that mentality work? I don't think the average person understands that. And I think that's one of the big misconceptions of... because this goes back to the greed thing, and the reason I really don't like the word greed is because there is so much misconception about it, although I will say the definition says that it's probably that. Russell: It is a negative word... the connotation's super negative. Josh: But it's like, you don't exclusively do it because you're greedy. You did it because you don't know how to do anything else. You know what I mean? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Sorry, sorry, Alex Charfen… We can't turn it off, and we don't understand why anybody would want to. Russell: Yeah, yeah. Josh: Like that, that's the thing. Russell: If you think about it, it's creation. Why was man put on this earth? Were we put on Earth to wake up, watch TV, go back to bed? No, we have creative powers in our body, that’s how husband and wife get together and have children and create. That's the mission on Earth, we're always creating. Any of us, you get married, you create something, we need a house, where are we going to live at? And you create things to be able to get a job, to be able to organize matter, to be able to make, oh, we have a house now we can move into. And that's the thing, so many people though, they become... the word that Garrett White uses best, sedated. Where there's pain, and so because the pain, they're sedated, so they just sit in the moment of, they don't want the pain. Because the pressure is too heavy for the one point, it hurts so bad, they say, I have to stop. Versus what we talk about, over the last six years, I get destroyed, then increased capacity, then destroyed. And so there's two sets of people, there's the people that aren't producing, they're sedating, because they're afraid of the pain, nervous of the pain, trying to hide from the pain, I get that. There's been seasons of my life where I've felt pain and I just want to hide, and I have. And then there's seasons of your life, at least hopefully for most... and I wish everybody could experience it, because the opposite of it, when you're in the creation zone, when you're creating, you're doing it, it's hard, it's a different... both of them are hard, they're different hards, right? One is there's so much fear, there's so much just trying to get out of the pain, and the other one is just... you create to create, right? You can ask my team, we build a funnel, and for me, it's just like, look at this thing we created. We create a product or an event or whatever, and it's like, the creation of the thing, and sharing it with people, that's... I don't know. And I think it's the same way when I was wrestling, that was my art at the time, and I didn't want to do anything besides wrestling. When to tournaments and tournaments, I'm like, what's the next tournament, what's the next thing, kept doing that, kept doing that, my entire life, because that was the art. After awhile, you just want to keep performing what you're doing, right? And I think that if you can get out of that sedation that most people live in... I say the majority of- Josh: And I think that's the issue, that for you and I, we create. Entrepreneurs, funnel hackers, free thinkers of the world, they go out there and they create because it's like, that's what we do. Russell: Yeah. Josh: I don't think that's how most of the world operates. Russell: Yeah. Did you... initially, right, when they're born, they have that seed, that seed of whatever we call it, growth, greed, whatever, right? Something happens in life where they get the pain and they sedate because it's easier. I think that's one of the biggest problems, and I am anti-drug, anti everything that causes sedation, because most of the world, I see... especially in entrepreneurial community, where people could be doing so much more, but instead there's sedating with drugs or alcohol or weed or whatever, because it's like, let me take the pressure of myself. And man, what a tragedy. You could be producing and changing so many people's lives, but it's like, I need an outlet. The outlet causes sedation, it takes you out of your ability to produce. I think the majority of people, that's what they do. It drives me crazy, I see all the conversation on Facebook of... there's entrepreneur events where people come together, they literally... there's sessions, we talk about what mushrooms they use to hallucinate... it just drives me nuts. You guys are sedating to get out of this pain as opposed to stepping into the pain, creating and changing people's lives. So I'm very vocal, anti all that kind of stuff, because I think so many people, that's what they slip back into. One of the greatest blessings of my religion that I believe is I don't have these tools to sedate that most people use. And so my outlet is creation. If my outlet was drinking, if my outlet was drugs, if my outlet was these other things, I wouldn't have been able to produce, but I don't, so my outlet's got to be what, what is it? Production, let's create something amazing. And I think too many people let themselves off the hook and just, oh, I can create or maybe watch TV, or I'm going to go eat, or I'm going to go... if your outlet is something that sedates you, that's taking you out of your creative zone, I think most people slip back because it's easier, it's cheaper, it doesn't cause the pain. Garrett White's whole mission, Wake-Up Warriors, waking men up from that sedated state that most of our society are stuck into. That’s why I relate to him so well, because I see it in people I love, that I care about, like, you're sedated, if we could break you out of that and get you into production, you could change the world. Josh: Yeah, I think it's interesting. So, I have a coach who I think did that for me... I mean, I don't use Garrett White, which... that's an intense man, oh my word. Garrett, if you're listening, I would love to talk to you. Come on the show. I've always plugged him. Hey, if I'm ever going to get a guest... Elon Musk, if you're listening. Anyway. But I have a coach, Katie Richardson. You know Katie. Katie is... outside of my immediate family, and Leah, obviously, top three people that changed my life, Katie Richardson and Russell Brunson are two of those people that are in that top thing, right? So Katie is someone that I work with one-on-one. I don't think I was ever sedated in the sense of what you're talking about, but the opposite of sedation is being alive. Really, truly, coming alive, understanding who you are, what you are put on this earth here to do. And so the thing that I struggled with for the longest time, even from the beginning days of this entrepreneur, is right and wrong. I didn't want to do the wrong thing. I didn't want to tick anybody off, because that would be bad. Like, oh, man, you don't want to get into a fight, because that's bad. I don't want to make too much money because that might be bad. Or I don't want to say the wrong thing because it might be bad. So I lived in this black and white, is it right or is it wrong. Katie came along, and she's like, "Josh, there is no right and wrong." There is in the sense of moral right and wrong... I'm not going to go into that concept, but... universal truth, I do believe there's absolute truth. But in the sense of our everyday life, it's not so much is it the right thing or the wrong thing, it's what are you going to choose to do. But you can only know what you're going to choose if you're alive, if you know who you are, and you know what you're put on this earth to do. And that's why... it's funny, you might... I think you may know this sorry. So my brother dies, helicopter crash, beginning of 2019, kind of wrecked my whole life, ending up selling the company, sold the business to an investor, business partner took over, and Leah and I took off on our own. And it's supposed to be this four-month long trip where I was going to disconnect and figure out life and everything like that. And Christmas time, it's about a week before Christmas, and we're in the Philippines, in the middle of absolutely freaking nowhere. The nearest airport, hospital, anything, is six hours away. Absolute middle of nowhere. And Leah gets an intestinal eating parasite. She gets super, super sick. Can't sit up, can't keep food down. I'm like, oh my gosh, we're in the Philippines, middle of nowhere. So we go to the emergency room, and we get there and it's a cart... it's like a piece of plywood with two-inch foam, and there's no doors on the bathroom, no toilet seat, there's ants crawling... it's terrible, right? And so long story short, we end up having to cut our trip two months early, we lose tens of thousands of dollars in deposits getting her home or whatever. And I have no business at this point. We're supposed to be going for two months longer. I was supposed to fly home... I was supposed to come to Funnel Hacking Live, that was going to be our coming home. And I find myself in the basement of my girlfriend's mom's house, the night before Christmas, going like, "What am I doing with my life? How did I end up here?" I go through the process like, okay, I need a coach. And I go through and I interview a bunch of different coaches and I end up choosing Katie. And I'm like, "All right, Katie, you're going to solve all my business problems for me. You're going to help me make all this money, you're going to help me build this million-dollar business," and everything like that. And so the very, very first call, I'll never forget, the very first question, she's like, "All right. Vent. I know you need to." Just brain dump, vent for 20, 30 minutes straight. I'm like, "What's the answer?" And she goes, "Josh, who are you?" I was like, "Really? That's where we're going to start this whole conversation?" I just paid you 60 grand? And looking back now, that... and I do have a full circle with this. Looking back now, figuring out who I was gave me my permission to go do what I was called to do, without the fear of what anybody else thought. And I'm not trying to intentionally piss anybody off. I don't want people to actually hate me. But I'm so certain in what I'm doing and knowing who I am, that I know I'm a contributor to society. I know that I make the world better with what I do because I believe that everybody, deep down inside, God has given talents. And I believe that the thing that, whatever it is that you're good at, that you like to do or whatever, that's the talent that God gave you, and you have a choice on how you're going to go out and use that, and I believe that we should use that to serve Him. The problem is, is that I don't think... I think an overwhelming majority of the world has no idea who they are or what they're called to be. And because of that, the people like you or Elon or whoever, the producers of society, that know who they are, what their talents are, what they're called to do, things like that... you've seen my growth. You've watched me transition from this crazy little kid to this... that came by learning who I was and how I was contributing in the world and doing what I was called here and what I was put here for. So when you talk about sedation, I feel like that's the issue of, you're sedated, and so they don't even know who they are. They don't even know how to tap into it, they don't know how to understand it. Because of that, they look at someone like you, they look at someone like me, and they go, "Well, you're preventing me. You're taking away my ability to go do something, because you're taking all the money. You're taking all the opportunity. You have a category and the king of the market, so I can't go and do it then." To those people, this concept of, because you're successful I can't be successful, what is your response there? How do you interpret that? Russell: Yeah. Josh: How do you help someone shift and be like, just because I did it doesn't mean you can't. Russell: Yeah. It's interesting because... it's funny because for me it's such a foreign thing to understand that. I see that so many times entrepreneurs where, it's that mentality of there's not enough money, not enough opportunities or resources, whatever. You know this, I know this, and the bigger problem I have is there are so many opportunities, every single day... it's not that there's not enough opportunities, it's there's so many, it's like, how do you... I think when people start understanding that, look around. Learn some basic skills. The original DotComSecrets book I wrote because I'm like, if anyone took these principles, looked at any business, you could apply it and boom, it just works. It's magic. There's not a business on this... Adam’s Eye Care, I can see right there out the window... I can take DotComSecrets principles and blow that company up overnight. And so if you have these tools, you could do anything, you could sell phones, you could sell watches, you could sell books, you could sell podcasts. I think when people start understanding that, it's just education, they don't understand it. I have friends before who are like, “life's tough right now, there are no opportunities”. And I'm just like, what? There are so many opportunities, but you have to have the skillset that actually... can produce it. I think a big frustration obviously, I have, I think you have as well, is... and we talked about this a little tonight, with my kids... a lot of the things we were equipped with are school... the school system doesn’t equip you to be able to capitalize on opportunities. It doesn't, unless you're like, I want to be a doctor. Cool, this is the process, now you can capitalize on being a doctor or being a dentist, or whatever that traditional path is. To be able to walk in and make it rain somewhere, those skillsets aren't found in school. And you think about in any business, there's a couple personalities. There's the entrepreneur who starts it. Then there's the managers who are managing the people, there's the technicians who are doing the thing, and there's the rainmakers who come in and make money. If you learn that skillset... how do you become a rainmaker? How do you go in, and you can plug in any business, any opportunity, and you can turn it into money? And every door you walk past, there's opportunity. There's infinite, every human you see there's opportunity, right? People have to learn how to take the talent and learn how to market the talent. God gives us all different things. Some people... Kaelin Poulin, God gave her a gift to be able to help women lose weight. But it wasn't until she learned how to market that that it was actually now... now, the opportunity is huge. They’ve got, I don't know, 100 employees at her company, millions of women they've served across the world. Taking your God-given talent, learning how to make it rain, putting those two things together, now, unlimited opportunities. So I think a lot of times, we're given... and that's why I'm so loud about my mission, I try to share so much, because I believe that God's given everyone a calling. Says in the Scriptures, many are called, but few are chosen. Everybody's called. Everybody gets a calling. Everybody gets that tap on the shoulder. Everyone gets the opportunity. No matter where you're born, where you're... everyone gets the opportunity, you're called. Most people don't do it, or they don't know how to do it, because they have this talent, this hobby, this thing... and then what happens? They sedate, they hide, or they search. And if you search, you find the answer, and it's like, oh my gosh, now I can make this change the world. Josh: But do you think everybody has that talent though? Obviously, there's only one Russell Brunson. But I have discussions with my mom a lot. I have a great relationship with my mom. My mom always tells me, she's like, "Josh, not everybody's you. Not everybody thinks like you. Not everybody has to drive like you. Not everybody has the confidence like you. Not everybody has the..." and I'm like, you don't have to. You can do the same things, just in your own way. Russell: And everyone's got a different view of success, too. Josh: Right. Russell: One of my first mentors taught me that... when I launched my first mastermind group, he pulled me aside and he's like, "Your mastermind group's going to fail if you try to put your version of success on all those people." And I was like, "What do you mean?" He's like... it was funny, because he was in the room and he's like... I can't say names because some of you may know someone. He's like, "you see that guy, you know why he’s in the room?" I'm like, "Why?" He's like, "He wants to hear himself talk. That's why he's here. And if I try to force him to do something, he's not going to do it. That guy right there? He's here because he wants to hang out with the group and network people. You? You're here because you want to steal everybody's ideas, right?" He's like, "If you try to launch a mastermind, your goal is to build a $100 million company, you try to put that, your values on the people, you're going to make them all fail." And that was a big a-ha for me, everyone's got a different vision of success. Maybe your brother, someone, your sister... family member, may not think like you or be like you, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean they have to change a million people's lives to change the world. It could be they're a mom, and they can be the best mom in the world and they change their kid's life, that's a calling. Josh: And that's what I want you to touch on. I want you to expand upon that. Because I feel like... man, I hear so many arguments, I'm trying to figure out which one fits best here. But, "Josh, we need the plumbers of the world." Russell: Yeah. Josh: Right? We need the people who will come in vacuum the carpet. We need the people that'll just do the mediocre tasks and that are not important, and that'll do those in and out and in and out and in and out. And, yeah, that. Because I feel like... how do I say this. I believe that a majority of the people in this world are not living up to their true potential. A massive... overwhelming majority are not- Russell: I don't think anyone is, to be honest. I don't think I am. Josh: Right. Russell: Yes, so, yes, 100%. Josh: But, you're living far more potential like the average person is, right? And how I look at is, I go, hey, listen, not everybody can do what you do or what I do, or whatever. Okay... how do I bring it around so it’s more… clear? I’m going to use a political aspect of things, because I think that's something we can all understand. Hey, poor people, victim mentality people... that's a controversial... you know what I'm saying. But victim mentality people, or poor people, they don't think like that, or maybe they didn't have as good a schooling, or maybe they didn't have as good an education, whatever. They don't have the same understanding that you do. So shouldn't we help them see that they can go and achieve more? Or should they... is their version of success... what am I trying to ask? Russell: The answer's yes, we should be, and that's what we're doing. I heard some of the... before, they're like, "Well, Russell, you have a $50,000 or $100,000 mastermind group, I can't afford that, that's not fair." I'm like, "Yeah, but I also do a podcast two to three times a week, every single week for six years. I've written three books you can get for 10 bucks, or you can get them for free." There's levels of it. The thing is there's value everywhere and if you pick it up, it increases... and you actually apply it? I'm a big believer that God gives all of us stewardship over things. He'll give you an idea, he'll give me an idea, he'll give anybody an idea, or desire. Here's some desire for you. You look at these kids who are struggling, but they get desire to play basketball and then they become Michael Jordan, or whoever... the people, right, because God gives them desire, or give them ideas, or talents. I'm a big believer in my business life, as I've been doing this journey now for 18 plus years, is that I got ideas, and a lot of the ideas I didn't do anything with. But some of them I took, I got the idea, and I'm not naïve to think, oh, I came up with this great idea. These are blessings from God, he's like, here's an idea, let's see if you're going to be a good steward with it. I get the idea, and if I do something with it, He's like, "Oh my gosh, Russell's a good steward of ideas, let me give him another idea." And if I don't do something with it, He's like, "All right, let me give it to somebody else." All the stuff is happening that would've happened without... somebody would've taken it. But I was a good steward of the thing and so I got blessed with another one and another one and another one. And I think that's a big part of it. I don't think that God... I do think that He puts us all on different spots to start with- Josh: Okay, that's a fascinating concept. Russell: 100%. He's giving us ideas or desires, things like that, and He's watching, are you going to be a good steward with it? If you are, I'll give you more, if you are, I'm going to give you more. So people can go from the worst of the worst and become the best in the world, people can start the best in the world and be horrible. Because what do you do with the things you're given stewardship over? Josh: So, what you're saying here, which is actually a fascinating concept, is that... I'm going to use the idea for ClickFunnels for example. The idea for ClickFunnels wasn't yours, per se. Russell: Do you know how many people were trying to build a funnel software when we built ClickFunnels? Josh: I'm sure a lot. Russell: All my friends were. Everybody was. Josh: So you have this idea that is essentially open for anybody... anybody could go and take advantage of this idea, you just... you're saying God put this idea in your head... and he probably put this idea in 100 peoples' heads, or 500... 10,000 peoples' heads or whatever. But you're like, I was the one who answered the calling to be, okay, I'm actually going to take this idea and do something with it. And so because of that, it's not that you took it away from anybody else... anybody could've done it, you're just the one who went out and actually just chose to do it and bring it to reality. Russell: Yup. 100%. Josh: Okay. Russell: There's a... I wish... somebody shared it to me and I haven't read the book. There's a book that tells a story... there's an author who had an idea for a book, sat down and started writing it, and someone's going to know it... it's a famous book, people would know this, I guarantee someone on this chat knows this. Josh: Somebody comment below when you here it, what it is. Russell: The author's writing the book, and then stops, runs out of time, forgets about it. And then six years later, this new book comes out, becomes a New York Times bestselling book, buys the book, starts reading, and is like, "This is the book that I was supposed to write." And it was like, oh my gosh, I didn't take stewardship of the idea, I stopped, and so God gave it to somebody else. It's the same book, right, it's just I didn't finish it. And I 100% believe that. I think it could be an idea, it could be desire, it could be a million things, we all have these different gifts of the spirit, that are given to us, and they sit back and watch and see what you're going to do with it. Josh: I feel like that could give a lot of people permission to go out and do stuff, too, right there. That viewpoint. Because one of the things that I struggled with early on, which, to a certain extent, I think I still struggle with a little bit, not nearly what I used to... why me? Not in a bad way of, oh, man, why do I... but why do I get these cool opportunities? I live a pretty good life, you know what I'm saying? And I'm like, why do I get to have this conversation and not somebody else? Why am I the first person that gets to sit down with Russell Brunson and talk anything related to politics, ever? But it's like, that concept of simply because I chose to go do it. I chose to be the person that was capable of having this conversation, and became that person. And I think that because of that, what you just said right there, gives... to get people permission, you're not taking away from anybody else, and you're not inherently special. You are in your own way, but you're not... it wasn't... you're not the only person that could've built ClickFunnels. Russell: I'm shockingly average. You ask my wife, ask my parents... Russell is shockingly average. Josh: And you're actually super awkward to meet for the first time. Russell: Yeah. Josh: You know the first time... you remember the first time... I think I actually told you this, the first time I met you? Russell: Remind me. Josh: Okay, the first time I met you was at Grant Cardone’s 10X, the very first one. Russell: Okay. Josh: At the time, Grant had hired our team to do Instagram stuff. And this was super, super early on. I was dead broke. I couldn't afford to go to that conference if I wanted to. But because we were doing Instagram stuff, he gave us tickets. And we saw you get offstage and we're like, "Dude, I bet you if we run right now we can meet Russell." So we run downstairs and sure enough, there you are, coming down. And I walk up to you and I'm like, "Russell, oh my gosh, huge fan." And you're like, "Hey. Thanks." And we're like, oh, okay. We're like, "Can we get a picture?" You're like, "Um, yeah, I guess." So I go and normally when you go and take a picture, you put your arm around him, and things like that. You just literally just stood there. And I was like, I guess we're not doing that. And so there's this picture of me in… Russell: I gotta see this picture. Josh: I'll find it. I'll vox it to you. We're sitting there, I'm like... so, guys, Russell is- Russell: Is shockingly average. Josh: Is shockingly average, apparently. But back to the conversation, I remember what I was trying to ask. That was the very first time I met you. I was like, oh, man, I can be a millionaire, too. Russell: Before... I just want to... when I got started, this whole business, it was me and then I hired two of my buddies to come work for me, because they were the only people who cared what I was talking about. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And we're all working on this business, and I remember one of my buddies pulled me aside one day, and said, "The only difference between us two and you?" I said, "No." He said, "The only difference is you're in momentum, you're moving forward, so these opportunities keep coming to you because you're moving, moving, moving, moving." He's like, "We're sitting back here doing the thing, there's no opportunities coming to us because we're not moving." I think what you need to understand is when you're moving in forward, people are like, "Oh, you're lucky you came up with ClickFunnels." I'm like, "Do you know how many funnels I launched before ClickFunnels?" Over a 150. This is not 150 ads that are “create funnel in ClickFunnels, oh, that's a funnel”. It was me coming up with an idea, hiring a designer, writing a sales letter, putting the product together, putting the pages in FrontPage, uploading them through FTP, getting a shopping cart, connecting them 150 times. It took us three months on average through each one. 150 times before we came up with ClickFunnels. I was just moving forward, over and over and over and over and over while everyone else was sitting around waiting. Motion is the key. Josh: Yeah. Russell: The opportunities come. This is what I'm talking about with being a good steward. God gave me an idea for ZipBrander. Do you remember ZipBrander? No one does. That was the first idea and I was like, oh my gosh, ZipBrander. I found a guy in Romania, I paid him 20 bucks to build the software. I created, I got a thing... a header designed and a headline and a thing and I launched it, and I made 400 bucks. And then the next idea was this thing called Article Spider, do you remember the Article Spider? Josh: No. Russell: No one does. I paid someone a couple hundred bucks, I did that, I launched, I made 1700 bucks, and I was like, oh my gosh... Four Hundred Fortunes was number three. And then the next, and the next, and I could show you guys, I did this, I wrote them all... I went back in the Way Back Machine, I found all of them. Thing after thing after thing after thing. Idea after idea. The ideas pop in there, I execute on them, try and try, each one got better and better and better and better, and eventually, God's like, "All right, you're capable, you're a good steward, here's ClickFunnels, let's go with it." If you were to give me that initially, I wouldn't know what to do. It's the momentum, it's the motion that makes you worthy of the calling. And if you're not in momentum, if you're not moving forward, you're never going to get the calling. Many are called, but few are chosen.

