Podcasts about so kevin

Jill Friday - Showing up for Work (LA 1583) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Happy Friday. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I am Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. Steven J Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she talks about showing up for work, no matter where you work. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, join us on Discord. Jill DeWit: Land Academy member that is. Yep. Kevin responds to this post, which says called do neighbor letters work? So I guess this is the post? Steven J Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Okay. Is this Kevin's thing or this the post and then comes Kevin's thing? Steven J Butala: This is Kevin. Jill DeWit: Okay. Steven J Butala: Kevin our awesome moderator in Discord. Jill DeWit: Okay. So Kevin's saying, "Look, I have used neighbor letters with good success. I don't always use it, a neighbor letter, but I have sold several properties using neighbor letters. I don't call them the neighbors. I send letters. My letter's very brief. I offer the property at a good price and let the recipient know that I will be putting it on the market at a higher price. I include a large aerial view showing the parcel so that they know where it is in relationship to their land. I have sold landlocked parcels and other vacant land this way." Good stuff. Just like a little tip. Is that what the point was here? Steven J Butala: I have an entire business operation where I only sell property to the neighbors. Neighbors letters are awesome. And they're really, really inexpensive. What do you send out? Maybe 600 letters, sometimes. Maybe 300 letters. Jill DeWit: God, maybe- Steven J Butala: When you buy a piece of property- Jill DeWit: ... maybe a hundred. Steven J Butala: You buy a piece of property, you send out 100, 200, 300, maybe 500 letters to all the people who own property around there, that quite simply says, "Hey, I know you have property here and I just, I've got an off-market property. It's probably a lot less than you spent to buy the one that you have, and if you're interested, give me a call. I'll sell it to you off market. We can get the deal done really easy. No financing, no real estate agents. None of that stuff. I just closed on it with escrow, so we can use the same agent. It's only going to take a few days." Jill DeWit: Cool. Steven J Butala: What's going on? Jill DeWit: I don't know. You're just running. I'm just letting you go. It's easier. Steven J Butala: Let's let Jill talk. Jill DeWit: This is my goal in life. Just going to pick the easiest path, especially today. Steven J Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about showing up for work. This is the meat of the show. Jill DeWit: Yes. Whatever you do, this kind of ties into what you talked about this week, which I thought was really interesting, the millionaire thing. Because you talked about having a plan. And I think for a lot of people having a plan might involve a job. It might involve a W2. It might involve a paycheck. And one of the things about... And I hope that you realize if that's your life and you have that job, you're getting a paycheck, that it can and should fit into your plan. You are still in control. You should be there because you want to be there. You picked it. You're not trapped. Trust me. I know this. It's really interesting, too, that whole mindset. You brought that up earlier. I worked at a job. I kind of, I started to fall into that. You can get a little brainwashed thinking that you're trapped somewhere and it's oh, good and you'll never find anything better. Jill DeWit: Because people tell you that. And it's really your coworkers around you that are just in a little trap and little hamster wheel.