GEORGE:   All right, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the did George show, where I make up intros off the top of my head, because people are amazing and I'm stoked to have them. And today's guest is somebody that I've wanted to interview for probably five years, except I didn't have a podcast nor reason to talk to him.And then we became best friends overnight. And so I'm excited beyond belief to have somebody that I look up to. I've considered a mentor through his teachings and what he's done. He stands for absolutely everything that is ethical entrepreneurship, caring about human beings, making a difference, building legacy businesses, and tolerance absolute zero bullshit will doing any of it. Well, Also leading by example, you know, that magic thing that we don't see a lot of on the internet where it's do, as I say, not as I do, because I don't want you to see what I do. Well, Alex Charfen is here today, CEO Charfen. He has built massively successful companies, navigated some of the biggest downturns of our world and my lifetime, and always come out on top with a smile on his face, grounded in the values that are important to him, his family, and leads by example.And so without further ado, Alex, welcome to the show. ALEX:   Thanks George. That was one of the best intros I've ever gotten. And that was awesome. GEORGE:   I feel like M and M and eight mile on Sunday mornings at 8:00 AM before I have my coffeeALEX:  I want that on my phone so I can play it each morning. Before I start workingGEORGE:   We'll send you the audio clip and then we can do it like the rock used to do as alarm codes, right? Like get up. And he yells at you. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm super, super excited to have you, man. I'm honored. This has been a long time coming and before we get into the deep, deep, deep stuff for the show, whatever, you know, navigating turns, we're going to end up in today. The first question that I always ask everybody to set context, the humanizes, and you have a lot of these, so feel free to take creative freedom with this one.What is the biggest mistake that you've ever made in business? And what was the lesson that you took away from  it?ALEX: That's like trying to like walk into an Amazon warehouse and say, which is the best box. Cause there's so many options. You know, George when I consider mistakes in business, so many of them, I don't look at them as mistakes anymore because. I've learned from them to find where I am now.I feel like almost every mistake, every huge challenge that I created has, has actually taught me something and moved me forward. And I think the one place where I would say that. That there were actual mistakes that I regret. And, and, and here's why I regret them. I don't regret the learning from them, but the mistakes that I made were with people when I was younger, especially there was a tremendous amount of collateral damage and the businesses that I ran. I was one of those people, not any more or not at all anymore, but I was one of those people that if I was going to separate with somebody, I actually had to break them, break the relations.I had to make it okay with me.  I had to make it so that it was so horrible that like we can never talk again. And when I look back at some of the separations that I had where people were either terminated or left, the companies that I ran, I feel like those are some of the biggest, the mistakes I made.And, and, you know, if I could go back and do it over again? I would, I would, you know, I would tell my younger self that you don't have to completely destroy a relationship to put it on pause. And you don't know, I have to completely demonize somebody to have them leave your company. Like those are all natural things that happened in the world.And  today with contrast,when somebody leaves our organization now, or when somebody decides to go to another opportunity, doesn't happen often anymore. But when it does. It's totally different. You know, I've actually, I've, I've led several several employess because of COVID and some other reasons we've actually let a few people go.And it's interesting cause I've remained connected with them. We connect every once in a while, you know, we talk. And so having that experience of being able to work with somebody and then continue the relationship, even though it's no longer a working relationship, it has been extraordinary. And when I was young, I did not even allow space for that. And I think that was, this longterm mistake, honestly, that comes from a childhood of trauma and a childhood of bullying and a childhood of really challenging relationships where I didn't understand how to navigate them. And I brought that forward into my business career. That's the biggest reason.GEORGE: And there's so much gold in there. This is why we get along. So for some context guys, when Alex and I reconnected, we got on zoom for a half an hour and then were like, we need an hour that we need three hours. Now let's just keep talking all day every day because I was like, I was like, sorry, Katie, you can have them back now. I'm like, I'm getting my very much dopamine hit and I'm not gonna deny this, that I wanted this. Like, this was very much my drug today. And I'm okay with this one, right? This is one of those, like, I can go seek it as I need, you know, Alex, one of the things that I think is so imperative and we talked about this, but you and I have so many similarities in this.Is that in the beginning, right? Is this collateral damage? Right? I got feedback that there were trails of dead bodies behind every success. And there were two sides of it for me that were tough. Number one is I never celebrated, right. There was no space because it was never good enough. Right. And so that took from everybody and made it.And then really, I think, as an entrepreneur and a self-aware entrepreneur, and you talk about this as like evolutionary hunters and the way that you do this, I think it was your EPT, your entrepreneurial personality types. You know, one of the things that I think is so amazing as entrepreneurs is that  we're driven for change.We want things to be better, but I think what the razors edges or the tight rope that we like to ride a unicycle down from is to come from when we go down the middle. And there's that part of us as entrepreneurs we're down there, the middle, all the one side was insecurity ego. It doesn't matter.It's never enough I'll sacrifice anything and then we've spent our life at this point, working towards self-awareness. You love, compassion, empathy, relationship, even you just said.I didn't think this was possible a couple of years ago. Like, wait, somebody can leave my organization and be better than when they got there.And we still have a relationship, like can still text. We can talk, right? Like this isn't, you know, purgatory exile, like we're going back in Mayan culture. So, what are some of the things? Cause you have like five core values at your company. You guys stand for humans. Like you stand for change, you stand for being, but I know that this is prevalent everywhere.And I had one of my mentors at a very young age Allen out.  Alex told me that and I learned this as a Marine, too. Like my job wasn't to keep people underneath me. My job was to get myself fired and get them better than me. And there's a point where. You know, they have to leave the coop and they have to grow.But I think the biggest distinction is it was talked about in there world, but really it's our, our growth as a human, like on our side, like the self-awareness side. So what are some of the things that you do that you focus on? Like you help companies with operations, with culture, with flow, with team and people like, how do you go about that?And what are some of the things that you keep to keep your keel in the water as you navigate that? ALEX: Oh, man. There's that question, George.GEORGE: So that's the point. Now I can drink my coffee over here and go to town. Yeah. Where did you go? ALEX: George, I think in order to answer that question, I kind of have to take a step back and, and talk about where, where, like, I've come from.If you want to know how things are kept in motion now, I think we have to first draw, contrast as to how things were before. Yes, sir. When I look at when I was younger and well into my twenties I experienced a tremendous amount of trauma and I had the same, like this is, this came up in our, we just had a three day event with 200 companies around the world and it came up this week.I started, I taught, I talk openly about trauma and how it drives us in the present. And I often tell our clients until you are ready to work through your trauma, you are destined to create, or, and you will only continue to create trauma. Cause it's a pattern for people, hurt people. And that's really how it works.You know, when I look at somebody who's causing havoc in the world, what I see as somebody who's severely traumatizedand acting through those things. And so for me, when I was 26 years old, I went through a really severe breakup. I'm 47 now and at the time to do okay. I actually was, um, I was uncomfortable enough that the only time I felt comfortable in it was when I was drinking.The only time I really fell asleep and stayed asleep was when I was. Kind of loaded and I wasn't used to having those feelings like I had when I was younger. I had definitely I,  was no lack of time in bars or drinking and entertaining and doing those things. But I hit this period where it almost became a necessity and not almost it became a necessity and it was severely challenging to go through that.And. My mom was a therapist in California and I was talking to her about it. I had tried cognitive behavioral therapy. I don't know if you've tried this too. You go in like, I don't, I don't want to demonize all cognitive behavioral therapy, but for me, CBT was so hard because you go in, you spill your guts and the person across the room.I see. How does that make you feel? And then you spill your guts more and then they say, I see, how does that make you feel? And then you spend more. And by the third time they say, I see you, how does that make you feel? I actually responded one time to a therapist. It makes me feel like I want to get up, knock you out because you're not helping me.I feel like you're just, this is frustrating. , I feel agitated and yeah. Triggered and all that stuff. And so I stopped doing that. And I remember calling my mom and she said, there'd be called EMDR. And, it's eye movement, desensitization and reprogramming. It'sa very weird sounding therapy, but it's actually amazing.I, you know, George, it's interesting that you were in the military and we, we talked so much about trauma because even back then, when I was 26, I had some friends that had been in the teams. And, they were VR for Navy seals. Yep. It was actually this huge experiment in the military to see if EMDR would help with the offloading of  trauma and return to service.And they were getting incredible results with it. So for me that growth process has been understanding my trauma. Understanding where so much of my reactivity and almost automatic behaviors came from. And, and so much of a processing, what had happened to me has now allowed me to become more present and aware and you know, it's interesting, George.I used to think that I was so present and so aware when I was in my twenties and now I look back and it's like the funniest thing in the world because I was so detached and , not even feeling my feelings and understanding what was going on. I didn't even know how to interpret what was happening.And then I thought I did so much better in my thirties and I'm like, you know, nailed it. And then I look back and I'm like, no, I just had a better understanding, but I was still working through so much of it. And finally, I feel like in about the past 10 years in years, I've gone into another year of really being able to release things and process things and, and work through things.And that's been a combination of a ton of breath  work. Breath work, I think has been one of the most effective things that I've done a tremendous amount of EMDR therapy and, and going back to then as needed, not like just when it's acute, but when I feel stuck or when I feel like I have writing blocks or anything like that.And then, really a lot of self exploration and a lot of and if you wanted to put a layer on all of that, It's process, structure and routine. And it's you say that this is what a day is like the process structure and routine that allows you to grow a business, grow your life, have what you want in your life.But for most of my life, I fought process, structure and routine more than anything else. Oh yeah. I had that, that, that impression that like, as an entrepreneur, What makes you successful is being whatever you want, anytime that you want. And so I held onto that myth, that illusion, that totally illusory place, it does not exist where you can be a successful entrepreneur and just wake up and do whatever the heck you want every day.It doesn't really work. I mean, you might be able to be a yeah, no, , there's not a situation where it works. And so. Um, I think the biggest shift for me has been committing to process, structure and routine, like up to and including even on a Sunday this morning, I got up, did my morning planning, went through my morning routine.Like I do every other day, sat down in a line with my family. It's like now it's an edict. It's not an option anymore. Cause I know that's where my strength. And really that's where my be present and productive and persuasive and influential. That's what it comes from.GEORGE: Totally. There's so much in that And I want to, I want to nail some, so people have heard me talk about EMDR before. Um, but I glance over it.  Cause very rarely am I across from somebody who I'm like, Oh, you too. Right. Like, Oh, I, I remember, like I remember we did CBT and my wife actually walked us out. She was with me cause I was trying to process childhood trauma stacked on military trauma, stacked on battle entrepreneurial trauma.And she's like, this is not going to help you this like ALEX: 70 creative relationshipGEORGE: Oh yeah. Oh you, Oh, you, you re like, I mean, it's like a trauma definition, right? Like you open the book and the generic and it was a picture of every instance of my life. How they all exacerbated each other in different scenes.Yeah, right. Like, yeah. It was like, it was like almost like a storyboard for a movie at this point. AndI remember one EMDR appointment and I came out my wife's like, you're a different person, like one appointment, one appointment. And I think you nailed something too. And I think what's so important, Alex.And this is like the undertone of what you're talking about. And if anybody hasn't caught this yet, this success as an entrepreneur on the outside, comes from the commitment to the work on the inside. A hundred percent and it is a daily and I mean, daily committed practice to come in. And like EMDR for me was two years of, I think once or twice a week.And then it was like a once a year if needed. And now I just texted him and like just texting him, like gets me back into like where I need to go but I think, I think it's so important, like to reach the levels. When we talk about this, the two things that being number one is this commitment to self.Right. And like, it's what you teach now. It's the discipline, the intentionality, the process, the structure, everything that you're doing, but also the awareness of what it really means to be an entrepreneur and what we're doing.  And you hit this and we live in a world right now where it's like, Oh, laptop, lifestyle, and boom, boom, boom.And yeah, you do whatever you want. I'm like, that's not what it's like. That Instagram life is not real. And entrepreneurship is amazing. It is the most freeing, powerful job, you know, whatever business opportunity on the planet. But within that, we also have to create our own containers and structure to make it that efficient.If not, it's just a new form of addiction to hide from the traumas and the pain that we've never worked on. no question. And I think, I think, and for you, like you say, yo, you're in your forties, I'm like, I became aware yesterday of things I was doing that I wasn't aware of. , I think it's this process and awareness, but I think it was like last year, maybe after the birth of my son, where I was like looking at it and I was like, Oh, you mean that?Like my name can't carry everything. And I say something and magically a million dollars appears like, why? Like, I don't understand, like, why didn't my launch crush? Like why don't my Facebook ads work? And nobody else's does, like, why don't they just work? Cause I deserve them to work. Right? Like there was this.There was this thing that like I had to be aware of and process through and eat some humble pie. And so there's so many golden nuggets that you said. Um, and, and the first question I asked you was like, how do you know, operate forward and this point, and you nailed it. But I think one more thing I want to unpack before we even get there is in the very beginning, when I asked you what was the biggest mistake or lesson, you said something so subtle, but so empowering statement to where you are. And you said the challenges I created. Not the challenges that happen to me, not the challenges that somehow magically fell on my plate, like the challenges I created and there's this level of ownership that we do in breath, in work, in life, in modalities that puts us in this situation of awareness and the ability to shift something.But I see a whole lot of time and we both coach entrepreneurs a whole lot of like, I don't know why this happened and this happened and they did this to me and they did this to me and it's like an advocation of responsibility and it was so subtle when you said it, but it's so powerful to hear you talk about it.Can you unpack that a little bit of like the difference between, you know, my business partner failed and walked away versus like I created this challenge.ALEX:   Yeah, no question George. So. Years ago. I read this book. I think I can't remember who it was by, but I think it might've been Mark Victor Hansen. I think it was called the millionaire messenger.And it was a book that you read in two directions. So very interesting book where it had kind of a nonfiction and a fiction book together. I don't remember a ton about that book. I remember on one page, they had this graphic and it was the word responsibility with a line and underneath it blame and then underneath it said live above the line.And I remember that I actually have that on my well now with a couple of other equations that we've created as a company. But that responsibility over blame. I remember when I read it, I saw it and it was so 19. I'm like, no, you can blame. You can still like, yeah, you don't have to take responsibility for everything.And that was a journey that was probably a few years of like really working through that and understanding it. And then I remember one day it just clicked, you know, as honorable the faster we realized that we are for everything and we can take responsibility for everything. The faster we start to actually control our lives, create our destiny and be able to go in the direction that we want.I used to be the same as most people when I was younger and I had my business. You know, 911 happened for about eight weeks before. One of our biggest events when I owned a huge events company in Latin America. And I remember it happening and having the feelings of like, how could this happen to us?How insanely selfish and egotistical was the statement. 911 happened to us. Like, as I say it right now, I actually get kind of sick feeling in my stomach that I ever thought that way. But I remember actually saying it out loud and not even feeling like not feeling the. Body reactions and negative feelings, you should feel of making a statement that egotistical, which in retrospect shows me just how separated I was from my true self, just how detached I was.And as entrepreneurs what we work with our members on is responsibility over blame. Like how do you live in a world where you take responsibility for everything that's going on? And I have people, especially in today's timeframe, say things like, Oh, well, you can't be responsible for COVID.Sure you can be responsible for your reactions. You can be responsible for how you show up. You can be responsible for what you're going to allow and not allow into your mind. You can be responsible for how you lived through this situation. And, you know, I always tell people the bigger, the crisis, the bigger, the opportunity there's going to be more self billionaires made in this timeframe that at any other timeframe in the human history, And anyone who wants to argue that?Just go look, it's all ready. Oh, ready? We're all. We're only six or seven months in and look at the hundreds of billions of dollars of company value that has been added to the companies that we're well positioned and ready to go forward. And I think for us that's one of the things that are not for us, for me.That's one of the things that's really shifted for me is that now, regardless of what it is, I take responsibility and I put this on Facebook the other day. One of the observations that finally got through I've learned so much of what I understand in business and so much of what I know about relationships and how to create momentum as an entrepreneur has been observational.And one of the observations that has become crystal clear over time is that the more successful and entrepreneur. The more quickly, they turn every obstacle into an opportunity. The more quickly they turn every crisis into an opportunity. I've been around people that regardless of what's going on, they're just constantly shifting to housing and opportunity.How is this an opportunity? Most negative thing in their entire life. How can I create something better out of this? How do I grow from this? How do I move from this and that? You know, not that I'm a hundred percent there. I don't think, I don't know that I ever will be, but I'm so much closer to seeing everything as an opportunity.Than I ever was before. And so when Covid hit, I actually had somebody text me after one of my lives. And they're like, Hey man, it sounds like you're hearing the crisis sign. I'm like, Oh dude, that is not the impression I want to give. I'm not sharing it on. But I am fully conscious that this is the biggest opportunity a lot of us have had, and we should admit that to ourselves and get ready for it and go out and change the world because the world needs us now more than it ever  has.GEORGE:   totally.I think too, and you nailed this and, Oh man, there's so much here and you, and I think we might've been separated at birth at this point, which is so. Yeah, no, no, it was, it was like, and for those of you wondering like only like 32 people or so have my phone number and Alex doesn't give his out connected years ago.Never really talked to him. We both realized we both had our numbers in our phones,  totally.I think too, and you nailed this and, Oh man, there's so much here and you, and I think we might've been separated at birth at this point, which is so. Yeah, no, no, it was, it was like, and for those of you wondering like only like 32 people or so have my phone number and Alex doesn't give his out connected years ago.and we were like, okay, there's a reason. And the timing and everything. And what you said, Alex, Uh, it's about the pursuit of turning things into opportunities, not the perfection of what it looks like.And I think as an entrepreneur for me, you know, cause my ego needs some love at this point in this moment. So I'm going to make a statement, you know, because I'm learning so much in this time. But when I think about it, for me, one of the things that I really fell in love with after processing the belief around it was that there is no finish line, but it's what I choose to do every day about it.And. You know, there were parts of COVID like I lost over a million dollars under contract. I lost two companies and 70 grand a month in MRR in basically like 60 days. And I'm like still on paper. I'm in financially. One of the hardest places I've ever been in. And I'm the happiest and clearest I've ever been.And it wasn't an overnight, it was a, I feel like, crap, what am I going to do today? I feel like crap, what am I going to focus on today? And instead of it taking six months or three years, eight years of depression, it took like a week and it was, I feel this way. I acknowledge how I feel. That's not going to change.What am I going to do about it then that created the opportunity for opportunity. Like it created the ability to see the opportunity. Yes. It's like when we sit in these rooms as entrepreneurs, consider it a virtual room of made of Rome, a metaphorical room, whatever you want to call it. I say this all the time, you know, from breath work and the therapy trauma that I've done in the work that I've done in personal defense.And it's like the worst thing you can stay as stock. We are evolutionary creatures. We are supposed to evolve. We are supposed to move forward. And you know, I heard this the other day and it's like, you want to know what anxiety is? It's unused energy move. Yeah. And I was like, Whoa, like I've been doing it for years, but it was this simple thing.But then when I think about the compartment of entrepreneurship, what is anxiety, I'm like it's stagnation in our biggest enemy, which is our brain. It knows our fears. It knows our insecurities. It knows our habits. It knows our addictions. And yet we think we can out convince it that somehow we're going to feel better about it.Where, what you talk about this is how I feel. I'm aware. This is how I feel. Breath gets you there. Cold therapy gets you there. Movement gets you there. Okay. If this is how I feel, I have two choices. I can either succumb to this feeling and surrender and die, or I can acknowledge it, which that this feeling is here.And I can take a step in a different direction. And it's something that like I've been obsessing about, like on a different level of obsession. And it's probably had one of the most profound effects on everything in my life. And, you know, financially to gain will come and it has already, but even outside of that, like the happiness, the joy, and go back to deployments.Like I remember like I'll never forget. I hit some, all I'm about to cry. I hit Somalia. When I was 19 years old, I just turned 20 and I spent 13 months in my life and probably one of the worst places on this planet. And I'll never forget, like, seeing people wrapped in carpets on the side of the road, cause they couldn't afford to throw them out of them, burning dead by.And I was like, I was like, I'm not a tough guy. I want to go home. I didn't have a home to go to, like I left trauma to get there. And like I remember for 13 months I was like, get me out of here. Like I can't be here. I don't know habit. I didn't have that choice. So luckily I found a few people that mentored me and I found waits and I found, you know, certain therapies and things that I could do, but I'm just, I just remembered, like if I say came to any of that, I would have died.Like I would have just died. I would have just stopped moving the whole world crashed and crushed on me and it wouldn't have gotten me anywhere. And it took me a long time to be able to talk about it, some of these things and to process them in for me, what I struggle with sometimes is that like, what I saw is like 1% of what some of my friends saw.Like 1% and I can't even imagine, you know, what that was there, but I think the biggest thing that I always took away from everything, and I thank the Marine Corps for this is like, I wasn't given the chance to stop. I wasn't. It was like, Hey, and like we say this, like, Oh, they don't want you to feel, no, they do.They don't really totally do, but they don't want you to stop. And it's this thing of like this pursuit for full word and growth and movement as we go. And so, you know, with what you're saying, The one thing that I wanted to hit and this is a really big one and this is so subtle, but when I did personal film, I was getting coached and they were teaching the distinction versus responsibility.Victim versus responsible victim versus responsible, right. They really push the boundary on the belief of this, right? Like a hundred percent responsible, a hundred percent of the time. And it was this interesting thing because we would get in trouble for saying, I take responsibility. And I was like, I don't get it.I'm taking they're like, you can't take it. You never didn't eat. There was no point in which you never had it. ALEX:   There's no point in what you gave it up. And so you can't take it backGEORGE: You just feel like it did. And this distinction, like, it probably took me 10 years to understand, because there's so many times in business, right.Or as a consultant or with a student, or even in my own business, I like, Oh, I'll take it. And then I have to be like, Oh wait, no way. That was mine. The whole time. Yeah. And it's like this embodiment of it that is powerful. Like when we think about it. And so I didn't, I've never, I've never talked about a lot of the stuff that I, I experienced, like from a mindset perspective, they don't think I've ever been in the point to like really, um, process us.But you know what I love about you, Alex, and what I, you, you have this childlike curiosity and excitement mast with this tight container of structure that basically guaranteed success. ALEX: Thank you, but I appreciate thatGEORGE: Like, um, yeah, like I'm surprised I'm not walking around in diapers is my son's out of them. Like at that level of management. Cause there's times I feel like that, but you know, with that, I think what's so important and so powerful from like what I noticed with you. It's like when you get self-aware right.So you were talking about basically being, self-aware identifying what's here, understanding that we're responsible understanding that, you know, results equals opportunity depending on how we choose to see it. What I also love about that is that as you do this work on yourself, that awareness gives you a tool to see possibility versus resistance, right?And again, gives you the ability to react or not to react, to respond on a diamond pivot. Because there's no insecurity ridden. And I think about the times as an entrepreneur or where I was stuck and it was stocked because I had a belief that I was supposed to look a certain way, or it was supposed to be a certain way.And here's the news, flash entrepreneurship is basically a guaranteed. It's not going to look like you think it is every day of every moment for the rest of your life. Right. It's a commitment to chaos and it, and it's navigating that. And so in your, in your journey, and, and you've been in this game a long time, I mean, you, I don't even remember this specific you got, but like single-handedly denting the real estate crash market recovery and, you know, building like half a billion dollar businesses and I'm over here doing it for everybody else, but myself.And I'm a self jab on that one, but Oh, well, George, I've done some of that  myself too.ALEX:  I've you know, and, and I just, I don't want to, I don't want to like leave you on the hook there as a coach, as a consultant. One of the things that I'm now dealing with at 47 is that I've helped hundreds of entrepreneurs build businesses bigger than I have.And, and I, you know, I really like year before last, I sat down with Katie and I'm like, you know, Katie. I've done this too many times for other people this time, the business plan has to include us doing it for  ourself.and this is, this is like my realization really in just like the past 24 to 30 months.And when the reason we restarted this company from scratch was energetic, not legal or anything else. It was, we wanted to shut everything down and start over. Cause this is going to be different. Yeah. And so July of 2017, Katie and I hit the reset button, shut everything down, went down to no team members started from zero, and this is the business that we're going to create the success out of that. just like, we help other peopleGEORGE:  I'm  for those of you listening, if you can't tell, like I've been an Alex fan boy for a long time, but like out of, out of respect, like out of like genuine, pure. Respect because there's these things like we, Alex, and I joke a lot.We talk about the state of the industry that we're in. We're probably going to unpack that in a little while, but yeah. You know, like people don't even pretend to be like snakes in the grass anymore. They're like, no, no, no, no. I don't care if the grass is there not, I want you to see me. And like, there's these people that walk it and they talk it and they believe it and they do it.And it's congruency. And Alex is one of those people, which I hide, we admire and respect. And I think it's an important point. Alex is an entrepreneur. I don't know about you, but you know, for me, I needed to build it for other people. To get those lessons, to have the awareness and understand why I was doing it to then be able to come in and be like, Oh, I still get to do it.And I think healed that part of me that didn't think I was good enough that I could only do it for other people. And also give myself a back door out of those daily routines and commitments and structure that would prove my core trauma wrong as a child. That I'm not good enough because that's really what it is like for me.If for me, it was like, Oh, it's so easy. I'll go, I'll diagnose your problems. I'll give you the things. I'll help you do it. I'll pour all my energy into you. Then you'll like me, and then I'll be good enough. And then at the same time I'm living on that dopamine and validation will also deny my own sovereignty of that.I can do this and I know this. And then the belief system there, and the pain that I had to experience was you do deserve this. You can have a bigger impact this way, but you're good enough. And, and that had to happen in silence. Yeah. You're worth it. Right. Like for me, my core wound is I'm not good enough.ALEX:  I'm having like so many different, like first, I just want you to know this is a very validating conversation. And when you operate at the level that you and I operate as entrepreneurs, they're not maybe not the level, but when you operate at the level of awareness that we operate up.You often become, you often get invalidated because the other people around you don't even understand the conversation. Right. You know, I think what you just said, that is so true for so much of my career. Now, in retrospect, it's only, you see this in retrospect, I was not in the pursuit of success for myself, cause I didn't feel worthy.And I actually felt like the people around me were so much better than I was. That I put all my energy into helping those people all my time in it.  Other people get become far more successful than I was because in so many ways I still felt like I was, you know, the, the short, you know, Mex, lat, Latin American accent, chubby kid in school.Cool. That everybody made fun of it. And I really, you know, when I was at, I did not have a lot of friends. I had a really challenging childhood. I wasn't good at relationships and all of that carried forward to the business world to the point where. But, it made me an incredible consultant because I wanted to help everybody so bad so that I would get validation and be okay and be worthy and not be that kid that I was running away from.And dude, Oh man, now I'm going to get emotional. And, um,as time went on, what I realized was, and what I am realizing is that I could honor that kid. And that I could actually love that child,and be okay with who I used to be and understand why I was the way I was and understand everything that I went through. And the more that I was able to process it and be aware of it.And the more I was able to let go of the common entrepreneurial belief that  other people had it worse than I was. You kind of said it earlier. It's like a habit for us. As soon as we claim any type of trauma, we almost, I have to let out this relief valve. Oh well, but it wasn't as bad for me. You know, there was other people who had them and it wasn't that bad for me and it, but I I'm just going to claim a little bit of it.Yep. And the reality is every entrepreneur I've ever worked with has trauma that needs to be explored and validated and understood so that they can show up in the world the way that they want to, and the excessive reactivity that we carry around with us and the feelings we carry around with us, you know, George's, it's, it's one of the things that drives us into pursuit because.Here. Here's where I am today in my career. I understand that the goal is not the goal. The goal is the journey. Yes, it really is. It's the process it's going through it because here's what I know as an entrepreneur, as I have this analogy or theory that we are evolutionary hunters and I call it an analogy.But to me, I really do think this is evolutionary fact. We are that small percentage of the population that gets up every morning. Can't turn the motor off. It's always running we can't relax. We don't sit right. And we have this innate motivation to go into the future, create a new reality, come back to the present and then demand.It becomes real, no matter what we put up with. But the reality is, is no matter what goal or outcome or whatever it is that we put out there, as we are crossing the finish line, it loses all importance to us. As we're approaching the finish line, we start going, does this really matter? And it's because if you think about, if we're evolutionary hunters, The goal was never  the hunt just keeps the tribe alive.The goal is you go back on the hunt. Yeah. The goal is you stay hunting. The goal is keep doing it over and over again. And there's food for everybody for the whole time that we needed. And so, you know, I look at it, I, I feel like we are programmed to be in pursuit, but not really finished. And so the whole goal is entrepreneurs is how do you keep.How do you keep creating that future? That is compelling enough and bright enough and exciting enough and engaging enough that you do what it takes to put yourself through the crucible. GEORGE: Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. When you said, and by the way, thank you for the accountability on the, uh, I had it way worse or they had it.ALEX: it twice this week in my own event. I said, and then, and I even pointed out like, Hey, I just use the release valve. I want everyone to know that that's like an unhealthy behavior of invalidating yourselfGEORGE: And it's basically saying, I don't believe in myself enough, or I'm not in my space or power enough to own the fact that this was my truth.Yeah. And, and what I'm looking for. And quite frankly, as everybody wants to get into the monitor, George, what I'm looking for is for you too, without realizing and liked me a little bit  more because I experienced that while also add vacating it and doing it in a very subtle manipulative way and not in a bad manipulative way at heart bins in our subconscious all the time.Um, but this is why I love having friends like Alex, we get to talk about these things. Um, And the real, the real stuff. Well, I think what's so important about the real stuff. Alex is like, we talk about this, right? And we were talking about like, why we did what we did and why we consult them, why we still consult.And what I love is looking back. Cause I love my process through all of it. Like I had to do that. I had to learn that I had to be there. I had to not get that check. They had to not pay me that million dollars. Like I had to have all that happen. And now looking at it too the other side of it for me is I never understood the consequences of doing it for everybody else.The amount of sacrifices and collateral damage I caused because I wanted everybody else to like me versus everybody else respect me. And it was like, I'll go to a dinner. I didn't need to be at that dinner. I'll go to an event. I didn't need to be at that event. I'll go to that meeting. That was not a meeting.Like there were all these like ego fests that were. You know, validation collection, dopamine collection causing collateral damage and the ones I think that we swore as entrepreneurs, that we were doing it  "right". Like I'm doing it for my family. I'm like, well now pretty sure. My three year old son, isn't going to be like, daddy, don't go to them zoo with me, or don't see me for three days because you go to this meeting because you want these people to like you versus do the work that it's there.And I think, you know, if I could give a gift to any entrepreneur, uh, it's the gift of awareness of the. The impact and the consequences, both positive and negative. That happened when we do advocate that sovereignty as entrepreneurs. And we, and we get into that because it took me a long time. And I think it's still a practice, but it's a practice that I've, I love at this point.Like I kind of love saying no at this point. Sure. Can you do now? Why we don't need to, like, we have a dinner meeting. I'm like, no, we can have a zoom meeting. I'm not leaving. Right. ALEX: Well, you get to the point where it's saying no, actually becomes the dopamine hit because you have, I mean, and this takes a while, so I don't want anyone listening, not to think that it's going to happen by Monday, but what happens is.When you stop abdicating the responsibility, you have to create the life you want. And you start actually, cause man, George, when you were just talking about going to the meeting and doing this and doing that you just described like most of my thirties,  if there's, if there was an attention, getting the opportunity, I was in that attention, getting an opportunity with a whole line of justification for it.If there was a time and I got tons of opportunities, if I could get up on it. Really important stage with famous people. Like I was there no matter what. And a lot of the time it was for nothing else than the ego hit. Like really, it didn't even really build our business and build notoriety, but it was just building an ego hit. And I, when I look back at so much of that need for approval that need for validation that need for confirmation as an entrepreneur, when you finally realized that is so much of the, almost the automatic programming that's running, the decisions you're making, when you can start backing out of that and rising to a level of intention, everything changes.I had this really confronting Meaning with a coach of mine. I had this coach a while ago named Kirk Dando, super talented two guy and, um, Kirk and I became friends. That's why he was working with me. Most of the work that he did was with privately funded companies where he took a percentage and he was like a non named board member in dozens of companies.And we became friends. So he, he started working with me and we did a few, one days and he did a 360 for me and came in and interviewed my team. And he was doing the delivery of the 360. And we were in the middle of like, what about my team and what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. And he said, you know what, Alex.You don't have investors behind you. Let's just cut the BS, man. What's the most important thing in your world. And the reason he said you didn't have investors behind you is cause I had options. Most of his CEOs didn't have options. He said that he was like, you have options. Let's talk about this. I said, well, George, that's not George.I said, Kirk, that's easy. The most important thing in my world is Katie and my kids. And he goes, great. Let's take five minutes, get your calendar out and get your bank account out. And let's look at your spending time and spending money on Katie and your kids. And that way we can see if you're growing and you're the most important thing in your world.And I know he could see the blood drain out of my face. Cause at that point it was like getting called to the principal's office. I remember immediately thinking, Oh, there's no way my calendar or my bank account are going to show any type  of like allegiance or affiliation to my family. Because up to, and including in the time I was with Kirk, I had been pushing them aside to get all this stuff done.And here's, what's interesting that meaning changed things. I actually went back to my room and sat down with Katie and I'm like, Katie, Kirk asked me this question that kind of knocked me backwards and I shared it with her and we talked about it for a long time. And from that point forward, I started shifting and I started saying, I need to assign responsibility to the things that are important to me.I needed to put more time to things that are important to me. You know, and, and I, I started building process, structure and routine around what was important to me. It's structured have spend time with family structure to make sure I was connected with my daughters structure to make sure that Katie and I had the time that we needed, otherwise, everything else just competes and wins.And here's, what's interesting, George by demand. Yeah. Ending the space and time for myselfby making that the most important thing. Suddenly my decision making in business got infinitely better. And almost overnight, we started moving in the right direction rather than spinning our wheels and not having things happen.And this is the thing that always like for most people feels like an oxymoron. When you first started doing this, I was putting less time in, but getting more results because when you start throwing up the constraints that are important, you look at time differently and you spend it differently. When you start allocating time to where you should be, not what you know to where you actually, when I say should be when you started actually allocating time around.What you want your life to look like your business will shift in a way that it actually gets to be the business that you want. You start building an organization that you really want. You start doing the things that you want. And it's interesting today at 47, you know, we, we, like I said, we reset a few years ago.We're around a little, little over 2.1 or 2.2 million in recurring revenue, right? Yeah. Now we're building this company completely differently. I'm, I'm absolutely not responsible for delivering. I built myself out of a lot of the responsibilities. And today I have a  business that I love working with people that are like incredibly fun people to work with.And I'm more focused on people development than anything else right now. Cause that's where we're going to grow the nexttime in our business. But what's most important is I wake up every morning. I align with my kids. They hang out with me, they know what we do. We talk openly. There's a completely different dialogue in our house.And all of that, I think makes me not think all of that I know. Makes me the entrepreneur I actually want to be, and it actually allows me to start making decisions for the person I'm becoming instead of the person I'm running away from. Yeah. And I think for entrepreneurs, you know, I think that the same, I've heard the same, say, you know, make the decisions for the person you're becoming, not the person you are.And I'm like, that's not how it works for entrepreneurs. We either make decisions for the person we're becoming or the person we're running away from. We don't make decisions for the person. We never get to the place where you're making decisions in the moment because we don't live in the present. Nope.What that small percentage of the population that doesn't really even deal well with the no.GEORGE: That's why we have to practice breathALEX: That's what I, you know, what was I did it this morning. I did like, like three huge empty breath holds this morning and just like feeling the experience of whether my body was calling for oxygen or my mind.And where was it coming from and how does this make me react during the day? And, you know, I get up from breathwork sessions now I laid down on my floor and do a breathwork session. I actually feel like I'm in the present moment for a period of time. Yeah. It's interesting. You like get up and you're like, Whoa, the world is really intense if you're here, you know?GEORGE: Yeah. That's why I get up so early in the morning, like I used to get up at four 30 for my ego to show everybody I got up at four 30. Now I get up at three 30 now I get up at three 30, so nobody knows. And like, people think I'm nuts, but I was like, I wake up with my kids at six and when I was getting before 35, like my, I would get home, my son will be awake. My wife wanted to sleep in, but she'll be up. And I was like, am I doing this? And I was like, I'm doing this for the wrong reasons. Like if I get up at three 30, I get. Two and a half hours of alone time I'm home before my son wakes up, I'm done with my writing. I'm completely present for the day. I'm supporting my wife with what she wants based on her job and like her responsibilities.And I was like, yeah, that feels better. Like, and that's like, and like, by the way, I don't listen to music. I don't listen to podcasts. I work out in silence and I'd say five out of six times a week, I'm crying, I'm yelling, I'm looking at myself in the mirror. Like I'm a silver back gorilla and patting my chest and then crying two minutes later.Like I'm processing whatever's coming up in that moment you know, one of the things, yeah, ALEX:   Let's not run past that because that, what you just said is so crucial. So let me, let me tell you how I used to work out. Yeah. So what I would do is, and this is during my four 30 in the morning taking a picture, so I could prove to everybody that I did it.So when I was doing the four 30 in the morning, prove to everybody that you did it, it was get up at four 30 in the morning, drink coffee, then wait about 20 or 30 minutes, drink a pre-workout because the coffee wasn't enough. You need to back it up with a pre-workout. Then go into the gym, close the doors.And we had a gym in our home. We close the doors, put towels under the doors. And then put on like limp biscuit or something ridiculous where it's just screaming and raging and yelling, and then get myself into a state where I could lift weights and not feel it. So I would get myself into fight or flight and then fight for an hour and a half with my gym.And it was like going, you know, and, and I don't mean to use this term in a way that indicates that I don't understand what it is really like to go to war because I don't want to minimize anything. Guys. What guys like you and the people that you were around, did George. But I feel like I went to my own little private one in the gym every morning.Totally. And, and it was cause it was instead of feeling the feelings and moving through them, it was creating so much noise and so much pain that I could push the feelings away. Yep. And, you know, I, I remember at my biggest, I looked back, it was probably like seven or eight years ago. I was about 240 pounds and going on Fox news.And I remember like seeing myself in the suit, my shoulders didn't fit in the screen. I looked completely inflamed. My neck and my head were kind of one thing. And recently a person on my team found an old Wistia video on me on Fox. And she's like, man, I saw Alex on Fox news from a while ago. I'm so glad I worked for this Alex and not that guy. Just watching the videos. He could tell, like how, how accelerated and how angry and , how detached I was. And I think, yeah. So many entrepreneurs think that they're, they're doing this incredible thing, working out and getting themselves in shape. And then I watched the workouts on not online and I'm like, man, why that might not be going in the right direction.GEORGE: Workouts for me are a tool like breath and they didn't use to be, they used to be an escapism for me. Right. And trust me, I was doing three days. I taught a world record for standing box shop. I was a competitive CrossFit athlete. Like my numbers are stupid. Stupid right. I'm five, seven. I can dunk. There's like, it's not mind blowing.And I was also dead lifting like six, 15 squatting, like five 85. I weighed 170 pounds. Like it was gnarly. Nowhere does that help me be a better human to my family? Right. But my ego loved it. ALEX: Standing there practicing the jump box jumper.Oh yeah. At one point I went not being a runner to actually going out and winning races in Austin, winning five Ks, 10 Ks, like going out and getting first, second or third place. And if there was a Clydesdale division, I always wanted it. 7,000 person race. I was first placed in Clydesdale. I was 240 pounds and I was the first place in Clydesdale.Because I was willing to do whatever it took. I finished that race and threw up about seven or eight times. Cause I pushed my body so hard. I still got first place. That was all I cared about. But I look back now and I'm like, dude not only will you, not in your body, you weren't in Austin during that?GEORGE:  and then given more trauma and then came out without doing any of the work.And I remember my wife's like, you know, you should do personal development. Like I read books. That was my answer. Yeah. That didn't go well fast forward, eight years. And there we go. And now we're here we are now. Um, but yeah, I was, and then I had this like really big shift after my son was born where I realized like, wow, I can be in shape if I want, I can look, however I want, I can function however I want, but it's also a tool like it's an hour and a half a day or two hours a day that if I utilize it correctly, I can do it.I'll never forget. I was in the jungle with a shaman and, you know, lots of wise wisdom come from shamans to me.  You know, one of them was like talking about relationships happening for a reason season or lifetime. And then you know, then a personal development teacher looked at me one day scrolling, and I said, what are you pretending not to know?Which hit me like a ton of bricksand then somebody else is like, what are you trying to avoid feeling? And that was the one that got me and it was the feeling part. Right. And so then I like looked at my day and I was challenged by Shaman said, I want you to eliminate. Any music with lyrics for 30 days, just get rid of it, get rid of it.Okay, cool. And I would listen to like music, like upbeat music, like I wasn't into like bitches and hoes, like all that stuff. And you know, but I would listen to music, but I would listen to music that allowed me to be romantic about who I used to be, or pretend that something was going to shift for me by doing nothing.And it was programming my brain into like the stagnation. And I was like, okay, cool. And I remember it was one of the hardest things ever to not have the radio on, in the car because what did I have to be present? I had to be with whatever was coming up and then going to the gym. I was like, okay. Right.And I'm like, don't lift. And all of a sudden I lost a hundred pounds on lift because I didn't have anything to like put me into that sympathetic state. And it was crazy, crazy what happened. And then for a wild, like this adoption period, I started to fall in love with it. And then I realized that. When I was there, the days that I was present and grounded, I felt like in my body and like emotionally good, I was lifting like crazy.And then there were days that like, It hurt to do a warmup and then I would scream or I would cry or I would laugh or I be like, I don't want to be here today. And then I could never walk out the door, but I was literally in the moment experiencing my experience and my feelings and it kind of became therapy for me.I rank it out? Can I yank it out? And then, or where can I go plug into somebody else's world to avoid mine? Right. Right.And then it was like, I have more work to do. I have more work to do. I have more work to enlist and entrepreneurs, your list will never end. And that's why it's so important. Like when you talk about structure, Alex structure gives us the container because no matter what we do, we're going to fill it. So if you give yourself a 24 hour container, you're going to find ways to fill it.But if you give yourself a two hour container, you'll fill it, but you also have to fill it with the stuff that moves the needles, move the levers and eliminates the bullshit. And that's been one of those things for me that I think in what you do and there's this belief like this paradigm around entrepreneurship, right?Like I can do whatever I want. I can do whatever I want. And I was like, yes. And you have to realize that the moment you start being that is you lose the thing that built it and you end up right back where you started. ALEX: Yeah. Yeah. I love Maxwell's. You know, John, there's a lot of stuff that John Maxwell's put out that I just, that is so true.It's just truth. And he has this chart of  the more leadership responsibility you have, the less freedom you have. And it's this very confronting belief system that the more responsibility I take on as a leader the less freedom that you actually have. And what you're doing is you're exchanging that freedom for making a massive contribution.And I think that. People want to argue. I have entrepreneurs all the time. Like one argue that and debate it. Yeah. And I always like at the end of the day, if you'd want to debate it, you can. But the fact is right only going to slow you down over time. And man George, that was intense. What you just shared because I think it's probably seven or eight years ago.It's definitely living in this house. I know, because in my gym here, I have a huge sound system and I built it so that I could go down into the gym. So I didn't hear anything in the world. I didn't even hear the weights clanking together because that sound was so high. I probably haven't turned that on in six or seven years, because now I look at my workouts, totally different.My workouts used to be an escape. It used to be like, go in, check out, get all this stuff done, working out with your body and then come out. But really not a lot of recall or recollection of what happened. And I, and a lot of like feeling here, like I did something, but not really connecting to everything that happened in the gym.Yeah. Yeah. I love Maxwell's. You know, John, there's a lot of stuff that John Maxwell's put out that I just, that is so true.It's just truth. And he has this chart of  the more leadership responsibility you have, the less freedom you have. And it's this very confronting belief system that the more responsibility I take on as a leader the less freedom that you actually have. And what you're doing is you're exchanging that freedom for making a massive contribution.And I think that. People want to argue. I have entrepreneurs all the time. Like one argue that and debate it. Yeah. And I always like at the end of the day, if you'd want to debate it, you can. But the fact is right only going to slow you down over time. And man George, that was intense. What you just shared because I think it's probably seven or eight years ago.It's definitely living in this house. I know, because in my gym here, I have a huge sound system and I built it so that I could go down into the gym. So I didn't hear anything in the world. I didn't even hear the weights clanking together because that sound was so high. I probably haven't turned that on in six or seven years, because now I look at my workouts, totally different.My workouts used to be an escape. It used to be like, go in, check out, get all this stuff done, working out with your body and then come out. But really not a lot of recall or recollection of what happened. And I, and a lot of like feeling here, like I did something, but not really connecting to everything that happened in the gym.GEORGE: Like the guy over here covered in tattoos that had a blue Mohawk. When you met him, Right. Like that guyALEX:  Something like that. You know, it was like, I'm never going to be in a place of being traumatized again by a room I'm gonna walk in and have everyone back at, you know, take a step back and.Now, you know, when I go work out, one of the, I have for a workout is a dry erase pen. My whole gym is surrounded in mirrors and there are so often I will be in the middle of a set. And this is like the Cardinal sin of working out. You're like almost to the place where you're done and I'll just drop the weight it's and go write down everything that just came to me.Yeah. Because yeah. Now it's more important. The realization is more important than finishing this app. And the belief system, you know, the beliefs that I can work through and the processing that I do is so much more important than the weight that I'm lifting. And I remember there was a point in my life where if I had a workout where the next workout, I didn't do more. I couldn't deal. It was demoralized thousand percent out. I don't even feel it. I'm like, wow, that was a great workout. I lifted half the weights, but look at the whiteboardGEORGE:  Well, even, even the point of like stopping a set, like way to diminish seven reps of progress. RightALEX: It's like, man, I just threw it all away. Yeah. And you know, the, the, like the beliefs that we built when we're in the gym, the last set is where you earn over the last rep is where you earn it. So you're always chasing the last rep. Now I'm like, man, I don't want to lose this thought. GEORGE: Well, and then like really looking at what sets us apart as leaders.Right? Cause we're, we're when we say entrepreneurial, we're talking about leaders, we're talking about the small percentage of the world, right. That's willing to stand in a new belief system and I love the way that you described, like going into the future, but really. You know, when I wrote my personal mission statement for my life it's to stand with structure in the face of resistance to create possibility.Like, that's it. That's, that's what we do. And it's like, it's actually, the wind was when you made a commitment and you kept your word with integrity to get to the gym. You've already won. Everything at that point is bonus. Right? It's strengthening it's fortification it's reflection. It's you know, and like, yeah, if you have 30 pounds to lose and you do one wrap, like don't expect a result, but be aware of like, what's there, but it's really the intention that we put behind everything.And when you say it, right, you got up, yes. You create the structure and you commit to the routine and that's, it's the combination of those things. That is the wind. And you, I mean, I'm the same way, except for me right now, I realized. You know, in the last couple of years, I fell out of love with myself again, like at a deep, deep, deep level.And I was looking at it and I was working out crazy before lockdown. And I was like, okay, cool. And I was like, I'm posting videos every day. And I was like, looking back when it locked down and I didn't have a gym, we went up to the mountains and I was like, man, I really don't want to do anything. I don't want to do anything.I don't want to do anything. And I literally was like, why. And I was like, because I can't, because I don't like why I'm doing it. And I don't know why I want to. And I gained a lot of weight again, and I fell in love with my dad bod, but I gained a dad bought first.  And then I looked at it and then I was playing with my son and I'm up here and I'm like, You know, this isn't what I want.And I was like, why? And I was like, I somehow fell out of love with myself, or this was an opportunity where I hadn't fully loved myself yet. Like, I hadn't loved where I was versus the guy with the big muscles or the tattoos, or could do this. Wait. So it was really interest because I started working out again and it feels different.It feels different. And then all of a sudden I wanted to get up here and it felt different and my workouts are very different. It felt different and I'm not humble, bragging. Like I just enjoy the process, but what's really interesting, Alex is I went through this point and I always wear like cutoff shirts.I won't take my shirt off. I still was struggling with self-consciousness and everything else. And then this, then I'm going to cry. But like 35 days ago, I went to the gym one morning and I was like, I'm not working out with a shirt on. I get to look at myself. Every moment of every rep every day. And every time I look in the mirror, I just get to tell myself I love myself.And it's a really interesting, because I started this challenge with my, with my business partner to lose weight, right. Like I was like, okay, I'm two 10, my fighting weights, like one 75. I want to be back there. 55 days of eating ma

Keith Burwell with Precision 1 Apparel will join Aaron and Terry to discuss the ins and outs, the ups and downs of going into business with family. Common in the decorating industry, the family business can be a blessing and a curse. Keith will share his story of his family's journey into garment decorating. Plus Cheryl Kuchek with The Sublimation Summit will drop by for a quick chat about her virtual event coming up. Sponsored by: Impressions Expo. Use the Promo Code RegularGuysIE for a FREE Expo Pass! Our regular listeners know this, but 2 Regular Guys are all about garment decorating, a bit of fun, and no rants or lectures or selling. We are not doing this for our employers, but rather for our industry. Since February 2013, The 2 Regular Guys have been the first and the most listened to garment decorating industry podcast on this planet! We are humbled by all of you tuning in each week. We work hard to bring you information that will make your business better, and our industry better. Take a look at our incredible weekly guest list and you'll understand where this industry goes for news, interviews and the heartbeat of garment decorating. Thanks for listening! News Our good friend Katie Ditallo is leaving the NBM Show after 11 years. In fact, today is her last day. So Katie, thanks for all the great info you've shared with the regulators here on 2 Regular Guys. We'll miss you and wish you the greatest success out there beyond the decorators' world! Cheers, Katie!ColDesi Adds BestBlanks.com to Family of Brands - Tampa, Florida-based ColDesi Inc., a reseller of customization equipment, announces the addition of BestBlanks.com to the company's family of brands.Dad Joke: What did the instructor at the school for Kamikaze pilots say to his students? Watch closely. I'm only going to do this once. Family Business Terry: We'd like to welcome in Keith Burwell with Precision One Apparel. Precision One started in 2006 with Keith and his father and sister, in a small town in Northern California. The business started in the garage for printing and out of Keith's sign shop for sales. They now have 6000 sq ft. Keith says they went through what he calls 3 phases. Dad has retired and Keith's sister left the company. Over the last couple of years Keith has upgraded all the equipment, expanded, and like so many of us, has been battling through COVID.Aaron: Keith, let's start here. Talk about the evolution of being in business together with your family from how it started to where you are now.Terry: Did you all talk about the pitfalls of working with family? And what are the pitfalls that you see?Aaron: If there are pitfalls, there must be benefits. What are the benefits you see of working with your family?Terry: How as a family business were decisions made? Did everyone have a vote? Was one person in charge and the final decision maker?Terry: It's common in this industry for it to be a family affair. Go down the checklist our listeners should follow when considering this.Aaron: Let's shift quickly here because we got to meet you and hang out at ThreadX this year. You participate in a lot of industry groups and education, so tell us about what that does for your business. Aaron: Keith, tell us how our listeners can reach out to you. Facebook Live Video Other Events OurSuccessGroup.Com - Next Level Business TrainingThe Success Tracker - Program from OSG, to get people started on achieving their goals.Master of Success Inner Circle - The next level for people who are serious about their success. Bi-Weekly Mastermind Groups on top of the industry-leading business training.Aaron's Online Video Series "Small Business Saturdays" #SBSVideos Every SaturdayCheck out the Podcast version at SmallBusinessSaturdaysPodcast.comDemystifying Next Level Digitizing Online Training from Erich CampbellThe Take-up with Erich Campbell - Friday's at 2:30 Mountain TimeYour Style Guide eBook by Jay BusselleComplete Screen Printing Business CourseAtlas C...