---Join us for our Summer Rewind series as we feature past podcast episodes!--- EPISODE #36: If the Wizard of Oz was remade for the 21st century, Dorothy might now declare: there's no place like a net-zero home. And she'd be right. But would she need the Wizard to grant her wish for a net-zero home or would Dorothy be able to afford one on her own? In this episode, Kevin Lee – CEO of the Canadian Home Builders Association (CHBA) - tells us what it means for a home or building to be “net-zero,” the pros and cons, and what the CHBA is doing to make net zero homes an affordable reality for all current and aspiring homeowners. Related Content & Links: https://hydroottawa.com/ Websites: The Canadian Home Builders Association - https://www.CHBA.ca Linkedin: Kevin Lee - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-lee-bbb49782/ Twitter: Kevin Lee - @CHBAKevinLee --- Transcript Dan Seguin  00:42 Hey, everyone, welcome back to the ThinkEnergy podcast. Dorothy said it best: "There's no place like home." Now... If the Wizard of Oz was remade for the 21st century, Dorothy might now declare there's no place like a net zero home and she'd be right. But would she need the wizard to grant her wish for a net zero home, or would Dorothy be able to afford one on her own? On today's podcast, we're going to talk about the 111 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions that Canadian homes and buildings release into the atmosphere every year. And we're also going to talk about how net zero homes and buildings are combating climate change from foundations to rooftops with each new build. Designed and constructed to produce at least as much energy as they consume, net zero home buildings are up to 80% more energy efficient than typical new homes. The key difference is that a net zero home uses renewable energy to produce the energy it consumes With a growing demand from energy conscious House Hunters looking to make their environmentally responsible choice for one of their biggest life purchases. What do they need to know about purchasing in net zero home? Who are the builders? What impact will net zero home have on the purchase price on their future energy bills? What renewable energy system is the best option? Or are there government subsidies or incentives? In short, how can more and more Canadians take advantage of living greener and more energy efficient? So let's get going with today's big question. Is there any real movement whereby net zero homes will become the new standard in the next decade and what will it take for the industry to get there joining us to shed some light on net zero Homes is the chief executive officer of the Canadian Home Builders Association. Mr. Kevin Lee. Kevin, would you mind giving us a brief description of your background, what the Canadian Home Builders Association does, and why do you think net zero homes and buildings are the future?   Kevin Lee  03:25 Well, my background is that I am an engineer with a master's in architecture. And I've worked in the housing fields my entire career, I ran my own consulting business for about 11 years and energy efficient housing, construction and research and development. I also worked for the federal government for several years running housing buildings and community research and development programs, as well as doing running programming like the R-2000 program. The energuide rating system for homes program the eagle energy retrofit homes program. So big background anon and I've been the Chief Executive Officer at the Canadian Home Builders Association for the past seven years at CHBA, as we call it. We represent builders and renovators and developers all across Canada as well as the suppliers and trades and services that support residential construction. And we work together to improve the performance of houses, improve the relations with governments to help. One of the big things we really pushed is housing affordability and making sure people can afford to buy new homes as well as afford to rent homes and there are obviously lots of challenges these days with the cost of housing. So we spent a lot of time on that. And we do have a net zero energy housing council that does work on net zero energy homes and advancing that we have a labelling programmer we have had to label close to 400 houses across the country now over the past couple of few years. And in terms of the future, with respect to net zero, we've always as an industry and as an association been leaders in energy efficiency we do incredibly well in balancing the performance - Houses today are, you know, more than 50% better than they were 25 years ago. Sometimes I hear people say, Oh, they sure don't build houses like they used to do, which I would always respond.: "Well, thank goodness!" We continue to do better and nowhere is that more true than in terms of energy efficiency. How far we're able to go with respect to net zero and under what kind of timeline I would suggest is very much a function of costing and affordability because investing in a net zero home is a great way to invest your money and in your home and there's a lot of benefits, but it's still not cheap. Definitely costs a little bit more and when it comes to regulations, we're always trying to think about affordability. So from the association perspective, or I was trying to say: Okay, well, yes, we want to make homes better, but we also want to make sure people can still afford to buy them. So let's find like most cost effective ways and cost efficient ways. And let's try not especially this day and age, and when we build such good new houses, how do we make sure that we don't increase the cost of houses with every code change that we make?   Dan Seguin  06:25 Okay, Kevin, what's the difference between a green home and a net zero home?   Kevin Lee  06:31 Well, when we talk about net zero energy homes, you're talking about a house that produces as much energy as it needs over the course of the year to sort of net out at zero, and certainly in Canada with our cold climate, you can expect that in the winter, you're probably going to be using some energy, more solar than you're able to generate, but on other times when you don't need as much energy - Typically in art programs as through solar energy, you're able to create surplus energy that you're able to feed back into the grid and net zero. So that's a net zero energy home. A green home tends to encompass many other things that will almost always encapsulate energy efficiency. But it'll also look at things like green environmental products, especially in different roofing materials, that kind of thing. So green tends to encompass a little bit more than net zero. And while many of so in our, in our case, in our program, we really focus on the energy efficiency piece. So, you know, builders do add a lot of other special features to homes that would be green, but the big differences the green is more about the broader environmental, whereas our net zero work is very focused on the energy efficiency.   