On today's episode, the brother and sister duo of the #DontTellMomPodcast are split up this week cause everybody has come down with the sickness! So Katie fills in this week and her and Cullen talk about something that recently happened that they haven't mentioned yet... Don't Tell Mom MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/donttellmom-2 Last Episode: Meet "Sean of the South", Your New Favorite Southerner! (ft. Sean Dietrich) Don't Tell Mom: e. 86 - https://youtu.be/EdMWWvhIeW4 Cullen's IG: @culligan27 Britany's IG: @thesouthernfriedmapleleafs DTM's IG: @donttellmompodcast Don't Tell Mom Website: thedonttellmompodcast.com/ #BreakIn #CallingThePolice Subscribe: www.youtube.com/donttellmompodcast --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/donttellmom/support

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:1:11 - 2:31Carole: My name is Carole and I'm passionate about Japanese fashion and hopefully bringing it into community.Katie Anderson: My name is Katie, I am passionately working at this point to build community around fashion with Carole.Katie B: So fashion but particularly Japanese fashion?Carole: Mhm.Katie B: Tell me what type of Japanese fashion?Carole: It's Lolita. Lolita is inspired by the victorian European style era. Where they, you know like the ladies wear the poofy dresses, the over the top here, the styles they wear a lot of accessories jewelry. They wear petticoats under the dresses. It's kind of like that.2:32 - 3:55Katie B: Yeah and this was brought to Japan..Carole: This was brought to Japan at the time where the women were supposed to look stereotypical, they had certain standard how they wanted the women to look but the women didn't want to look like that anymore. They wanted to be themselves so they decided that they wanted to keep it and it was the opposite of what the Japan standard was.Katie B: So in some ways, this Japanese fashion Lolita is the anti-Japanese fashion?Carole: Mhm.Katie B: Ok, the Japanese fashion for rebels, rebel women?Carole: Yeah.Katie B: So tell me how you guys know each other, Katie how do you know Carole?Katie A: Carole and I are connected through Starfire as a community building partnership, so we've been working together for probably a year and a half now.Carole: Yeah.Katie B: What does that time look like?Carole: We get together every Wednesday.Katie A: Wednesday mornings.Carole: Wednesday mornings. Until noon and we go to coffee shops and we sit down a think about what is our next step of what we want to do in the community, with Lolita or something that has to do with my interests.3:56 - 5:56Katie B: So you guys get together around something that you're interested in and what was that in the beginning what did that look like in the beginning?Carole: Well it was hard at first because I'm interested in art and so we tried to get together with some artists but that didn't pan out so well, apparently artists like to be very.. Well either they're very busy or they're very shy to do anything with anybody else. They like to do their own thing.Katie B: More like introverts?Carole: Yeah.Katie B: I guess the perception of artists is that they don't necessarily want to hang out with each other but maybe in just the way that they hang out is in smaller groups and more intimate settings. So have you found people just that one on one connection to go and do art?Carole: When I visit Rhoda, I go over to her house and she has this like garage, she has her art studio in there and I go and we do art in there and we have a meal too. She gives me advice on how to do.. What she thinks I should do with my art, like add a color or a hint of a design or something.Katie B: Tell me who Rahda is again, just kind of explain who she is.Carole: Rahda is awesome. How do I explain her?Katie A: What kind of art does she do?Carole: She makes a lot of mandalas. Her artwork is all around the city.Katie A: You were recently involved with a project she did.Carole: Oh, we made prayer flags and she had them hung up at the Music Hall.Katie B: So drilling back in the time that you're spending together is around your interests and that fit in with your interest in being connected to someone in the art world but then tell me how the fashion piece started to come into play.5:57 - 8:02Carole: I had interest in the fashion since 2014 and I've always worn like little bows and things like that here and there. But I've really wanted to actually try it so I bought one of the little dress pieces and..Katie B: This was just on your own, you just kind of went online and found what you wanted?Carole: Yeah I went online and I also had help from mom too. Yeah she helps make some of my stuff sometimes and I mean I help with the sewing too. I've always watched my mom sew and she taught me some things.Katie B: Yeah. When you guys first started what were your first initial attempts, what did that look like?Katie A: Just from my conversations with Carole, and you can tell me if I'm wrong Carole, you enjoyed art but you kind of felt like that had run its course as far as creating a project. So our plan together would be to keep up those connections you had and start fresh with a new idea. Which we started doing cosplay, so we thought we'd meet some people around cosplay.Carole: Yeah, that didn't really work out so well. Nobody really showed up.Katie B: At the cosplay meetings?Carole: Yeah, after one meeting we had like a few people but then after that nobody else started coming so it kind of stopped.Katie B: How did that feel when something you tried didn't work out?Carole: I mean it hurts because you know you put your heart into it and passion and you take your time on making like these little arts and crafts that we had.Katie B: What were the arts and crafts?Katie A: The idea was to have like when someone passed by they could just kind of join in and grab it real fast and make something without feeling like they had to be a major cosplayer.Katie B: Were there things that you learned from that and you were like ok we got to do something different?Carole: After that we just kind of figured well this is not going so well so..8:03 - 11:12Katie A: Then I think we just had some conversations around ok that's not working, what else are you interested in? So it was just some more research and we had talked a lot about fashion.Carole: Yeah.Katie A: And we went to Facebook.Katie B: Oh yes. The Facebook.Carole: Then we went to Facebook.Katie B: What did you find there? What was..Carole: There were like two Loltia groups for Ohio.Katie A: And that was something that you were involved in separately from me.Carole: Yeah but I wasn't like active, like I am now. Katie A: Yeah. Katie B: So you had already been a part of those groups on Facebook but not really actively posting on stuff. So you find them and you are like ok and you guys discover them together like hey this is something we could look into more and really at that point it's just a random group of people that you don't know in person, you just know they all like the same thing. How do you start to come up with an idea of how to meet them in person? Because the goal isn't to stay digital it's to have some sense of social connection that's live.Carole: Well somebody had asked the group like if I set up a meeting, meet up in Cincinnati what would you want? So it was kind of set up already for us.Katie A: Yeah there was a list of like thirty five things that people wanted, so we were like this is an opportunity, let's choose one and let's plan it.Carole: Yeah they wanted tea events, they wanted crafting events, they wanted it all. So we decided ok let's have a tea event and also let's have a crafting event at the tea event too. The first time we didn't do any crafting but we had a few people come out to the tea event at Essention?Katie A: Yeah, Essention Tea.Carole: Oh one of the Lolita's we met at the cafe that we always go to, her name is Breanna.Katie B: And you met her how?Carole: She came up to me because I was wearing Lolita that day, and we were working on finding like what to do with the Lolitas. And she was like, “Excuse me, are you wearing Lolita, or are you a Lolita? And I was like, “Yes.” And she was like, “Oh my gosh.”Katie B: So she just randomly saw you sitting at the coffee shop and saw this woman over there, wearing this fashion that if I saw it I wouldn't have a clue.. She obviously did and she came up and said, “Hey” she wanted to talk to you.Carole: Yeah. And she's like “I wear Lolita too.” And she was very happy. And I was like huh, somebody else knows about Lolita besides me here? And she was like “I don't really see anybody wearing it here but I saw you and I had to come rush over and get your number and then we started talking.Katie B: Ok, so the spark happened there.11:13 - 16:18Katie B: Where you there when that happened Katie?Katie A: I was there and it was like I didn't exist, it was awesome. They just went into their Lolita language and they..Katie B: What is Lolita language?Carole: We talk about like petticoats and wrist cuffs.Katie B: So then you have Breanna, and you have a Facebook group and you start with that premise of we're going to do this because this is what people in the Facebook group are saying they want, in Cincinnati, and when you got to the tea party, when you got to that day tell me the steps leading up, what made it possible? What made it successful and what the day of like how did that feel when you got there?Carole: We made a Facebook event and we invited all of the Lolita's in the group and I think by the time like a day before, it was like five people who said they could come. It only ended up being me, Katie, Breanna, and two other girls but it was a big deal because people actually showed up.Katie B: Yes, people you invited came.Carole: Yeah, we were very worried other people wouldn't be able to come because it was raining that day. It was raining and…Katie B: Oh do Lolita's not like to get wet?Carole: No if we really want to go we're going to go, it was just..Katie A: You take an hour putting your dress on you're not staying at home, right?Carole: Yes, like today I got up at six and I didn't get completely dressed, like everything together, until like 8. It takes forever to get together. So it started raining and I was like oh I wonder, and it was windy too, and I said oh I hope somebody wearing a petticoat, I hope they brought their umbrellas because it's raining. But..Katie B: See that was one of the things, everybody showed up and you were..Carole: And we had a group picture and all that.Katie A: I think one of the important things too was, was Breanna like we had already had that initial conversation, one on one, like this would be really cool right to meet up and she had felt that personal connection to her relationship with Carole.Carole: Oh yeah, because we had met before the event too.Katie B: I think that's really important that you just pointed that out because there's something about the personal invitation that makes people want to show up more than maybe with your original event, which was a cosplay event, and that was more of a like did you make a flyer for that and just invite people?Carole: We made events, we made the whole nine yards.Katie A: Right, but we hadn't been able to meet anyone kind of like who you were really really connected with, which just happened and I feel like that's how relationships are sometimes. And I think that's part of Breanna's struggle too is that she wasn't able to find someone so when she found Carole she was like we are doing this, let's plan some stuff and let's find some people. Yeah.Carole: I'll give you my number, we'll text. So every now and then before we get new dresses or something we'll text each other and be like hey it finally came and oh let me see. And then we'll send a picture of the dress and be like “Oh this would cute with this accessory or this would be cute with this color or something. Katie B: Yeah and you're pointing out that there's a connection beyond just the day of the tea event there's like stuff to talk about and things to text each other for so you have this friendship that formed. Which is awesome, and that couldn't have been forced, right? Like you had a level of serendipity just being there and showing up in community to make this random connection turn into something like a friendship, there was no formula or path or steps A to B, except for continuing to get out there and try and not giving up after that first disappointment with the cosplay event not working out, right?Carole: Yeah.Katie B: So time and..Katie A: Bravery.Katie B: Bravery.Carole: Because had it not worked out I don't know what we'd be doing.Katie A: It's almost easier to say, you know, this didn't work and let's just not do it anymore.Katie B: Right, what would you be doing do you think, if you had given up and stopped trying? What would you do instead? What are your other options?Carole: I would have been at home right now, I would have gave all the way up because that's what I did before when it didn't work out but I'm happy it worked out this time because I get to get out and meet other people and do new things. Like there's another event Sunday and they're having a brunch. The same Lolita that came to a couple of our tea events and her mom is doing Lolita now.16:19 - 18:49Katie B: So your first attempt to get something going in Cincinnati is now taken a life of its ownCarole: Yeah and now everybody wants to..Katie B: And now you're getting invited to those.Carole: Yeah.Katie B: When you think about connecting Carole you know outside of agency settings, day programs, workshops and things like that do you think that is a way of you saying like these aren't good enough?Carole: I think what I'm trying to say is that they could do better. Like the way they're doing it now is not helping anyone express themselves, I think. LIke a lot of the ways that most people or the person with a disability doesn't have a choice. They are pretty much stuck in the box but I think if you give that person a chance to express themselves then you'd be surprised.Katie B: So there's a limited options based on what the box defines as choice?Carole: They don't really give us a choice to decide anything. I think they figure because of what they see on the paper is how they should treat us but we're more than just the paper. We're human too.Katie B: Yeah, there's options like going out to eat or going to the movies but getting into what your purpose is in life there isn't much interest in exploring that.Carole: Yeah, there's other.. people have other interests besides movie or Youtube.Katie B: Does that happen at day programs? Do you watch Youtube a lot?Carole: Yes, we watch a lot of Youtube. We watch a lot of movies. We play video games or we draw. Not that I have a problem with drawing they have like open art, but I like to be told we're doing charcoal, we're doing sketching, and we don't really do that.18:50 - 20:59Katie B: Yeah, you're more interested in deepening your skill set and learning more and getting.. being taken seriously when it comes to your art. And Rhoda provides that for you in a sense of what you were saying earlier she critiques your art and says why don't you add a little color here or there, and you're learning from here but in the day program setting it might just be something like here's something to do.Carole: Here's something to do. Like I don't mind doing it but I want to learn not just here do this. Like if I go to a program I want to feel like I'm doing something I'm not just here to be babysat.Katie B: So do you feel other people that you know in the day program feel the same way? Because you're an extremely articulate person when it comes to this topic and I always like having this conversation with you because you put it so well but I wonder if some people you know who may can't articulate it this way, do they feel similarly? And how is that you know that or don't?Carole: I feel like I can always tell when someone is frustrated because of how the program is, or they want to do something but no one is listening. They're trying to tell them but they can't really tell them, I mean I can tell the staff about what they're trying to do but programs period don't really listen to the people there they just feel like you know well we have this client so we have to do this and make money. But people just want to feel like they're heard, and they're not heard a lot. And it's frustrating because when we come to the program we have all these nice things but we aren't getting to where we are supposed to be getting.Katie B: So it looks like a good program on the outside..Carole: It looks like a good program on the outside but on the inside it's different.21:00 - 21:44Katie B: Yeah, living it day to day is different, is what you're saying?Carole: Yeah. It needs to change too because it's kind of hurtful to the people who go there day to day but they not being listened to and they're set up in this little box of everybody is on the same level. But everybody is on different levels and they think they should be on one, the staff thinks they should be on one level. And that frustrates people, that frustrates me sometimes.Katie B: Right and then..Carole: And some people can't say they don't like it. If I try to stand up for myself or other people they feel like I'm trying to step on their toes. I'm.. no, I'm just trying to tell you how I want to be treated or how I want things to be done so it would make it easier for you it would make it easier for me and everybody else.21:45 - 26:45Katie B: There are people being put into a group who all have varying needs varying interests varying different ways of showing up in the world and what you're trying to deal with as Carole the woman who loves art and Lolita and fashion and Japanese culture is sort of like plain beige, you know, no options. And on top of that sometimes you're feeling like you're not heard and you're not listened to and the people around you are not heard and are not being listened to and on the side of the staff, their challenge there is really really hard is to say somehow I have to provide a service that makes everyone in this room happy right now. And that makes everyone feel like they have an option or choice and while that's impossible there are still programs out there who are saying that they do that, right? Do you have empathy for that, like sort of set up for people who are in that situation as a staff person trying to make it work because of course we're not trying to paint this picture that everyone's bad?Carole: I feel like.. No, no, no not everybody is bad. I feel like you can do something good intentionally but sometimes it doesn't show, it doesn't show up the way you want it to. They feel like they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, I do feel for them because like they think they're doing good things but they're missing some things. And so sometimes you have tell what.. I see what you're doing, you're doing a good job but here's some things that could help you do things better.Katie B: I like that and Katie I want to bring you into this conversation too because I think there's also a way to do the work that's being done at Starfire now in a way that can either be you're listening and you're hearing and you're one on one and you're doing this great work and you're in the community and there's also the way of doing it that isn't great. You could still be one on one but you could be going to a restaurant everyday.Carole: Yeah.Katie B: Or you could be kind of doing stuff that isn't intentionally driving toward community building experience, right? So Katie what ways are you intentional in this role that you try and save guard from stepping into maybe a status quo type role?Katie A: When I'm thinking about our time together it's really thinking about Carole as the leader of our time together, so always thinking about planning things around her interest and planning for something that's going to bring other people into what we're doing. Like when we talk about the tea or we talk about other events, those things are always going to bring people, other people that are going to connect to Carole into our work together. So it's not just me and Carole doing things, it's me and Carole and someone else who is going to build on Carole's interests and connection..Katie B: Yeah so you, ok so you're being the bridge? It reminds me of a quote from Janet Lee who is a woman out of Toronto whose life work has been about liberating people with disabilties from segregated settings and building around interests and connections and we've learned a lot from Janet Lee. One of the things she says is, she asks the question of people, “When you leave [because at some point Katie you might leave, you might quit Starfire right and Carole you're nodding your head, like you've had a lot of different staff]..”Carole: Yeah I have a lot of different staffs.Katie B: At Starfire, yeah. So that's an inevitability that we kind of face and we own up to in this work and so what she asks is, “When you leave are you a void [in Carole's life] because you were her only friend? Or are there more people in your life [Carole now] because [Katie] someone was a bridge?” And I love that way of framing what you just said which is that Katie you said that the work that you do isn't about you and Carole, it's about you and Carole and somebody else always. Is that what you value about your time Carole or is there something about that that resonates with you Carole?Carole: I think, I agree with the bridge because sometimes it takes a bridge to get things moving. Everybody has a way to connect with other people, even if Katie is not available I'm able to still go to like some of the meet ups with the other Lolita's, if I know someone from our other tea event is going to be there. And I'll go because I know them already.26:46 - 28:37Katie A: I think the cool thing about our work is it's teamwork. It's scary to show up to something by yourself and I don't necessarily have to be the Starfire support person I'm just a person who doesn't know much about Lolita.Katie B: How do you show up as a team member without it being “I'm her staff” and making Carole look or feel different than everyone else because you're there?Katie A: I get to have the unique position of I don't know much about Lolita so can you all educate me? And I am going to buy my first dress and..Carole: Yeah, I helped pick out the dress, and Brianna helped her let her know that it was a good beginners dress.Katie B: So there's a way that you are adapting to this lifestyle? You're starting to blend in in a way and it doesn't mean that that's something that you're going to take on for life but Katie is this more of a way for you to show up more intentionally so that you do blend in not as a staff person but..Katie A: Right, right and it's honoring Carole's interest also. I think it's important, I don't know, it's interesting to learn new things, I love learning new things. Carole has taught me lots.Carole: Plus I don't want to introduce Katie as my staff.Katie B: How do you introduce her?Carole: My friend. Or this is Katie.Katie B: Yeah.Katie A: And I think we early on kind of made the agreement we met through volunteering because that really is what we're doing, we're working as a team to volunteer to build community..Katie B: I love that.Carole: So that way they don't feel like, “Oh well this is an event, but we have a staff here..”Katie A: That's not how I want to be seen either. You know, I want to be seen..Carole: Just put a sticker that says Katie right there, staff member.Katie B: It would be a lot harder to make those natural connections.28:38 - 30:52Katie B: And also Carole what you said before which is just so powerful is that Katie is so much a part of it in a way that is a catalyst, she helped get things moving by being a bridge. But if she stepped away tomorrow you're still going on your own and people aren't seeing Katie as essential to your presence.Carole: Yeah.Katie B: Yeah, you can be there, and Katie you've stayed out of the way enough for Carole to really be the one making these relationships. They're about her relationships not you, you're not texting Brianna, are you, at night?Katie A: She's not asking me for any advice.Carole: No.Katie B: Well you guys this is such a beautiful story and thank you so much for sharing it I really appreciate it, you taking this time. What is your hope, let's end with that, what is your hope for the next ten years Carole of building community around your interest?Carole: My hope in the next ten years I hope that a lot of people that have built good relationships with and community with, being more friendships. We're small we're very small so I'm hoping also that we get bigger. And we start to see other people making their own Lolita communities inside of Cincinnati.Katie B: A ripple effect. What about you Katie?Katie A: I would hope for Carole that you just keep making your voice heard, you have so many wonderful things to say and to bring to the community, you know.Carole: I will do my best.Katie B: I have no doubt, yeah. Well thank you guys.Carole: Thank you

In the final episode of Beneath the Subsurface Season One, we're focusing on Well Data Products and the full gamut of subsurface intelligence that can be gleaned from leveraging Well Data with Seismic. Caroline Brignac sits down with Jason Kegel, Ted Mirenda and Katie Fearn for a deep dive into the evolution of well data and how it’s used in today’s workflows.EXPLORE MORE FROM THE EPISODEProduction ForecastingCompletion DataWell Data ProductsInterpretation ProductsWell Production DataGlobal Well DataUS BasinsTABLE OF CONTENTS00:00 - Intro01:42 - Evolution of Well Data Products at TGS03:25 - Production Data & it's Uses07:38 - Production Data and Thesis Work09:09 - Longbow: A Well Performance Visualization Tool with Analytics12:08 - What is Well Performance Data Used For?15:04 - Validated Well Headers & Interpretation20:26 - Well Logs and Production Data for Students, Interns & Early Career22:30 - Historical Production and Well Data24:43 - The Marriage of Seismic and Well Data: Interpretation26:48 - Historical Data and Microfiche?!29:44 - What About Offshore Well Data Products?34:34 - How Much Gulf Of Mexico Data Does TGS Have?39:00 - Seismic or Well Data... Why Not Both?40:20 - Analytics Ready LAS Data (ARLAS)43:49 - Eye Opening Data for Early Career48:48 - TGS Projects & Careers51:37 - Conclusion  EPISODE TRANSCRIPTCaroline:00:12Hello and welcome to Beneath the Subsurface a podcast that explores the intersection of geoscience and technology. This is Caroline Brignac from the well data products group at TGS. In This episode we'll explore our well data products and how they prove to be critical datasets for any exploration and development program. So go ahead and we'll get started with introductions for today's podcast. We've got Jason Kegel with us. Jason why don't you to tell us a little bit about yourself? Jason:00:39Sure. My name's Jason. I work with the geology group here at TGS. I'm a geologist I've been here for six years. I work pretty closely with our well data products and our seismic products. Caroline:00:50Awesome. Thanks Jason. We also have Ted Miranda with us. Ted, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Ted:00:55Sure. Thank you. Caroline. Ted Mirenda. So I'm with TGS. Well, data products group. I've been here for 10 years now. A primary task was to bring production data to TGS and commercialize that product. It's been a lot of work and exciting. Caroline:01:12That's awesome. I'm really excited about having Katie with us. She's a production geologists for a super major. Katie, welcome. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience with TGS. Katie:01:21Thank you, Caroline. I am a recent graduate school graduate and I loved my time at TGS where I got to use Longbow and R360 and then I carried those things that I had learned and into my schoolwork in grad school and it's been awesome. Caroline:01:39So Katie, you started with us as an intern, correct? Katie:01:42Correct. Caroline:01:42That's awesome. Well, we're really excited to have you here and talk a little bit about what your experience with TGS, our products and how you use it in the industry. So one thing that we know a lot about TGS is that it's known as a seismic company. However, TGS offers a wide range of other products such as products in well data. Ted, would you mind telling us a little bit about the well data products division and how it's evolved over time? Ted:02:07Sure. I guess we can step back to 2002 when TGS officially acquired a little company called A2D that gave A2D's the resources to further go out and I believe in acquire Riley's electric log inventory. So that led to the largest commercial well log library. Other resources that TGS provided or enabled was the ability to digitize hard copies and raster logs to LAS. And that library has grown over time where I came into play now 10 years ago after growing the LAS library TGS made the the decision to what's next with well data, well, let's bring in production data. That's when I came into mix. We started building our production data library up. It's been a long challenging project, but it's really paid off. One of the things that critical decision we decided to do was not acquire any production data assets, but build that data from the ground floor up. That meant more work. But in the long run, it's a more valuable product. Caroline:03:25So when you talk about production data, what exactly are you talking about and what does that look like? Ted:03:30Well, we're talking about the full historical production record of every well in the United States. So when you think about different pieces of information that our clients use and need what the well has produced, the reservoir fluids captured from each wellbore is about as important a piece of information as you can have going forward. So we capture that information, really important to tie it to the proper wellbore and a really detailed well header record. There's a lots, a lot of other processes that we do with that as well to then provide the data to our clients. Caroline:04:16So we know that we have, Jason has some experience as well as Katie with this dataset. Would you mind telling us about how you guys use it in your role in the industry? Jason:04:25Sure. So I know at TGS we use the production data quite a bit, looking at our different mapping projects we have. So when we look across the entire, especially United States and look for new areas to shoot on shore seismic, we like to have a really good background information on what companies are actually producing, how much they produced in the past. Can a lot of times tell you where the, where the new plays are and it's always been said that where you found oil before you'll find oil again. And that's been proven over and over again. When we look at the Permian basin, which has been producing since, you know, the 1910, 1920s and today it's one of the biggest basins in the world and we're still finding oil there. So it's nice to really see those historical records of production and where people have gone. On top of that, the Longbow database gives you completion information so you can start really seeing where exactly within the geology has been drilled and how they have done it. So you can get some engineering insight into that as well. Over the years at TGS we've brought all that together to really start looking at new areas where clients want to go and where we can start bringing them seismic. Caroline:05:34So Katie, we knew that you started off as an intern here at TGS a few years ago and we know that you worked with Jason on his team to help sort of guide where we'd go next with our products. What was your experience with the production dataset and Longbow? Katie:05:48So I used the production and information during my project, both at school and at during internship to help me understand the reservoir better so that I could clear up any uncertainties that I was curious about. So for example, I use production data during my time at school to help me understand if there was any reserves left that were not taken out. Ted:06:19Yeah, I know a lot of our clients then use that data to look for bypass opportunities. Another one of the many capabilities of leveraging production data. Jason talked about moving into the completion data side of what we call completion data. Kind of led that evolution. You know, horizontal drilling, unconventional tight reservoirs, fracking, I mean that led to a whole new need for different attributes captured about a well record. So we identify those pretty early on. I had been collecting those and now provide that kind of information to our clients. Not just perf intervals. What is the, what is the producing interval subsurface depth, but the length of the lateral that's being completed and produced correlating production rates, any U R S 2000 foot laterals, another way to really do better well economics and evaluation of assets. So it's, it never ends, you know, the data needs are constantly evolving and changing as industry changes and we follow that path. Jason:07:38So Katie, you said that you use some of our production data with your thesis work, correct. And that was in the, in Louisiana, the Tuscaloosa Marine shale, right? Katie:07:47Yes. Jason:07:47So the Wells and the data that you used there, were they mostly conventional Wells or where we also tried to look at some of the unconventional Wells there too, to define that play that you are looking at. Katie:08:01Right. So I would say the majority, I also focused on the lower Tuscaloosa, which was mostly conventional Wells. Jason:08:09So those Wells, they helped you define that play area and then you had to go deeper and deeper into the log data. Correct. Trying to see exactly what the formation was made up. And you did a sort of a real exploration study of that lower Tuscaloosa Marine shale Longbow helped you kind of understand exactly where the production had become historically and where it might go now and where, where people are drilling currently in the Tuscaloosa Marine shale. Katie:08:39Right. And we also did that with the Austin chalk too. That was another one of our big projects. Jason:08:44Right. And then when you, in the group that was here all from the university of Lafayette worked with us, we also looked up into the Haynesville and looked at some of the smack over units using Longbow quite a bit, looking for trends in conventional plays historically and then seeing where those went unconventionally and if Longbow is the, the main generator of the majority of that data. Caroline:09:09So for those of you listening in who may not be familiar with Longbow is that is our our visualization tool that sits on top of our well performance database. Ted, would you like to add to that? Ted:09:19Yeah, that's right. So you know, production data is a fairly complex data model, right? So you need a tool to search and search your way through that data library, identify Wells that are appropriate to your project assignments so Longbow started out as really as that initial search engine. Hey, you're connecting to almost 5 million Wells, right? In a cloud based database and you're typically going in your assignment, you're going to identify subsets of Wells based on location, geology, formation, operator assets. Hey, examine these assets that are for sale and tell me if it's worth it, right? So Longbow provides that search engine. However, over the, the years and the time, we've incorporated quite a bit of analytics into the search engine. So we're really proud of that. It's if you can think of having a search engine connected to a live database of every well and include analytics, make a bubble in contour map on six month cumulative by zone, you know, all that in one. It saves time. So it's been exciting. We've had great feedback from clients and we are really focused on, Hey, what do our clients want? That's what we put in Jason:10:46When you go. When you talk about analytics Ted, what has been the biggest benefit of forecasting for Longbow? Ted:10:54Well, okay, so that is another good point. Production data being the historical production for the wellbore. Again, the reservoir fluid produced once me and my team, I felt we were comfortable and really good at acquiring that data. I always wanted to move into the forecasting realm as well. So we have added to the, to the product feature every single month. Now every, well all active wells get forecasted to their economic limit, giving our clients quick access to EURs. So from that perspective, I can look at historical data for an example like Katie gave about looking for bypass opportunities. Where did prior operators leave hydrocarbon in the ground with forecasting, I can look at, okay, what's the total proposed value of an asset? How much is that asset going to produce? How much remains that's already there in the, in the analytic tool. So, and again, the different analytic tools include besides mapping, probability graphs, scatter plotting and charts. It's the full gamut. Jason:12:08So we have, Katie who has worked with this data as an intern. I work with this data internally with project development and sales. And then I know that I've gone out with you before and we, we sell this data, we try to give our clients opportunities to use this data. Are our clients, strictly exploration type geologists or engineers or do we have other sort of venues where this data's important in the oil and gas industry? Ted:12:36You know, that's a good point. I mean, our clients cover all those gamuts. You know, one thing, again, with production data, it's a valuable piece of information across an integrated oil company. Enterprise exploration, geologists exploration is of course petroleum engineering department, reservoir engineers that have to forecast production. It's really become a big tool also in the A&D world investment banking A&D world at oil companies, business development. And that's what I like about production data. Everybody finds a use and value out of it, Jason:13:23Right? And it seems everybody wants to know how long that well is going to last and where the next well is next to it. It's going to produce as much that really hard to find that information from anything other than production data. Ted:13:33And what's, you know, what's, what's recently happened and I was looking at right, or like writing a paper on this topic. But you know, right now, most of the think tank forecast for supply, they're all like redoing those and lowering them, you know, the Unconventionals. And we, when we started doing our forecast models, we realized that the horizontal Wells had to be looked at differently. And the decline rates on those, those Wells now are, what would I say, exceeding what we thought they would be. Ted:14:08We had this, you know, unconventional production had made perhaps a real the world with the real comfortable setting of endless oil supply and and you see the think tanks now readjusting those forecasts. So our model changed as well. We're looking at studies and how long Unconventionals are really going to produce and readjusting the EURs. And does that also have quite a bit to do with parent child relationships and how they're stacking Wells within the reservoir? It does, and right now that's what everybody's trying to figure out. That is really challenging looking at spacing, refracking spacing, how does another child affect the, the, the parent well and etc. What is the proper spacing that we try and provide the data to our clients to help them do that? Jason:15:04Right. And in some of those cases you said before with our header products that we have, that really has led to Delineating some of the production data with the validated well header. Can you explain a little bit more about how the validated well header helps understand different laterals and how that traces back to production? Ted:15:25Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's another key point, I think what was attractive to building production data here at TGS? You know, you go out and collect production data and for the most part, I mean, when you're getting public production data, the reality is that data is really coming in at a surface level. I mean, what does the state regulator care about? They just want to know how much did operator produce. So your severance, you're paying severance tax below the surface, they're not so much concerned about which zone is that coming from in which borehole? So here at TGS we have, we can leverage our validated well header dataset, which is our proprietary header where we've gone in, looked at the subsurface and identified missing boreholes. So we are in the process of tying our production data now to that validated header. So really moving production data down to the, to the, what we call the 12 digit API level. And that's really making a difference to our clients. Jason:16:39I know it's helped internally where we've gone used the perforation information. Ted:16:43That's right. Yup. Jason:16:45And actually track the perforations. And I'm not sure if you, you might've done this with this, some in your internship, Katie, where we looked at the perforated intervals on the Wells and then when we are doing our cross sections, we would actually see exactly where the perforations were and see where that oil was coming from. And that helps in a lot of situations in basins where you, you don't know a lot about the basin or you're going somewhere new and you're mapping and we'd see, you know, you'd see the Austin chalk and the Buddha and the Eagleford and you try to wonder, well, where exactly in those formations are they getting the oil from? Without those perforations that we'd got from Longbow, we couldn't truly track that back. We've been doing that more and more with the help from interns when you were here a few years ago and also with our newer interns to, to really try to understand that and then provide that on another level through R360 to start understanding where these Wells are actually producing from, which in some states they don't, they don't provide that information. Ted:17:42That's right. And that that really is a really neat project. I know for me and my team at the, and Ted talking about the production data, leveraging Jason and the geoscientists and the interpretation type work you do on your workstations where we can take our production, our perfs, you guys load it in, match it up with the LAS, correlate that production to the actual producing zone. It takes a while to do that, but we're doing that in projects going across different basins and it's really exciting. Jason:18:15No, it's been, it's been very valuable for us that in some of the test information that Longbow has also has in some states like Oklahoma and Texas, let's say, they don't have produced water for a lot of the production. So the only things that you can look back are some of the actual, that the test data that you have where you can find that water. And then a lot of these areas where you're running analytics on some of these Wells to see when they watered out or how much water they have per volume of oil. That's the only place you can get it. And then when you max that match that back to the perforated interval, you can really start understanding some more about those horizons and how much oil or how much oil you have left, but also how much water you're getting out, which is a huge issue right now with a lot of the unconventionals is water not only how much water you're putting in to stimulate if that's what you're doing, but how much formation water you're actually taking out and that could be a, that could be that the factor in having a well that's a good well or not good at all. Caroline:19:19So I know we've touched on production data and the well performance database that TGS offers, but TGS also offers other data like well logs, various types of well logs our validated well header that Jason just mentioned. Katie, I'm curious about your experience as a student getting data from TGS. Can you tell us a little bit of what that was like and how you use other well data with production data to help solve some of the, the issues you guys were running into? Katie:19:48I'm sure. Well, TGS was really helpful because like Jason said, if Jason and Ted said to the state, you don't have to provide good data to the public. So TGS' well logs, their production data was far superior to anything that I saw. So it definitely helped not just at school cause I use this product at UL but I also got to use it in our projects. So it made the uncertainties that were, we were curious about less uncertain. Right. Cause the subsurface is always uncertain. Caroline:20:26So to follow to build on that, Jason, how do you, how do you work more with well logs and production data together, especially when you're working with a group of young interns like Katie and her, her fellow interns Jason:20:39Well one of the things that we do in our group quite a bit is either look for for new areas or sort of redefine basins that have already had had exploration. So the main thing we do when we do that as we get as many well logs as we possibly can. So that's the, the LAS that we have for those areas. Working for TGS is nice because we have access to quite a bit of data. So we pull all those together and we start just doing cross-sections and fence diagrams and make picking our formation tops so that we have a real good general understanding of the basin. As we're doing that, we're also looking at the production data. So each one of those Wells is either a producer or not a producer or maybe it was just a stratigraphic exploration well. But the reason those Wells exist are to make somebody money. So hopefully they're all producers. Jason:21:32So we learned as much from a dry hole as we do from a hole that's not dry. That's where the production data comes in really handy cause we can see exactly how much oil they got out of that well when it was drilled, when it was plugged and abandoned. Some of the issues that might've gone on with it. So we can understand from looking at just some of the well logs themselves than the caliper per se, to see where you had the whole breakup and see where you might've had engineering issues with that well, where they might have crossed faults that might've caused to loss of production in certain areas. And we can tie that back using production to see exactly how these reservoirs work. And we can track that around better to see where explorationists, might need help delineating new fields or new areas. And that's where the seismic comes in with TGS to where we can try to get the seismic out to help limit some of these problems that were we might be seeing in some of the Wells. Caroline:22:30Out of curiosity I know that we offer a long range of historic production data. Recently we just acquired a company called Lasser that goes back far beyond the 1970s. As a geologist, would you say that having a larger dataset going back further in time is more beneficial for you to help solve problems? Jason:22:54Absolutely. So the one thing we've always ran into is not enough data, right? We always want more data. We want to see the complete picture of the entire basin. So having that data that goes farther back in time, that historic production data really helps because we have a lot of those well logs that are sort of historic historics our well logs and our Las don't stop at 1970 or earlier. The production data depending on state isn't necessarily at a strict cutoff of 1970 but that historic data really helps with that production to really start understanding how those wells were drilled. And like I said before exactly what was it producer and what wasn't producer and if it was producing, how long did it produce for? There's been lots of of technology advances that have really increased how much oil you can get out of the ground or gas you can get of the ground. Jason:23:45That's on a purely engineering basis and you can start to see that in the production data, but you can really start seeing that in some of the LAS data when you start looking at the curves and understanding some of the petrophysics behind the Wells. And not only that, you start understanding the basin. So when you look at some of these really old wells, a lot of them are really shallow just to sort of understand that's as far as they could drill to. That's where the technological limit was. But depending on the basin, some, some people in the forties and 50s had drilled all the way to basement. You really want those type of data points when you're understanding the entire basin. The deeper you understand the basin, the more history you can put into it. The more basin modeling you can do. If you can understand the basin from initial infill to present day and the erosion intervals that have been between there. We see that quite a bit in our base in temperature models, which is one of the products that we do that builds off of our LAS data. Caroline:24:43What other tools, interpretation tools do you use internally that TGS helps provide or provides to our clients? Jason:24:49Well firstly I mentioned the basin temperature models. That's one that we, we helped build and we provide to clients and that's a product where we look at the entire basin. We pick the tops in it from 2000 to 3000 Wells from the LAS. And then we do basin temperature modeling on that entire basin with grids and horizons, start understanding the the basin from completed from basement all the way up to the top and understanding the infill. We also provide other products, sort of worldwide called our facies map browser. And this is mainly offshore, but this is looking at sequence stratigraphy within offshore basins. Jason:25:29This one we also use well data and seismic data where we can and integrate the two of them to, to have a real good understanding and picture of the basin. So the geologists that use this data can jump right in to the basin and have a real good working knowledge of what's going on there. One thing in the industry, I've been in this industry for eight years now and I've seen lots of mergers and you know, lots of layoffs unfortunately with people, but groups shrink and grow all the time. And when they grow, people need to jump into new basins they've never been. So one thing that we provide with some of our well data products like the facies map browser and the basin temperature models easily help people easily get acclimated with basins they may have never worked. It's a, it's a real quick and easy way to understand the stratigraphy and understand some, some components of the basin you might not have thought about before. Jason:26:25Then we've been moving on with the basin temperature model is that the background into TOC models. So actually looking at total organic carbon within the same basin using the background of our basin temperature model and then working with core labs to really understand some of our vitrinite reflectance and core data points. So that's the new thing we're doing particularly in the Permian basin. Ted:26:48And I want to add another point on Lasser that Lasser acquisition, which was a, again, exciting for our team. Jason talked about the need for historical data. Sure. acquiring that data set. Now, the only way you could really replicate that public data is if you went to physically went to the individual railroad commission, district offices and loaded up a bunch of microfiche. So that data's digital. We've got it now. What's really neat is we're running it through our modern QA and QC processes. So adding data production volumes in Texas all the way back to the 30s, and then taking further, taking the lease level production data and allocating it to a well level. Nobody in industry is doing that right now from nobody from a vendor perspective. So that project that's ongoing and will be completed before the end of the year. Having historical production back to the 30s allocated to the well level, excited about that and proud of our team to get that done. Caroline:27:55Not to ask a silly question, but what is microfiche is that what you said? Ted:28:01I said microfiche, yeah. Jason:28:01You don't remember Microfiche? (Laughter) Caroline:28:02You're talking to a millennial. Jason:28:04I feel so old. Ted:28:06The point there is the data is not digital, it's manual, it's on microfilm. Microfiche it's lots and lots of hours of labor to recapture that data in database format. And now that we've got it, it's going to be real exciting. Jason:28:27My experience with microfiche was always in elementary school going to the library. So at the library they always had stacks of microfiche that had historical newspapers from the past and you can still find them and they're really, they're almost like little slides like you remember, do you remember what slides looked like? (Laughter) No, it's done. That's true. It's already 2020. [inaudible] There was a special microfiche reader to see them. And you flip through each one of them. But that's how they always documented historical papers. So we'd go back and have to do research projects and you'd have to go find your little microfiche from the library. And when you looked it up, you would slide through and it was like a little projector screen that read the fiche from like the little, little tiny film and scrolled through the little film. So it is almost like a negative Ted:29:17It's a picture of a document. So I'm not the only millennial in the room. So Katie, I'm gonna make a safe assumption that you did not know what that was? Katie:29:23Nope, no, I had no idea what that was, but I have seen it in movies. So thank you for that visual like connected the two for sure. Ted:29:31That's right. But that, that tells you how you know how- Caroline:29:37How hard to find it, how hard to find that data is. Ted:29:39That's right. There weren't computerized records back then, but we still need the data Caroline:29:44Absolutely. Katie:29:44So you've talked a lot about onshore, so do you offer the same kinds of products offshore as well or what do you, how does it go from onshore to offshore? Jason:29:58That's a good question, actually, because with TGS and with the amount of data that we have onshore as really dense area of log data per se, so we can do areas like the Permian, the Eagleford or the DJ basin and fill them in with 5,000 Wells and pick tops and all 5,000 of those Wells. And they all have temperature points. So we can do our base in temperature models there. Offshore, it gets a little bit more difficult because there are, the data's not so close together and offshore particularly say in the Gulf of Mexico, the geology gets a little more tricky, particularly with basin temperature models because you start dealing with more salt. You start dealing with just having the water to sediment differences that you'll- we understand pretty well, but the more well data you have, the more we can make those interpretive products. Jason:30:55So we have, sort of, different products offshore and like I mentioned before, we have the facies map browser is almost exclusively offshore because we can do that along mainly 2D lines, so long 2D lines that go over large areas and are- usually have a few wells connected to them in exploration areas. So the newest one of those is what we're trying to start now in Mexico and the Mexican side of the Gulf of Mexico where a few years ago we shot a really large 185,000 kilometer 2D survey called Gigante. So we interpreted that whole survey and we shot gravity and magnetics over it. So we actually have a gravity and magnetics model that we've built on that area that helps a lot in exploration, but we've also interpreted all the seismic to pick certain horizons. We would like to go a few steps further and actually understand your stratigraphic facies and your sequence stratigraphy that's in there. Jason:31:56And that's what we're, we're trying to do now with the Mexican side of the Gulf of Mexico. And it's a little bit easier there because there's less wells there and a lot of the operators that are moving in there since they opened up Mexico aren't there. So they don't have as big a knowledge base as they do in the U S Gulf of Mexico. And that big large knowledge base in the U S Gulf of Mexico from the operators that have been there for 40 or 50 years has really limited multi-client type interpretation studies. Because say the Exxons or the Shells or the Chevrons have been in these basins for so long, especially the Gulf of Mexico that they have the working knowledge of those basins and they train their employees on that pretty easily. So they don't necessarily need an outside company like TGS to sort of give them the boost or the the heads up or the, the first step to get into a basin. Jason:32:53Whereas in other basins around the world where we have facies, map browsers, we've had them for a while, we have new companies coming in and going more often. So they sort of like having that extra layer of knowledge that we can offer on shore. In the Gulf of Mexico though we did do a post-well analysis, which is just looking at specific wells and I think we have a little over a hundred now and they're either dry holes or or discoveries and they sort of show the stratigraphy they show why it was a dry hole or why was it a discovery. We match that up with seismic and certain areas so you can see the structures that were being drilled at the time. So we do have that. And then in the Mexico side of Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico, we have production data on both sides now. Jason:33:41So we actually have the contract with the Mexican government to provide not only the seismic but the well log data in Mexico, but also the production data in Mexico. On the U.S. Gulf, we have the contract to deliver log data. So companies that drill in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, they actually send their log data to TGS. We hold it for the 26 month timeframe. And then we clean that data up. We provide our LAS plus package. We provide that back to the BOEM or BSCE, the government entity that sort of controls the Gulf of Mexico. And then we also provide that to any other company that would like to purchase it. So we're the - TGS is actually, we've had that contract for a little over 10 years now and we've just renewed it this year. Katie:34:34So like how much coverage do you have in the Gulf of Mexico? Data-Wise. Jason:34:38Data-wise? So all of it really. So with the, with the recent acquisition of spectrum, we now have 2D coverage that extends all the way from Florida to the Rio Grande Valley really. So we have 2D coverage that covers, there are, TGS is a seismic company. Our core seismic area has always sort of been 3D seismic anyway, has always sort of been the Mississippi Canyon, DeSoto Canyon, Atwater Valley area. We have lots of 3D seismic. We're currently shooting seismic there. We'll just finished up some new nodal surveys there and doing reprocessing. But we have 2D and 3D coverage across the whole area and well data we have all of it. We have every well that's ever been drilled in the Gulf of Mexico. Ted:35:27On the production data song for Gulf of Mexico. The data's really, really nice from that perspective. I mean every well is reported oil, gas and water, monthly production. Well tests are extensive in the Gulf of Mexico. Perhaps the federal government does a better job of reporting well test data, making sure operators are testing those Wells annually and semiannually and getting that data out to public. So you also get access to certain pressure data in there, you know, flowing tubing pressure, bottomhole pressure, et cetera. So that data sets we like working with that. And now on the Mexico side, you know, we've got full coverage of Mexico petroleum industry. There's about 21,000 Wells with production in Mexico. About 1100 of those are offshore and we have captured and calculated monthly production for all of those Wells. So that was a fun project. Learning to translate certain wellheader attributes from Spanish to English that was fun to do. Converting units of measurement down there from a, you know, average daily rates to total monthly production. Bottom line is that data's now standardized in our library monthly oil and barrels in Mexico, monthly gas and MCF water in barrels. And,looking at the data, there are world-class wells in Mexico, so I think the continued release of data from Mexico. Hopefully we'll stay on track there with the, the government releasing data. Like I said, there's there's been some really gigantic flow rates down there, particularly offshore and no reason to think there's not great opportunity there. Seismic Katie:37:36Where's your seismic that you just shot in Mexico. Where does the location lies? Jason:37:40So the, the 2D seismic that's there, the original Gigante is all offshore and covers the entire Mexican Gulf of Mexico 2D. So it covers everything and it even goes sort of around the horn of the Yucatan near Belize. So it covers everything sort of almost into the Caribbean. We've also been doing looking at reprocessing efforts to extend some of our, to extend the seismic onshore to offshore and the Sureste and Tampico areas. And then we're also looking at 3D programs as well. Katie:38:15Very nice. Jason:38:16So there's quite a bit there. And that's not the only place that we have seismic or well log data. So TGS is actually always, I always try to remind me, we have well log data worldwide. So we have data. Do you know Russia and Africa and Australia and Malaysia all over Europe. And all over South America as well. And seismic too. I sort of focus on Western hemisphere so I know a little bit more about that part, but that's still quite a quite a large area sometime. And we're we're, we're looking at wells and seismic all across, both North and South American. Ted:38:53Don't forget Canada. Jason:38:55And Canada too, we have quite a bit of seismic in Canada as well. Caroline:39:00Nice. So one question I have for the table, we know that as TGS is predominantly a seismic company, but we also offer well data. How does that, how does that really help our clients when we offer two very different and unique datasets together? Jason:39:19I think the biggest part of that is making a complete geologic picture for explorationists. So you need the seismic to really sort of understand areas where we don't have well data and that well data really helps the seismic become better. One of the good examples of that is in some of our reprocessing efforts we're doing offshore, we're incorporating as much well data as we can, particularly Sonic data so that we can really understand the velocity models. And really make sure that we can tie those velocity models when they come out and with our seismic comes out in depth that our wells tie perfectly with them. The more well data we have, the better our seismic is going to be at the end of the day. We've always tied a few Wells that we can here and there, but since TGS has so much well data, it's a real benefit to our clients to be able to use that in the seismic processing and in reprocessing as more wells come out. Caroline:40:20So I'm just curious, you know, we are now offering a new product in the well data group. That's our analytics ready LAS that basically allows us to offer even more data. How do you feel about the machine learning algorithms that we're using in forecasting or with well logs? How do you feel about using that as geologists, Katie and Jason? Jason:40:42So one of the things that we've noticed quite a bit with this is you get a really nice big picture and particularly with analytics ready, we like to call it just ARLAS AR-LAS is that that big picture of that first presentation you can get, particularly when it comes to velocity models in Sonic where you don't have seismic. So one of the great images, and I don't know if I can explain this well through through radio, but one of the great images that you can have is with regular well data you have lots of lots of holes. So we didn't drill every place we could and then every place we drilled through time, we didn't do every log we could do. So a lot of the well logs that we have, particularly on onshore might have one or two curves. They might have a resistivity and a gamma ray or some of the older ones just might have an SP curve. Jason:41:32What can start doing with AR or the analytic ready Las is incorporate sort of Sonics into all of those logs and start understanding where we have those deviations in Sonic across the whole area where it hasn't been drilled. So from a big picture, it really helps you understand how that would tie together where you might want to drill next or what might, what interesting features you wouldn't see where a well isn't drilled without having seismic. And if you have seismic then you can tie them both together as well to kind of have a better understanding of of your depth processing. Ted:42:13And I might add onto that AI question back on the production forecasting a challenge. So we're offering both methodologies now of course we have our, you know, our traditional hyperbolic curve fit type forecasting algorithms that work well and offering the physics based you know, probabilistic spread forecasting new. Your question is how do we think about that? It's like, how does the industry think about that? I know everybody's talking about it. Everyone's trying to figure it out. To me, getting a million forecast in a couple of seconds is impressive. Right? And getting that full spread on each, well a P 10 through a P 99 forecast right at your fingertips. It's powerful stuff. Caroline:43:07Yeah. I'd be really curious to see where machine learning and artificial intelligence takes TGS in the future with other types of derivative products that we end up discovering and producing and really making sure that we're getting these to the industry to reduce cycle time. So I think that's pretty cool. Jason:43:22Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think we're, we're already moving in that direction with filling in log curves and in the seismic side trying to understand different seismic bodies. So using machine learning and AI to serve as a tool to understand where salt is in a quicker, more timely fashion or to even start understanding easier ways to define horizons or define some amplitude attributes as well. Jason:43:49[To Katie] So you've seen our data and played with our data and hopefully in the future is you're, you know, experiencing your geology career, you'll get to use it much more. Ted:44:01I think she's just scratched the surface with our data, right. I know all that data. Jason:44:06You had the unique opportunity to use it to come into our -come into the company and see what it was like to have that much data at your fingertips. Can you tell us a little bit about how, what that was like and how, how that's different from then to school to now that you're, you're in the industry. Katie:44:24So I came into TGS knowing nothing, well, not knowing nothing, but you know, minimal. You think you, every time you start somewhere you like think you know something, but you really don't, which I've learned again third time. Ted:44:37Right? Katie:44:37So at TGS, I wouldn't say it was just, I learned how to work with all this data, which was overwhelming at first. It was like I learned how to, I don't know, act, not just like socially in an office, right? But I also learned like what's important, what's not important. It's easy to get bogged down in the details when you go from zero to 100 real quick. Caroline:45:03So you've really had a unique perspective. Especially compared to a lot of us at TGS, you started off in an internship with us getting into the data and learning the data, applying the data. Right. And then I believe maybe you've even used it in your thesis. Katie:45:20Right. Caroline:45:20And now that you're in the industry, what has that looked like for you? Ted:45:26How about, how about how do you access data being an industry now? Katie:45:31When I've looked at data, it tells me, it makes me feel comfortable. It clears up uncertainties.. It's not telling me what's going on, but at least I'd like have more of a general idea. So when I look at these large amounts of data that I get for a project, let's say like I did in grad school, it's okay, I have this data. What does the data tell me? Does it tell me if it's pinching out? Does it tell me if it's, you know, this big chunk or maybe the depositional environment. That's what I looked at a lot in well logs the petrophysics. Jason:46:08No, it's understandable. You get thrown a lot of data in these situations and it's how you put that together, how you can efficiently use it. And that's something that we're always trying to make easier for people. It helps in a lot of situations, particularly in, in super major type of companies or in a lot of different companies, even smaller companies that they have geo techs that efficiently use our data before they give it to you. Right? So a lot of times you never, you'll never get to see the first part of, you know, where did this data come from because it all just ends up on your desktop. Right? Katie:46:42Right. So like I, what I liked about my experience I guess at TGS is I saw the beginnings, right? What a geotech would put it in. So I like got to see that visual fresh or put my own spin on it when we were using Longbow. So making those bubble plots or looking at URs and decline curves. I don't have, I don't, I haven't gotten that experience yet, but I'm a Guppy. Caroline:47:10So it was like you were getting access to data sets such as the, you know, the EURs and the forecasting database that you probably didn't necessarily have access to while you were working on your masters. Katie:47:21Right. And didn't know about until it came to TGS. Ted:47:26And the ability to build that project from scratch. I imagine a lot of times now in industry, you walk in and sit down and there are gigantic projects already existing and workflows established as opposed to like starting at the beginning. Katie:47:46Right. Which is overwhelming. Like I remember Jason was like, Hey, y'all are going to map from Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. That was very overwhelming. Now I just, you know, you get a project and it, someone's already, most of the time, I don't know picked through it. So you don't, it's not very fresh. Jason:48:09But now you're not afraid of the deep end of the pool. Katie:48:10I don't know about that... Jason:48:10Right. We threw you right in the deep end and I, you can swim. You're ready to go. Katie:48:18Oh no. I'm still learning. Jason:48:18Well that's good. Never wanna stop learning. Ted:48:22We're all still learning. Katie:48:22Right. But I'm really still learning. As a new worker bee. Jason:48:30So Katie, is there anything we haven't seen you in a little while? I know that you're, you're in Louisiana now. Is there anything that you want to ask us that you're interested in from a, from your perspective after you've graduated and are now moving onto bigger and better things that might help you in the future? Katie:48:48Maybe not something that would- maybe wouldn't help me in the future, but also help other people that are looking for jobs. Is, are y'all looking for employment? Like looking to employ anyone or what does that look like? It sounds like you're doing a lot of work. So do you have people to fill these positions or are you, how does that go for y'all? Do you even know? Jason:49:10Well, that's one of those great HR questions where, you know, we're always, we're always just busy enough to need new people. (Laughter) Caroline:49:20And I think with, you know, new departments that were growing especially new datasets like Ted is talking about Mexico and Canada, I feel like it really helps to position us to grow, you know, as a company as a whole. So opportunities are always always coming up. Yeah. Jason:49:36I know particularly with our internship program, we're always looking for, you know, young, exciting new talent that can, that can come in and help us out. But also like you did learn about data from sort of the bottom up and take that knowledge base to other companies. So we don't only like training people to come and stay with us or we're perfectly happy bringing in interns and having them go out in the world and and learn something from us that they can bring somewhere else. Katie:50:06Oh sorry. I would say that that's why I like had not, I think that working at TGS was nice for others to see cause they knew that I had experience I guess with production data, which is a cool talking point I think. Caroline:50:22And just to build off of that, Ted has done a really great job building this new initiative, which is getting our well performance data in the universities to work with people like you, Katie, while you were getting your masters to make sure that we're able to provide data to other other programs and get geologists or young geologists access to data sets that they wouldn't have or wouldn't be familiar with whenever they're entering the workforce. Ted:50:48That's right. So, you know, we're happy to donate donate our products, donate production data and Longbow to the universities. As you know, at ULL they brought it into the geoscience and engineering groups. And now we're sitting on the, what the 20 workstations in the lab and part of the curriculum. So it's exciting at the same time, giving the students access to these data products learning actual, you know, working product tools. When they do get hired and hit the, hit the workforce, they're ahead of the game and ready to go. Now, from my selfish perspective, it helps to get feedback and make the products better. So it's a win win for both. Caroline:51:37Well, thanks everyone for coming out today and having this conversation, you know, hanging out, covering a lot of really awesome topics, kind of, you know, exploring where TGS is headed next, where we've been, where we're going. Katie, you know, especially thanks to you for coming all the way from New Orleans to sit with us and kind of give us your insight and your opinions and let us know how it's, how the journey has been for you. So thanks, Jason. Thanks Ted looking forward to the next, the next episode. Katie:52:01Thank you for having me. Jason:52:03Yeah, thanks Katie, it's been great Ted:52:04Thank you.

On this week’s episode, Katie is going solo because she made a rookie podcaster mistake while recording the original episode for this week, so the audio was all messed up. So Katie is here to tell you all about her emotional experience while watching Supernatural’s 300th Episode that aired on February 7, 2019.Please rate, review, and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you download your podcasts.Podcast Intro Music: Dog and Pony Show by Silent Partner - https://youtu.be/Dw20ZkMwI10Podcast Outro Music: Dog Park by Silent Partner - https://youtu.be/Zzm4A3xYUp8Intro & Outro Vocals Provided by Dave BethellTEA TIME SOCIAL MEDIATwitter: https://twitter.com/teatimewithkc (@teatimewithkc)Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teatimewithkc/ (@teatimewithkc)Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teatimewithkc/Email: teawithkc@gmail.comWebsite: https://teatimewithkc.comGEEK TO GEEK MEDIA NETWORKWebsite: https://geektogeekmedia.comBe sure to check out the latest episode of Geek To Geek Podcast, Geektitude, The Comic Box, & GeekFitnesshttps://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/geek-to-geek-podcast/id1092737489https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/geektitude/id1042398176?mt=2https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-comic-box/id1118686573?mt=2https://anchor.fm/geekfitnessBe sure to also check out the network’s newest Twitch Streamers:https://www.twitch.tv/capsulejayhttps://www.twitch.tv/troytlepowerJOIN THE CONVERSATIONNetwork Slack Channel -> https://slack.geektogeekcast.comNetwork Discord Server - https://discord.gg/wGPdkkq

When you go on a journey to improve a skill, there are likeminded people who will support you, and there are people who will do the same as you. You either choose to treat them as competition, or treat them as cohorts. Over the past two years, I’ve communicated and even worked with people who have their own interview podcasts. These podcasts follow the same vein as My Food Job Rocks. Interview food experts and chronicle their life, advice and predictions. However, each podcast I’ll be sharing is focused on a  specific type of the food industry. From Research Chefs, to Clean Meat Scientists. Some of these podcasts I am proud to say, credit My Food Job Rocks as a source of inspiration. Others, I’ve had the pleasure to help improve their podcasting craft. I do this because I can’t tell everyone’s story, and everyone’s story needs to be told. By having a support network which motivates people to share the stories in the food industry is very important to me. And hopefully, by the end of this series, you might also take on the reigns of a podcast. I’ll be keeping their guests a secret, but here is who will be on in the next 5 weeks: Paul Shapiro and Toni Okamoto – Business for Good Podcast As many know, Paul Shapiro has been not only a guest on My Food Job Rocks, but also has been my business partner for more than…half a year. Paul and his soon-to-be wife Toni Okamoto (who runs the very popular platform Plant-Based on a  Budget) decided to do this small venture called The Business for Good Podcast, a podcast that focuses on the buisnesses and people who are doing good in the world. Though the podcast is not just in the food industry, there are some great gems in regards to how food business is impacting the world. Paul and Toni are both influential figures in the plant-based and animal welfare movement and use their connections to bring in awesome guests. This Wednesday, we’ll be launching their episode with a guest that’s pretty famous around these parts. Kim Schaub from Peas on Moss Kim and I started our platforms at the same time. We actually met in a facebook group called Podcaster’s Paradise, an online course which helps build your own podcast. We had one mutual connection, another guest, Andrea Zeng, who worked under her. Kim created the Peas on Moss Podcast, a podcast that has different types of guests which mainly focusing on R+D and innovation. There are also many Research Chefs and regular chefs on the show, so if you are into that field, Kim goes more in-depth on that. Peas On Moss still regularly launches episodes and the guests are always insightful with a slight entrepreneurial flair. I usually see Kim in almost every expo and we have a good time just chatting over good food. Lin Carson from Bakerpedia Past guest and sponsor Lin Carson created the Bakerpedia platform through her own sweat and blood and has built it into a fully sponsored masterpiece which houses a wiki that has all the baking knowledge in the world. And this is not just the simple stuff like gluten or ascorbic acid, but maybe you want to know what’s diastatic malt or how garbonzo bean flour acts in your product. Their podcast Baked In Science takes on multiple formats. They not only do interview podcasts, but they also do Q and As, and more technical focused podcasts. I’m always amazed on how much content, from writing to podcasts, the Bakerpedia team dishes out. Katie Jones from Good Food Heroes Podcast Katie Jones has a pretty amazing story. She got laid off after an acquisition, traveled around the world in an RV car, then decided to go into copywriting for the food industry. I met Katie through her content on LinkedIn and she was very engaging the way she talks with her peers on the platform. Much better than me engaging on LinkedIn posts. So Katie decided to start her own podcast and I had a hand in helping her a bit set up the format. Her podcast interviews food businesses that have a bigger mission. Whether that’s food waste or ethical sourcing, that’s what she loves to do and that’s what she focuses on. If you’re into learning more about food businesses that are mission-driven, then this podcast gives great insights on how it works. Katie Mleziva from Real Food Brands Podcast Katie is a food brand consultant with whom I also met on LinkedIn. I think it first started when we coincidentally launched Carrie Arndt’s podcast on the same week. We’ve had some over lap in guests ever since including the executive team from Soom Foods. Katie generally focuses on branding and not only does she bring in some really awesome guests with practical advice, but she herself does solo episodes that talk about the tactics in branding. Alex Shirazi from the Cultured Meat and Future Food podcast Paul shared with me an interview that Alex did with Lisa from Stray Dog Capital. This was episode 4 out of 4, but seeing his guest list be top GFI brass and Paul himself, I wanted to reach out and help him with his podcast, because I didn’t like his design or audio quality. Surprisingly, he was happy to take my advice and even better, I was able to meet him during the food funded event and we’ve been friends ever since. Alex Shirazi is what I’d call a cultured meat enthusiast. He’s a managing director at a software development firm at his day job. Not a scientist or CEO, but he cares so much about the topic, he not only did a full-fledged podcast where he interviews CEOs of cultured meat companies, but he also did a full-on symposium in the heart of San Francisco on a small budget and impressive marketing. I was honored to be a moderator at one of the panels, and I can’t thank Alex enough for giving me opportunities to publically speak in Boneville Labs and Indiebio. I love the topic of cell-based meat. Everyone knows this but if you really want to learn more about the many companies behind it, Alex’s podcast has some really impressive guests from all over the world. If I were to map it out, My Food Job Rocks is considered a broad podcast. It’s a podcast about career advice and showcasing the food jobs that are present today. The podcasts listed here are part of this, but are much more specific and also have their unique twist on things, and maybe you want that type specificity in your podcast library. And if there isn’t a podcast that fits your need, perhaps this will show you the opportunity to create your own.  

This was a cool connection. A graduate student from Texas A and M, contacted Katie Lanfranki and Sherrill Cropper. They did a small little interview about the different perspectives between going to graduate school and not going to graduate school. I find this so cool! Not only did people get value from the podcast, but Katie was able to benefit from it as well! I love this! So Katie asked Sherrill to be on the show. Of course, I accepted. Sherrill holds a PhD in Grain Science in Kansas State. Working in product development, she makes enzyme cocktails that help the baking industry make bread. I loved talking about Sherrill’s diverse food industry background, such as the internships she did, and we talk a lot about bread. There is also a great amount of career advice such as communicating, critical thinking and networking tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please, sign up on our email list at myfoodjobrocks.com, like us on facebook,  rate and review on itunes, and share with your friends. If you show interest in being interviewed, know someone who would be a great interviewer, or would like to join our team of volunteers, make sure to email us at podcast@myfoodjobrocks.com. Sponsor This episode is sponsored by FoodGrads, an interactive platform for the Food & Beverage Industry, which focuses on closing the gap between students/recent graduates and employers. With a broader mission to attract and retain people to a meaningful career in food. From Food Scientists to Farmers, Chefs to Plant Managers, QA Technicians to Dieticians or R&D to Sales, no matter what your passion--there's something for everyone in Food—and they will help you find it. Join FoodGrads for support, mentorship and guidance to start your career. You’ll see an amazing new website in Spring 2017. Just go to foodgrads.com About Sherrill Sherrill currently is the New Product Development Lab Manager for Lesaffre Yeast Corporation and RedStar Yeast where she develops ingredients for use in bakery applications. She received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Food Science from The Ohio State University where her graduate studies focused on emulsifier and stabilizer functionality in ice cream. She worked as a Food Technologist for Roskam Baking Company before returning back to school to study cereal chemistry and baking at Kansas State University where she received a PhD in Grain Science. Sherrill interned at Nestle, Heinz North America, and Cargill during her undergraduate and graduate studies. She was raised on a dairy farm in Southern Ohio and she spends most of her free time traveling. Key Takeaways How Enzymes are made industrially. And what makes an enzyme “GMO” Sherrill’s amazing knowledge in grains and emulsification Our Cargill internship experience The difference between whole wheat and white bread in terms of chemistry Question Summary What do you tell someone in a sentence or less: I develop ingredients used for industrial applications Dough conditioners and dough improvers Official job title: New Product Development Lab manager / Bakery Formulation Specialist Sherrill develops the blends Sherrill’s career path: Grew up in Dairy Farm, fell into Ohio State Food Science, Internship with Nestle, Internship with Heinz, Roskam Baking Company, Grain Science PhD at Kansas State, Internship at Cargill in shortning Why do you like Bakery Science?: Niche, Kansas state is the only place that has grain science Most Important Skill You Need for Your Job: Critical Thinking How Do you improve critical thinking?: Ask yourself the question first Why Does Your Food Job Rock: I get to feed the world Dream Job Title: Director of Global Food Research Take something out of any experience What do you look for most in a job?: I need something challenging What’s a big challenge you’ve had?: Remembering food law Most “Exciting” Food Trends: Organic, Clean Label, Non-GMO. We have to pander to the market Trending in the Bread world: Tortilla, whole wheat, on-the-go, donuts Whole wheat chemistry: uses big words and tries to use clean label ingredients Biggest Challenge: Educating consumers. Short content gives people problems Solution: Just talk to consumer. Share the info Who inspired you to get into food: My mom directed me to food science because I played with spices as a kid. I do the same with enzymes as well. She has true roots in agriculture Favorite quote: Jackie Robinson: a life is not important except in the impact it has in other’s lives What’s your favorite type of food: peanut butter sandwiches and cereal Any advice to go into your industry?: Network and explore everything. Do the internships and meet people Networking Tips: Go with a buddy, older people will talk to you because eof the generation gap What conferences is beneficial to you?: IFT Expo, American Society of Baking, IBIE, Supply Side If you were to tell your freshman self something, what would it be?: It’s going to be ok. Other Links Business to Business Non-GMO enzymes Clean Label 4H and FFA Lipids and Emulsification Cargill’s facility in Plymouth, Minnesota IFT Documentary

Denis O'Brien [0:15]Hey Money Clan! A very warm welcome to the Chain of Wealth Podcast. I'm your host, Denis O'Brien. Katie Welsh [0:20]And I'm Katie Welsh. Denis O'Brien [0:21]So Katie, really cool. We got to catch up with Emmanuel. We actually had his father on the show a long time ago. Yeah, Chain of Wealth has become a whole family thing now. It really has. And he's followed in the footsteps of his father and he's already dug deep into assisted living, and he helps people set up businesses. So if you're looking for a stream of income, this is a great idea for you. Katie Welsh [0:46]So back when we talked to Gene about assisted living, it was more questions about really what it was for me. And now with getting to talk to Manny is really seeing where an entrepreneur could benefit. Denis O'Brien [1:01]Exactly. I had the same takeaway and and I think that there really is a lot that you can learn and it doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it. Well, before we dive into our interview, if you guys haven't already, don't forget to join our Facebook community. You can head on over to chainofwealth.com/group. We'd love if you joined our awesome community and come and say hi. Alright, Kate, are you ready to dive in? Katie Welsh [1:24]Yeah!Denis O'Brien [1:25]Fantastic, let's do it.Our guest today is Emmanuel Guarino, who is considered the number one realtor for residential assisted living in Arizona. Emmanuel trains entrepreneurs and investors at the Real Estate Aassisted Living Academy and has experienced as a sought after coach and trainer for all things RAL he specializes in helping others take advantage of this mega trend opportunity.Emmanuel Guarino [2:06]Hey, how you doing, guys? Katie Welsh [2:07]Good, thanks. So before we start off for somebody who doesn't know what is assisted living? Emmanuel Guarino [2:15]Well, that's a great question. So what residential assisted living is, is, you know, we're all familiar with nursing homes, right? So the idea of a large building, where there's, you know, many seniors who are living there who need help in one way or another, what we do is instead of doing it in a large facility that can be, you know, maybe not so well suited for someone who's in their 80s or 90s. To be getting around. We do a nursing home in a residential setting. So what that looks like is you know, instead of it being 100 unit building, it might be a home with 10 elderly residents in it, and it might be a home where, you know, they're being helped with their activities of daily living, so cooking, cleaning, getting up and out of bed.So naturally what we focus on at the residential assisted living Academy is showing people exactly how to do that. Denis O'Brien [3:07]Right? So it's kind of taking the idea of that massive institution almost that does a whole bunch of people, but it's making it a bit more niche and sort of targeting people that, you know, want to live in a smaller place and have more sort of hands on care?Emmanuel Guarino [3:22]Yes, exactly. So you know, just like how you know, a hotel and an Airbnb serve the same purpose. But you know, an Airbnb sometimes can be a little bit more cozy, right? It can be a little bit more comfortable when you're going on that vacation. Same thing with us, you know, with our homes, there might be a caregiver to resident ratio of, you know, 1-5, 1-6, at a larger facility, it might be 1- 10, 1-20. So we're able to provide better care, you know, more one on one time with the residents and different things like that. Katie Welsh [3:56]Interesting. So I'm just curious to know does the facility looked like a home like on the outside, does it look like a house in the neighborhood or is that? What does that look like? Emmanuel Guarino [4:06]Yeah, it looks like a home that you driven by 100 times and you would have never known that it's there. And really, that's the whole idea is we want it to look like a home, right a place where you feel comfortable living, because the idea of, you know, someone is, let's say 85/90 years old, and they say, I need to move into an assisted living with you know, 100 strangers and it's a big building that may not be the most comfortable fit the most natural fit versus moving into a home with maybe 5 or 10 other residents and you know, be more of a home like setting so our homes are in completely normal residential neighborhoods, not in a commercial areas or things like that. So that really has that great home feeling to it. Katie Welsh [4:51]So it's kind of just like, I don't want to be like completely blunt but basically like a bunch of old people who are roomy?Emmanuel Guarino [4:59]Yeah. You know, exactly, you know, you might have, you know, five or 10 or 15, you know, residents living in that home and you might have, you know, two or three caregivers taking care of them. So it's nice because they have that chance to be around other people. But you know, for someone who's maybe not incredibly outgoing, or incredibly social, instead of being around hundreds of people, you can be around a few roommates. And that's usually a lot better for people who are at that stage of life. Katie Welsh [5:30]That's really interesting. So how did you get into this sort of business? Emmanuel Guarino [5:35]Oh, that's a great question. So when my father, Gene, you know, the founder of the Academy, when he first started doing this, you know, we all looked at him like he had about, 12 eyes on his head, you know, we were like, what are you doing, right? You got the seniors and these houses, we did not get it. And my father, you know, I he was telling me, you know, invest in real estate and he was telling me about assisted living and, you know, as most kids do, I said, yeah, yeah, Dad, you know that that's, you know, not for me or this or that. But one day he handed me the purple book, right? And I'm sure your listeners know, the purple book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, right. And I read that book and what felt to be like 20 minutes, right. I just went through it and it was awesome. And, you know, a couple weeks later, I was at a real estate event. My dad, he dragged me along, and I saw Robert Kiyosaki and I said, Oh, my goodness, that's Robert Kiyosaki. And he walked up to my father, and he said, hey, you're the assisted living guy. I got some questions for you. And I just had to take a second. I was like, hold on, hold on, you know, Robert Kiyosaki, you're my hero, and you're talking to my dad, and that would make my dad my hero. Katie Welsh [6:51]Suddenly, your dad is so cool.Emmanuel Guarino [6:52]Yeah. And that's when it all clicked for me. And you know, after that moment, you know, I said, you know, Dad - what can I do to help? And he said, you know, we got a lot of students that we teach on how to do this. They need homes, go find them some homes. And so I just went out there, I started knocking on doors, calling, you know, homeowners and just trying to find the right opportunities for those students. And that's how I really got started in this industry from that standpoint.Denis O'Brien [7:20]Yeah. And we did have show dad on the show a long time ago, he was actually Episode 49. And this is going to be episode 180. So it just goes to show how long ago there was. So just chatting about assisted living, you know, like, obviously, a lot of the baby boomers are starting to age. So like, how much of a crisis/opportunity, is there really in this kind of a business and, like how many people really need these kind of services? Emmanuel Guarino [7:50]Yeah, that's a great question. And you know, right now, there are 10,000 people a day, turning 65 years old. Every single day -10,000 people. And you know, in our country, we have 77 million baby boomers in the US, they control our economy, they're a huge part of our day to day lives. And you know, one of the big things is, you know, someone who's 65, they might be moving into independent living, which is before assisted living, right? It's kind of like a community where it's kind of like a very serious HOA, they help out with a lot of things and might have a main Community Center, but it's not quite assisted living, which is what we're doing. You know, right now, there's 85, or there is 4000 people today who are turning 85 years old, and someone who's 85 is more likely to be moving into one of our homes. But you talked about the crisis, the opportunity, right? It all depends on if you're prepared. You know, right now, there is about roughly about 1.4 million beds in the US for assisted living. And right now if you take that number 4000 times by 30 times out by 12, you get about 1.4 million people turning 85 every year. So when you talk about the crisis, the opportunity, that's not even that wave hitting the shore of 10,000 people a day turning 65 years old. So when we talk about the best investment for the next 10/20 years, this is it. Right? Because the demographics are there, there are so many people who need this. And we're just at the beginning of it. So it's awesome. Denis O'Brien [9:29]So speaking about your business, I've noticed that your motto is do good and do well. And I'm just really curious, what exactly does that mean? Where does it come from? And how do you guys try to sort of help people? Emmanuel Guarino [9:42]Yeah, you know, our motto do good and do well, what that really means is, if you help enough people, you can definitely help yourself, you know, financially, right? And so I think my father has just been such a great example of that in his entire life, the way that he's lived, right, and he helped so many people get to that financial freedom point, help them out in times where they really needed someone. And he's been able to do very, very well financially as well. So really, that's what we're all about. And you know, one of the big things and, you know, I don't know if any of your listeners have ever put someone into one of these homes, right, a larger nursing facility or things like that, you know, it's scary, you know, it's a time where you're going, I have to trust someone else taking care of my mom or my dad. And so what we get to do right at the Residential Assisted Living Academy, helping so many people have a place where they can put their money they can put their dad and feel comfortable and feel safe and feel grateful that we're helping them in that time where they really need someone looking out for them. So it's a awesome business because we get to help a lot of people and you can also make a whole lot of money too. And that's what I really enjoy about it is, you know, some jobs and things out there. Maybe they make money but are we really helping someone. So that's a really cool thing about this is you get to do both help a lot of people and you can make money at the same time. Katie Welsh [11:09]I like how, depending on which perspective you're looking at whether you're wanting to open a business like this for yourself, or you're on the flip side and thinking about putting a family member in a facility like this. I have a couple of questions on the latter because my mom is a baby boomer. And I like the idea that my mom would be living with a bunch of other ladies and they can have tea and play cards and do what old ladies do. Denis O'Brien [11:38]Don't forget about bridge.Katie Welsh [11:41]But I want to know, how much does it typically cost to stay in this kind of home. And also is it different based on location is like for example, Florida. I mean, it could either go cheaper or more expensive depending on how you're looking at it versus like somewhere else in the country. Emmanuel Guarino [12:01]Yeah. So the national average to be in an assisted living home in a private room in the US, the national average is $4,000 a month to be in an assisted living home. Now, I say that number $4,000 a month and sometimes people say, well, Manny, that's a lot of money, you know, $4,000. Well, when we break it down, and we think about what that covers, that's covering everything that's covering food that's covering care that's covering all their bills, the housing that's covering everything, you know, one time, my wife and I were actually walking through one of the homes and, you know, $4,000 It sounds like a lot, but we were like, Hey, wait a minute, it might actually make more sense for us to move into this home. We get our meals prepared for us, we get someone taking care of our laundry. This can actually make a whole lot of sense. it's kind of funny, but, you know, in the US, you know, the national average is 4000. There are people who pay much higher than that, right? That's the average. So when we talk about cities, like let's say somewhere like a Seattle, right, a very hot market, a very nice place to live, if you want to live in assisted living in a very hot area in a nice place, things like that, you know, it might be 7,8,9- $10,000 a month, a month to live into one of these homes. So when we talk about investing, right, sometimes people say, well, I, I live in San Diego or I live in, you know, one of these places where it's very expensive to live. And it's hard for me to make sense of my investments. This is one of those things where we're looking in nicer areas because people pay more to be in those areas. So it can actually be a great bonus from that standpoint. But yes, depending on where you are in the country, you know, the national average is 4000. There's areas that are less than that there are areas that are much more than that. I know in New Jersey, I believe one of their I believe there's state averages right around $6,000 a month in New Jersey.So a great website is actually called www.genworth.com. And if you type in forward slash cost of care, this organization, they send out surveys to all the assisted livings across the country. And they get back about 18,000 surveys. And they actually give out that information of how much it costs to live in an assisted living home in those areas. And so that's where we get that information from. So that's a great resource. If you're looking into that. If you have a family member, and you're looking to start getting together those costs, that's a great place to start. Denis O'Brien [14:41]So at your academy, what do you guys essentially teach people do you sort of train people how to start and operate these businesses? Are people sort of involved in the day to day or do you sort of Teach outsourcing stuff like what exactly does that entail? Emmanuel Guarino [14:56]So my father and I the way that we do our homes is we're very hands off. So we're not personally in the homes taking care of the residents. Within a residential assisted living home, you'll have caregivers who are taking care of the residents, you'll have a manager who's overseeing the caregivers who's overseeing the residents. And then you'll have an operator above them, right. And that for our situation is us. We're above the manager, we're above the caregivers. So they're taking care of a lot of the day to day and we're focused more on working on the business, not in the business. And that's the way that we teach on how to do this. And that's the way that we run them ourselves. So at the Academy, we teach people exactly how to do that. So the marketing, the staffing, the licensing, we do a live bus tour of all of our homes, so you get to walk through them, meet the staff, meet the residents. We go over all the numbers, the financials, the expenses, and then we also have a lot of fun after hours after the class and getting to meet the students talk with them go over all their questions. So really, it's an A to Z guide on how to run one of these homes, and how to run it on a high level and very successfully. Katie Welsh [16:11]So if I were interested in joining your Academy, where can I find more information out about it? Emmanuel Guarino [16:18]A great place to start is actually the website, RAL101.com. So if you type in RAL 101 dot com, that's going to take you to a page where we have videos for you, we have a free book for you on the topic, that's a great place to get started. And on that page, you can actually schedule a discovery call with one of our associates and they'll talk to you and go over your questions and help you find out if this is the right opportunity for you. And we encourage you to reach out, you know, look at all those videos, give us a call, and we'd love to talk to you. Denis O'Brien [16:53]So how much does it cost more or less to sort of go through the course. Emmanuel Guarino [16:57]So our live training, we actually have it on discount right now it's usually $5,000 to attend right now it's $2,997. We got a great partner program for the live training. It's only $1,000. To bring a partner, we go by the BBB rule their blood bed or bank account. That's what we consider a partner. So if you're sharing a bloodline, you're sharing a bank account or a bedroom, we consider that a partner so you can bring a partner or spouse at $1,000. And then we have an online home study course that was also on sale right now. It's usually $1,500 thousand right now is on sale for $997. Denis O'Brien [17:37]Great, thanks, Manny. Money Clan, we're just going to take a quick break and then we'll dive right back into the Value Link Round.Kate, one of the things that I really appreciate is education. And I really believe that one of the best investments we can make is in ourselves. It's absolutely critical that we keep learning and develop our skills. And ever since I started using the Great Courses Plus I've found that I'm really accelerating my learning by getting tailored content. Katie Welsh [18:04]Yeah, Den and I have taken a recent interest with all of our podcasts on money management skills and the Great Courses Plus has an excellent course on money management skills where they talk all about how to build a financial plan and how to achieve your goals and really stay on track. It has definitely helped me narrow down and really set focus. Denis O'Brien [18:30]Yeah, and the Great Courses classes recently teamed up with Chain of Wealth to bring you a special offer. You can get a full month of access, if you head over to TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/wealth. That's the TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/wealth. This is really an epic streaming service. They've got over 11,000 videos, so definitely grab your free trial.Katie Welsh [18:56]All right, Manny. So I'm curious to know what your retirement plan is looking like these days? Emmanuel Guarino [19:02]Oh, that's a great question. So one of the really cool things about assisted living. And you know, my father talks about this all the time is when people are looking to move into an assisted living, right? When they move their mom or they move their dad and they say, Wow, this costs a lot of money. But then they have to ask themselves the question, well, what's my plan? And so what's nice about assisted livings is even if you do just one, when it comes time to move into an assisted living, you can move right into your own assisted living, and you could be paid to live in your own assisted living. And I think that is the best way to do it, quite honestly. Because, hey, we're all going to be involved in this business one way or another. We're either going to put someone in one of these homes, you're going to own one of these homes or we're going to go into these homes one day, hopefully not soon, but eventually we're all going to get involved and you know the best story about that I can give you there was a gentleman in Phoenix, Arizona, his name was Walt and he was a older gentleman. He was so nice. He ran one of the best care homes in all of Arizona. And I would go by every once in a while to, you know, visit and say hello to him, and he would always be at the care home. But I would ask him, I said, you know, Walt, how much do you work on the business? And he said, Well, about an hour a day. I said, Okay, you know, that's pretty cool. But every time I go over there to visit them, whether it's in the morning or the mid day or the afternoon, he'd be there. He'd be eating breakfast, he'd be eating lunch, she'd be eating dinner. And then at nighttime, he lived in the house right next door, he just walked back home and go sleep there. Now. You know, he passed away. But before he passed away, he even had a Tesla that he bought with cash that could he had a self driving car. So he had his own care home right there to feed them breakfast, lunch and dinner, take care of them. He had a self driving car and I think that's probably the coolest way to go out and retire and things like that. And he was such a great guy. Were you know, very sad that he went. But I think if you're looking for a good retirement plan, tell me something that can beat that. I mean, am I right? Katie Welsh [21:06]Your story reminded me of I've always admired the families where they live in a big house, and both grandparents on both sides are living there. And then, you know, you have your parents and maybe an aunt or an uncle, and then all the kids are there, you know, there's kind of living situations that aren't super common anymore. But I've always thought they've been quite nice to think about. It's that kind of lifestyle, but you're just putting it like 10 times that. Emmanuel Guarino [21:35]Right. Exactly. Katie Welsh [21:37]That's really investing in your future. And then, like, with Walt, he knew everybody there, and it wasn't such a scary transition for him. It probably felt much more natural than that. Emmanuel Guarino [21:50]Oh, yeah. And he got to choose which residents he wanted to let move in and things like that. So that even on top of it, I mean of all things so it's a really cool, cool way to go out for sure. Denis O'Brien [22:02]So do you have a favorite book that you're currently into? Emmanuel Guarino [22:05]Oh, I do. I, I've been really listening to How to Win Friends and Influence People. And every time I listened to that book, you know, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners have read that and you guys have as well. It's such common sense. But common sense isn't always that common, right? And sometimes listening that book, it's like, oh, my goodness, that is so important. That is such a great nugget. And that's what I've been listening to personally.Katie Welsh [22:33]And what about a favorite quote, you try to live by?Emmanuel Guarino [22:35]Ohh, work hard, play hard, that I would have to be it. That is definitely how my father he I think he really exemplifies that as well as do good and do well. But you know, just growing up seeing him. You know, he was such a hard worker, and he always put his heart and soul into everything that he did. But when it was time to relax, when it was time to hang out and play, he went all out with that too. And I think that's the only way to live life.Denis O'Brien [23:01]Manny we've absolutely loved hanging out do you have any last parting piece of advice for our listeners and then we'll say goodbye.Emmanuel Guarino [23:07]Yeah well you know if you're interested you know give us a call come check out our website RAL101.com love to get you more information so you can learn about this. And again, you know, you look at the demographics, there's a lot of people who need this so the time is right now. So come on by and let us know how we can help.Denis O'Brien [23:26]Money Clan, we've been hanging out with Emmanuel Guarino you can check out his website it is RAL101.com and definitely check it out and figure out if it's something that you're interested in. This is definitely a great way to make money on the side.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/chain-of-wealth-debt-investing-entrepreneurship-wealth-and-more/donationsWant to advertise on this podcast? Go to https://redcircle.com/brands and sign up.

Denis O'Brien [0:09]Hey Money Clan, a very warm welcome to the Chain of Wealth podcast. I'm your host, Denis O'Brien.Katie Welsh [0:20]And I'm Katie Welsh.Denis O'Brien [0:21]So Katie, just to give everyone a quick update this episode is dedicated to diving into our wedding budgets.Katie Welsh [0:27]Yeah. So right around the corner.Denis O'Brien [0:30]Yes. So our actual date of the wedding is July 20. And or super pumped.Katie Welsh [0:37]We had our wedding shower over the weekend, which was a complete surprise for us. And now I feel like it's actually like the real deal. Like it's coming. They had a countdown.Denis O'Brien [0:49]Yeah, we have less than 60 days to go until we will be tying the knot. So really, really exciting. And on a money front, we thought we'd give you guys a nice update and we'll really dive into some of the numbers. And let you know exactly where we're at in our budget. All right, Kate, well before we dive on into today's episode, if you guys haven't already, head on over to chainofwealth.com/group -]you can join our Facebook community and come and say hi.Okay, Kate, you ready to dive right in? YKatie Welsh [1:18]Yep!Denis O'Brien [1:19]Let's do it.Unknown Speaker]1:20]Welcome to chain of wealth. here's your host, Dennis inspiring you to begin your journey of financial freedom.Denis O'Brien [1:34]Okay, so diving into our budget- what do you think's been some of the most interesting things that we've been dealing with when it comes to figuring out our finances for the wedding?Katie Welsh [1:43]Well, I am going to start out with we have been doing something a little bit different because we are planning our wedding on the other side of the world. We are not really able to cut costs where a lot of people typically would like making our centerpieces or, you know, kind of haggling around finding different areas and different things that we know. Because we don't know the area super great.Denis O'Brien [2:11]Right, yeah, so for those of you who don't know, we're getting married in South Africa. That's my home country. And yeah, it's gonna be really, really fun. We're actually getting married on safari. So we're going to be out there like in the wilderness. They are free roaming big 5 animalsKatie Welsh [2:26]Hopefully we don't get run over by a herd of elephants.Denis O'Brien [2:29]Yeah, so there's gonna be there's all kinds of animals that could come into the area. Everything from lion cheetah, what leopard, elephant, like, it's crazy any of the Big Five can come into the area where we are actually having our ceremony..Katie Welsh [2:46]Or zebra will be pretty cool.Denis O'Brien [2:48]Zebra would be cool.Yeah, so in addition to having our wedding costs, we also have to pay for flights. And for our honeymoon. We're actually doing Family moon, well what we like to call a family moon. And so we're not doing a traditional honeymoon, what we're doing is we're saying, hey, all of this family's going to be together. Let's go and take everyone down to Cape Town. And let's go have a really cool time with doing a cool trip. We've planned out almost every day. And there's a ton of activities and it'll really explain us to two families to sort of get to know each other a lot better.Katie Welsh [3:24]Yeah, and I know that is pretty different. When I've told people about the family moon idea. I get a lot of strange looks.Denis O'Brien [3:32]Yeah, you get like the "Oh!"Katie Welsh [3:33]Yeah, like, oh, because everybody's like, Oh, are you going on your honeymoon? I'm like, Oh, I'm going to Cape Town with my mom and my in laws and everything. And they're just like, what? And but to me, in my heart, it felt like the right thing to do, mainly because we don't get to see your family very often. And I didn't want to ask my family to fly so far. And only be there for a week. It's not enough time.Denis O'Brien [4:02]Yeah, it's not really fair. So we thought that this was the best alternative to really try and get the most out of both families being there together. And, you know, in addition to that, we saw budgeted that into our total wedding. So we kind of know exactly where we're at. And at this point, you know, a lot of the deposits have been paid. We haven't got final numbers on everything yet, but we've got a pretty good idea as to how much it is going to cost us.Katie Welsh [4:27]Yeah, well, we're doing with most weddings. And I'm not a complete expert, because I've only planned this one. But there's the typical things that you need to pay for obviously, everybody says you need to spend a decent amount of money on a photographer, that's like the most important part that people have told me.Denis O'Brien [4:46]I would have to say the most consistent thing we've heard is spend money on the photographer.Katie Welsh [4:50]And then after that, which I never even thought about before. There's somebody who's like you need to pay money for your makeup. And I don't want to sound like I'm a super plain Jane or anything, but I'm not a huge makeup wearer like I will put on eyeliner and like mascara and everything, but somebody had a really good point that you're paying all this money photographer. Why would you risk not having your makeup look okay with the pictures. So we're getting you know, hair and makeup and the photographer and of course a cake and a DJ and stuff like that. The one place that I kind of always envisioned myself being able to save a few dollars is, you know, the centerpieces and the decorations and stuff like that either borrow from my friends or make at home with my mom and my bridesmaids and because South Africa is so far away, and from my own past experiences, everything in Africa is harder for me. We are hiring everything. I'm hiring somebody to do their centerpieces because the last thing I want to worry about is flying there for 24 hours and then opening my suitcase and a vase is broken, or they've lost luggage or something like that. So I have opted to get that done for us. So that's also been a little bit of an extra cost. And we've really done a lot of shopping around for it.Denis O'Brien [6:18]Yeah. So I think most people sort of listening will be like, oh, wow, you guys are doing this overseas wedding, you know, it sounds be costing a ton of money.Katie Welsh [6:26]But oh, contraire!Denis O'Brien [6:29]Yeah, so it's actually going to be a little bit quite a lot cheaper than what the average wedding in America costs. And there's a number of reasons for that. So the general purchasing power of the dollar is much stronger than that of the South African Rand. So your money goes much further there. And even with paying for flights, we still are pretty much getting to save a bit of money doing it overseas.Katie Welsh [6:54]Right. So basically, I want to say that the typical wedding in America run anywhere between $20,000 and $40,000Denis O'Brien [7:04]Yeah, I think the national I'm just pulling up Google here the national average is $33,931. So that's quite a sizable chunk of change Kate.Katie Welsh [7:14]That is, like a down payment on a house. Not even joking.Denis O'Brien [7:18]Yeah, it really is. And that's a lot of money. So the question is, well, how do we compared to the average?Well, to be honest, black, after calculating, all of our budget costs, we're looking to spend about $19,000 on our wedding and that's all inclusive that a great venue hire food, drinks, decor, photography, cake, hair, makeup, DJ, flights, food and meals, flowers, your wedding dress suits, the wedding band, it literally is an all inclusive price. And you know, sort of, we've managed to achieve such a nice break by shopping around and also not inviting too many people to the wedding as well.Katie Welsh [8:02]Well, on that is quite a commitment for people to fly from America to South Africa. So we have invited family and friends and but it's a long time and it's a minimum of at least a week we're, you know, we were getting married in Florida, it could be like a nice long weekend. Not a big deal. But the extra time off and the extra expense and everything. And we totally get it. If it's too much, it's too much no harm, no foul. But that has cut down a lot of the our guests numbers because people like that we casually work with our people that we kind of know. You know, they're not able to make it and with that it's been able to keep our wedding more intimate and people who are really, really important in our lives are able to come.Denis O'Brien [8:57]Yeah, and I think that's going to be nice and sweet. We're looking at about 45 to 50 people total wedding. So you know, like, it's going to be really nice and small and intimate. But another thing as well as just the cost per guest is also so much less than what we would have paid on in the States.Katie Welsh [9:13]Right?Denis O'Brien [9:14]So we're looking roughly at about a cost per head of about $43 for food, and versus the US and I think you look at an average of about $100 per guest, which, you know, like, it's a significant saving that we have, however, it's still going to be really beautiful, you know, it isn't like you think of Africa and its people walking around and like literally tribal clothing, and stuff like that.Katie Welsh [9:39]Although you can hire that.Denis O'Brien [9:41]Although you can hire that. That's not what we're going for.Yeah, but we're staying in a four star resort so we're not compromising on a being up a very nice wedding. You know, but by the same token because of that purchasing power difference, our money does go a little bit further. And, you know, Kate, the most important thing is we budgeted for this and were able to sort of build in this cushion, that, you know, if we did go over in one departments within another department, we would still be okay. And I think with any large purchase, this is something that you really have to do.Katie Welsh [9:44]We will be wearing regular clothes and eating wedding cake and everything like that, that goes along with a traditional wedding.Well and to spend back and talk about how food was not nearly as expensive. The other big banger for a wedding I feel like would be cocktails and alcohol. And in South Africa, alcohol is significantly cheaper than it is in America.Denis O'Brien [10:38]Yeah, that's really true. Well, before we dive into anything else, we're just going to take a quick break and say a big thanks to our sponsor.Katie Welsh [10:46]So I recently started the Great Courses Plus to learn all about different kinds of topics, but my favorite so far has been the money management skill. I found it particularly useful learning about their psychology of money. Now that I've paid off my student loan, and now that we're paying for our wedding.Denis O'Brien [11:05]Yeah, Kate, I've really gotten a ton of value from the Great Courses Plus, I've absolutely loved diving into the library of over 11,000 videos, which in itself is a huge number. But I have to say that the quality of the courses is really, really good. They've got all sorts of things from experts from National Geographic, to people that work in the Smithsonian, some of the best professors around the world. And that money management skills course is really one that resonated with me, because it teaches so many the fundamentals that, you know, you really need to get in place to get your building blocks in order and be able to really get your money under control. So we've actually got a really special offer for our podcast listeners, you can get a free month of access to their entire library, you can claim that free offer by heading on over to TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/wealth.Kate, I think another really big topic points that a lot of people start asking themselves is what do you do about gifts that people stop giving you Oh, when people stop offering to pay for the weddingKatie Welsh [12:14]Urgh the gift!Denis O'Brien [12:14]Well, let's be honest, like, so we're late 20s, early 30s. And you know, at this point, we are kind of able to pay for the cost of our wedding ourselves. But that doesn't mean our parents just you know, left us stranded.Right.You know, like both your mom and my parents as well. I've also said to us, you know, we want to help out. And we want to, you know, like do something for you guys and help, like ease the burden of paying for this.Katie Welsh [12:41]Right, yeah, well, let's start off with parental help. I told my mom, my mom and I were speaking about I said, whatever you want to help with is great. But I do not want to put any kind of extra strain on you, we are very fortunate that we don't really need the help for the wedding. But of course, any extra help would be nice, because whatever we don't have to pay for we can put that money towards something else, like buying a house later down the road. But that is how I took the approach with my mom, because I didn't want her to feel like she was going to have to be out thousands and thousands of dollars, just pay what you would like. And I know my mom, my whole life has probably not probably most definitely thought about paying for certain things for my wedding. So I'm letting her pay for those things, but not really letting her stress about the rest.Denis O'Brien [13:39]Yeah, I hear what you're saying and I definitely, see both sides of the coin. You know, on the one side, you know, at our age, we were trying to be independent. So we're trying to do one thing. That being said, it's a huge chunk of change. And let's be real being in the personal finance space, we know the impacts of taking that money and sort of investing it instead of you know, spending it on something like a weddingWell, not that should look at a wedding as a big expense. But realistically, the power of compounding means that that money is actually worth significantly more later on,Katie Welsh [14:13]Right.Denis O'Brien [14:14]And you know, whether you are going to be getting your inheritance when your parents sadly passed away, or whether you get the money up front now, you should sort of look at it as one bucket.Katie Welsh [14:22]Right,Denis O'Brien [14:23]You know, so just like putting all that said earlier, you don't want to put your parents out. But by the same token, it's really going to help you a lot if they do give any kind of help. So what I think your approach should be is try and you know, pay for as much as what you can. But also, don't put any pressure on your parents and sort of see what they will suggest. And also like, Look, you know, the position of your parents probably better than anyone else in the world. You know, you grew up with them, you knew the last thought they had you knew more or less what job they were holding, you can kind of high level know how much they probably can and can't afford, to put down, you know, like, they will probably speak to you about retirement and stuff like this, depending on how old you are, when you do get married or engaged or whatever. And you know, based on that you can kind of make a quick assessment and think whether or not they are trying to extend themselves too much, or whether they're being fair and how much they're trying to contribute.Katie Welsh [15:17]Right, well and Den I also want to point out the fact that you and I have cut back significantly, if you listen to the podcast at all, you would know we live right in the middle of DC, there are a million restaurants to go out to, and places to shop and everything. And even though we're not big shoppers, we are very big foodies.Denis O'Brien [15:40]Yes, we are.Katie Welsh [15:40]And we have been going to the grocery store and meal prepping every week and really trying hard to eat at home because it's so much cheaper. And we have cut down our cocktailing on the weekend, dramatically, which has been great for the wedding diet and also for our wedding budget.Denis O'Brien [16:00]Yeah, hundred percent. And the other thing is as well, when you do get engaged or like any kind of big purchase, the sooner you start planning for it the better. You know, we've known about this for several months now. And you know, sort of knowing that there's a big expense coming, we're able to sort of start putting money into a pot and really start building up almost like that reserve that you can stop pulling off because let's be honest, like, obviously you guys are not looking at our budget, but everything basically is within two weeks, of the wedding so a lot of the money, we still have paid deposits now but the bulk of the payments are going to be due right before the wedding. And if you're not prepared for that,Katie Welsh [16:38]it's very stressful.Denis O'Brien [16:40]Yeah. Out comes the plastic and it's swipe, swipe, swipe. And before you know it, you're in $20,000 of credit card debt. And that's something you don't want to be and you really don't want to be in that situation.Katie Welsh [16:52]Yano for sure. That was one thing going into the wedding that thankfully, we agreed we were not going into debt for the wedding. I just got done. It feels like yesterday paying off my student loan. And the last thing that I was going to do is go back into debt for the wedding.Denis O'Brien [17:10]Yeah, I totally agree. The nice thing is, if you are able to sort of plan for this and get your money in order, you can literally start your lives together as being debt free. And that is a great position to be in, you know, like we now will be able to put a lot of our money in towards investments instead of paying off interest and debt.Katie Welsh [17:29]Yeah, definitely. And it's a really nice feeling to have to be able to do that.Denis O'Brien [17:34]Cool. Well, we'd love if you guys could join our Facebook community head on over to chainofwealth.com/group. We'd love if you joined and comments below us your story. Catch on the flip side!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/chain-of-wealth-debt-investing-entrepreneurship-wealth-and-more/donationsWant to advertise on this podcast? Go to https://redcircle.com/brands and sign up.

Denis O'Brien [0:09]Episode 181, saving money around the house. Hey, Money Clan! A very warm welcome to the Chain of Wealth Podcast. I'm your host, Denis O'Brien.Katie Welsh [0:20]And I'm Katie Walsh.Denis O'Brien [0:22]So Katie today, a lot of hot fire tips to really save money around the house, and, you know, have more money to save in the month and put to whatever you're looking for.Katie Welsh [0:31]We have been really trying to be a little bit more self sufficient, because we have been trying to pinch where we can to be able to pay for the wedding. And we thought, though, to give a couple of tips that we feel we are saving money just by doing it ourselves. Denis O'Brien [0:46]You know, the thing is, Kate, I feel like also, in the world that we live in today, it's all about instant gratification. And you can typically pay your way out of anything. But I think that very often, if you put in the time and energy, you invest in skills to learn how to do things better yourself, you can save a lot of money instead of just having to pay someone the whole time.Katie Welsh [1:04]Well, and it makes me feel good. It makes you feel like I'm really handy when I'm able to fix something.Denis O'Brien [1:09]Yeah, it's totally true. So before we dive into our episode, if you guys haven't already, we'd love if you join our Facebook community, head on over to chainofwealth.com/group and come and say hi. All right, Kate's you ready to dive on him? Katie Welsh [1:23]Yeah!Denis O'Brien [1:23]Fantastic, let's do it! Alright Kate, so saving money around the house. And I know this is a big passion area of yours. So what would you say is a good reason to try and learn stuff like this?Katie Welsh [1:50]For obvious reasons, Den to be able to cut back and do things yourself, it gives you more money to be able to put another place like you're saving or paying off debt. It just makes life easier. We I know he said earlier that you can basically pay your way out of anything. But sometimes having to find somebody to come and fix something can really be a hassle. And I say that because a few weeks ago, the pipe under my mom's sink broke. And she was like, Yeah, I could probably fix it myself. But she was like, I don't want to I'm old. I want to just be able to pay somebody to come and do it. I don't want to get under their sink. And even still wanting to pay her way out of it. She's had a hard time finding a plumber that is reasonable and reliable.Denis O'Brien [2:41]Yeah. And, you know, the thing is, like, very often, if you do things yourself, you do it the way you want it. Relying on other people, you don't get that sense of Okay, well, I got the exact outcome I was expecting, in fact they did it definitely, I've now paid them for it. And I'm disappointed sometimes can be a really bad situation.Katie Welsh [3:01]Well I feel a lot of times that happens, especially with, you know, things around the house that you most people don't like doing. And I'll just say for example, yard work.Denis O'Brien [3:12]Right.Katie Welsh [3:12]I mean, a lot of people don't enjoy yard work, because it's hot, and it's hard and it's dirty. And last time people pay somebody to do it. And then they start off great. And then after a couple of weeks, a couple months if you actually walk around your yard, they've had sprinkler heads, they have..Denis O'Brien [3:34]Cut corners?Katie Welsh [3:35]Cut corners. They're not eating properly. They're not doing this but not doing that they're not coming in there say they're going to come. So even hiring sometimes can be a little bit of a letdown and a disappointment and an annoyance.Denis O'Brien [3:48]Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So what are some great ways that people can save money around the house? What are some of the biggest topic areas that you personally think are great?Katie Welsh [3:57]Well, I really thought when I was a child that one of the reasons my mom had children was to do the housework. There's a while that I thought my mom only had a daughter to wash the dishes. So obviously, like cleaning up your own house and doing yard work is a great start. We don't have a yard in Virginia. So one way that we really have been working on trying to save money is you have sacrificed yourself to let me cut your hair. Denis O'Brien [4:31]This is true.Katie Welsh [4:32]I've been cutting your hair for a while now.Denis O'Brien [4:35]Yeah, and I'm not gonna lie, first couple of times. I didn't look so well put together.Katie Welsh [4:41]You are so we're super..Denis O'Brien [4:44]Particular?Katie Welsh [4:45]Bossy.Denis O'Brien [4:46]Well, yeah, I mean, you know, your hair is something that people see every day. You know, you gotta work. You got off. everyone notices your hair. It's one of the I mean, it's on your face, you know, face.Katie Welsh [4:57]If it's that bad wear a hat.Denis O'Brien [5:00]Yeah, I mean, you can wear a hat to work, you know. But anyways, yeah, you started cutting my hair, and you've gotten better and better at it. And now it's at a point that I can't tell the difference between whether I haven't done at home or whether I go to a store. And look, there wasn't bit of an upfront cost. We had to buy the clippers and everything else. There was the learning curve. There was me looking like an idiot for a couple of weeks. Katie Welsh [5:24]It wasn't that bad.Denis O'Brien [5:25]No it wasn't that bad. But um, yeah, I think it cost us about 80 bucks to buy everything like all inclusive and we Katie is actually a lefty so we get the special left handed scissors.Katie Welsh [5:35]They matter!Denis O'Brien [5:36]Which cost more.Katie Welsh [5:37]They matter though.Denis O'Brien [5:38]But anyway, it was about 80 bucks all in and, you know, every time you go get your hair cut, that's at least 20 bucks for a dude. So yeah, effectively now it's more than paid for..]You've cut my hair more times than I can count. So that's one big way that we've saved money and another way that I, well another thing that I like saving money with his coffee. So I am a huge coffee person.Katie Welsh [6:00]We could even venture snob.Denis O'Brien [6:03]Yeah, I would even go as far as snob. So I'm a big coffee snob. And, you know, like, I really enjoy my lattes. And I know, as a personal finance person, like that's probably one of the worst things that you could possibly say. But I enjoy coffee I do. It's something that makes me happy. It gets me started in the morning. I like to start my day with it. So I was like, all right, well, what happens if instead of, you know going out and paying $5 to Starbucks or whatever coffee store you going to, what if you tried to learn how to do your own espressos and cappuccinos and lattes and stuff like that. So I bought my own equipment to do it and it is more than paid for itself by now. And you get the coffee that you want every time so I think it's definitely was worth the investment for me, but I think this is a very person specific stuff. Maybe coffee is not your thing. But there's other stuff you can do.Katie Welsh [6:54]Right. So just like how you are a coffee snob, and we have like a mini coffee corner in our apartment where you could get anything that you want. I enjoy cooking and herbs are really expensive after a while and I don't know if it is just me but when I buy like a container of basil, I use like two or three basil leaves and then the rest of it goes bad and it's like that for almost all the spices that I use.Denis O'Brien [7:26]Well yeah, because you normally buy those hubs for a particular dish so once you use it for that dish and then some leftover you can even think oh I should use thisKatie Welsh [7:35]So, I grow my own herbs and even to cut a little bit more back I buy the seeds so usually in the wintertime I will go and I will buy basil seeds and parsley seeds and everything like that because it comes cheaper. And I'm going to be honest, I do not have a green thumb and I am so good at growing basil. I'm pretty sure basil is like idiot proof. Anybody can grow basil. So if you enjoy basil or pesto or anything like that, grow it yourself. Right now we have basil, cilantro, parsley, spinach, and kale. Because those are the main things that we're eating, trying to get ready for our wedding diet. So I've just gone ahead and I grow those and it has cut back, not a ton. I mean, it's not a huge savings and off our grocery, but it is fun, I enjoy it. And it's nice to know that we're getting fresh stuff. I know it's completely organic, because it is in a pot in my backyard. And it's really nice that I don't ever have to worry about those herbs going bad because I just go and cut what I need.Denis O'Brien [8:44]Yeah. And on the topic of the kitchen, you know, a lot of people speak about paying your way out, they don't pack their lunches, and they will buy lunch at work. And every day, you know they're like oh, I'm going to go buy a salad, and that's 10 bucks and whatever doesn't seem like a lot of money. However, over a longer period of time, you're going to be eating, you know, you're going to be spending a lot more money. And it's not going to be as good for you because like you said, you don't know what's going into it. Versus like packing your own lunch. So you're eating salads, you pack your own salad, you can maybe bulk prep that as well, and effectively save a ton of money. And it's going to be better for your health.Katie Welsh [9:23]We pack our lunches every day. And I'm going to just throw out a little bit of a hint, after working all day and then having to cook dinner and then pack your lunch ii's really a drag. So I don't know why it took me about 10 years of working in the real world to figure this out. But pre packing at least some of your lunch on over the weekend is the best idea I ever had. And a lot of times it will take you know, leftover dinner from the night before for lunch the next day. But even just small things, like if you take berries, for example for your lunch, putting all your berries in, you know, a Tupperware per day, it just takes a little bit extra work away during the week when you come home and you're tired and you just want to go to the gym or watch TV or take a shower, you know, whatever. Meal prepping makes everything so much easier. Because it's take you're getting a lot done in the same amount of time that it would have taken to get one done.Denis O'Brien [10:26]Yeah, I totally agree. And something else that I think people can do to really save a whole bunch of money is to learn how to repair stuff yourself. So point in case, my coffee machine that I spoke about earlier. It was like you know, sorry, it's not taste as great, and they would have some coffee grinds falling off the back of the machine. So I decided...Katie Welsh [10:46]Coffee grinds everywhere...Denis O'Brien [10:47]Yeah, so I decided to take this machine apart and basically see if I couldn't fix it myself. And I ended up fixing myself, I had to use a glue gun to sort of fix the grinds from not like going everywhere, but the machine is now fixed, and it's working better than ever.Katie Welsh [11:02]And what is the new thing you're going to learn how to do?Denis O'Brien [11:05]You tell me?Katie Welsh [11:06]Your bike!Denis O'Brien [11:06]Yes, I'm going to learn how to do my bike repairs.Katie Welsh [11:09]So in case, this was a new thing for me, if you are not an avid biker. Bikes apparently need tune ups. And tune ups for a bike are not cheap.Denis O'Brien [11:21]Yeah, we priced it today. So the store down the road wants like 130 bucks. So yeah, it's not cheap. And you know, if you figure out how to do it yourself, you can basically save yourself a lot of money down the road. Kate, before we go any further, I think now's a great time to say a very big thanks to our sponsor.Katie Welsh [11:38]Yeah. Hey, guys. So as a teacher, I think that is super important that you are able to master a topic and know all facets of it. And that's why we have been loving the Great Courses Plus.Denis O'Brien [11:55]I've really enjoyed adding the Great Courses Plus to my own personal arsenal of resources. Kate, I think that it's an absolutely phenomenal product. And it gives you access to a library of over 11,000 video tutorials. And I must say a course that I've really been digging lately is the financial literacy finding your way in the financial markets course. So this course is all about understanding the markets and what you should be doing with your money. As an example, one of the great things that it dives into is it teaches you how to diversify. And most importantly, it teaches you why it's important and how to sort of figure out the blend between stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and much much more. Kate, we partnered up with a Great Courses Plus, and we're going to give our audience a very special offer. This is a limited time offer. If you guys head on over to TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/Wealth, you can claim a full month of free access. So it's full access to their entire library for 30 days, you can claim your offer. It's TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/wealth. That's TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/wealth.Katie Welsh [13:07]Okay, so bouncing back to what we talked about before the break. I love cooking. I also love grocery shopping. And I admit, I may have a slight problem where I buy too much than what we need.Denis O'Brien [13:24]You buy the groceries store?Katie Welsh [13:25]I try really hard. So I have started making it a new goal to eat everything that we buy. And I try really hard to make the refrigerator look quite bare. And then I go.Denis O'Brien [13:25]Well, Kate, like I really feel like that's been fundamental to us saving so much money lately, you know, is that we will literally stretch out our food budgets. And you know, like literally, like you said, eating the entire fridge and making sure that there's nothing left in that fridge before we will go shopping again. I feel like we have literally saved hundreds of dollars by doing that.Katie Welsh [14:01]No, don't get me wrong. It's hard for me. I don't love it. And I the one thing I have noticed, because we try to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner from home. We make breakfast in the morning before work, we take our lunches to work and then we come home and we eat dinner. The big challenge that I face is when I freeze meat, and then I forget to take something out to defrost, then I'm just like, Oh, well, let's just go out. And then for whatever reason, it throws off my entire pattern for the week. So I've been trying really hard to keep like two or three chicken breasts or something in the refrigerator at all times. Or if I am cooking and I'm using that meat from the refrigerator, I immediately take another meat out of the freezer, because that's where I find my fatal flaw is if we don't have any, defrosted meat, it's just the straight downhill for me.Denis O'Brien [14:55]Yeah, I totally agree. And something else. Another way that we've already started saying having a lot of money as well is we typically have a rule that if we haven't used something, within about six months, we strongly consider whether we should sell it. And that's actually stuff that's just laying around the house. And you know, it's collecting dust and it's not going to good use. And, look, we've done it, everyone's done it like you buy stuff and inevitably, it sits somewhere. It's in a draw or on a council whatever the case is. And that's money that's not working for you. And if you were to sell it, you may not get as much as you bought it for however, you're better off selling it now, before that awesome starts aging and is worth even less.Katie Welsh [15:37]I will admit throwing things away slash selling things is one of my favorite things to do. Especially we have a smaller apartment. And when you have a lot of stuff in a small area, it feels very cramped. So whenever I find something laying around, and I've pretty much weaseled out everything, but occasionally I'll find some that we can live without. I love selling it. And I even have like an hair straightener that I won while I was working at the hair salon for my side hustle and it was like a $200 hair straightener. I already have a hair straightener. My hair straightener is fine. Why do I need another one? I sold it for like 100 bucks. It was a win win for both of us. I got 100 bucks. The girl got a great hair straightener for half the price. And it was great.Denis O'Brien [16:31]Yeah, definitely is a good deal. I think that another way that you can really save money is like being more strategic when you do go shopping. So..Katie Welsh [16:39]All we do is talk about food.Denis O'Brien [16:41]No, no, I wasn't talking about food.Katie Welsh [16:42]Oh!Denis O'Brien [16:44]No, I'm not talking about grocery shopping, I'm talking about shopping for things, you know. So towards the end of the year, there's obviously a massive rush with it being holiday season and everyone's spending a ton of money. And you know, everything's marked]up and because everyone knows that it's time to buy gifts and stuff. However, you wait a couple days after year end or after the holidays, and everything is suddenly cheaper.Katie Welsh [17:09]Well, especially for like holiday decoration. Denis O'Brien [17:11]Exactly like wait till after the holiday. Because like as an example Easter, you may buy decorations right before Easter, and they're going to be really expensive. Right after Easter well hopefully not on Easter day. If you go into the stores, they're trying to get rid of this stock because they got new stuff coming in the next for the next season. So if you quickly buy up what they have, you can cut a ton of money off what you're buying.Katie Welsh [17:38]That reminds me, do you remember our conversation in February?Denis O'Brien [17:42]Which conversation in February?Katie Welsh [17:44]About chocolate?Denis O'Brien [17:46]Yes.Katie Welsh [17:46]I told you don't worry about buying me a chocolate heart for Valentine's Day rather go on the 15 so it's half price and so just as delicious.Denis O'Brien [17:57]And it was and you know like very often a lot of times today's made into such a commercial.. I want to say scam.. but obviously it's still holiday and that's not a nice thing to say but that's what it is like shops try to make a ton of money off your during the festive season then they and they prey on you trying to get them to the whole swing of things. But if you plan a little bit in advance and like plan you know, I know it's a lot to say a year in advance realistically what it is. You can save a ton of money.Katie Welsh [18:23]Yeah it is. I think that's about maxing out all my ideas for quick easy ways to save money around the house.Denis O'Brien [18:31]Yeah Kate and I also think you know, like making small incremental changes around the house can really save you a ton of money.Katie Welsh [18:37]Yeah, you don't have to do change your whole life all at one time. You know, if you have a husband and three sons, maybe invest in a pair of clippers and start learning how to cut hair at home. Because that is a lot of money that you're spending probably every couple of weeks.Denis O'Brien [18:56]Yeah, definitely. Well, awesome, guys. We've loved hanging out with you. And we'd love to catch you on another episode of Chain of WealthKatie Welsh [19:03]Bye!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/chain-of-wealth-debt-investing-entrepreneurship-wealth-and-more/donationsWant to advertise on this podcast? Go to https://redcircle.com/brands and sign up.