Dan Seguin  07:45 When building or renovating to net zero standards, what are the key considerations you should start with? Are we talking everything from walls, ventilation, foundation, windows, and more?   Kevin Lee  07:59 Oh, absolutely. I mean, certainly when you're driving to get down to basically using close to zero energy, you have to look at everything that uses energy and that can, you know, save energy and be efficient with energy. So every element of the home, as you said, walls, ceilings, foundations, windows, mechanical systems: hugely important. So you have to look at all of it and where do you start? Well, frankly, if you're a homebuyer, you start by looking for a builder with the experience and know how to do this and even through our programs. And we follow, we use the energuide rating system, which is a government of Canada system and label for measuring the energy performance of homes. And there are energy advisories that are certified by the Government of Canada to do that. And we provide those energy advisors additional training, to work with our builders to be experts and getting all the way to net zero. So they're sort of recognized through our program through additional training and education. So really, as a homebuyer or a homeowner, because we now have a retrofit program as well for renovating houses to get to this level. Really it's finding the right finding the right contractor homebuilder, you know, you can look at CHBA.ca. And you can find a list of our rent renovators and our home builders that are certified, they know what they're doing. And they're working very closely with an energy advisor who works on the design because like I said, when you're trying to get to net zero, you're talking about squeezing every ounce of energy you can out of that house. And it's every element. So it's not so much that you start one place. You look at everything.   Dan Seguin  09:36 You touched on this earlier, but wondering if you could further demystify for me, how does a net zero home produce as much energy - clean renewable energy - as it consumes?   Kevin Lee  09:48 Yeah, well, and I did touch on that earlier. So I'll go back to that. And the idea is that again, especially in Canada, it's a little bit tricky, you know, when it's very cold, you know, you're going to have to use some energy. Typically in our program, the renewal Bull energy that is used is photovoltaics or, you know solar panels, on the roof generating electricity. But when it's when it's really cold, you're probably not going to be able to generate enough energy to meet the entire heating load of the home. As well as all the other loads that are going on: ventilation. We plug a lot of things in too, we're charging a lot of cell phones and all these other things. There's a pretty heavy what we call base load these days as well. So what you're trying to do is make sure that as you look at the course of the whole year, you're producing as much energy as you need. Sometimes you might be producing surplus energy. Sometimes you may be using a little bit more energy than your system can produce, but overall, you net out at zero through the course of the year.   Dan Seguin  10:48 Okay, Kevin, I'm wondering if you could dispel any myths around the cost associated to building a standard home compared to a net zero home. Is it significantly more to be net zero?   Kevin Lee  11:02 I think probably the biggest myth would be if somebody said it doesn't cost anything because it definitely you know, we're talking about you know, different technologies you're talking about things like moving from standard double pane windows to triple pane windows, you're talking about being more insulation walls, sometimes building you know, fatter walls and using you know, more lumber or whatever your material is to build more, so there's definitely an additional cost. Some of that clause is defrayed by your energy savings, which is great over time. And so it really varies it depends on your climate, it depends on the size of your home, it depends on the design of your home and those design features. You know, some people like to have lots of windows probably we all love having lots of windows are actually one of the more expensive things though, and they also are tend to be a bit of a heat loss. If you have lots of windows, you might have to spend money in other places. So is it more expensive? Yeah, absolutely it is. It's part of the reason why we say before we get this into regulation, we want to make sure we continue with a research and innovation and costing to bring those prices down. And then when it comes to how much more is it going to be, it also depends on what's the baseline construction standard of your builder. Some builders build the code, which is adding their energy efficiency measures in the building code, and that's still a very good home. Others build the levels like the Energy Star program, which is a little bit higher. So your jump from ENERGY STAR to net zero or net zero ready is a little bit less. So that's not a very direct answer, because it really varies and you can't say it's 5% 10%, etc. It really depends. But it's definitely a great investment. And for people who are looking to stay in their home a long time looking are conscious about climate change and the environment, want a more comfortable home because the nice thing about a triple glazed window just as an example as you sit beside there's practically no condensation. You're right comfortable sitting there. And it's like in the winter. So a lot of good reasons to choose to invest your money that way. And it really comes down to working with your builders to figure out, you know what those costs are going to be.   Dan Seguin  11:58 Is there a net zero movement in Canada? Is it in the response to climate change science now showing that in order to have a real impact on carbon emissions, reducing isn't enough, we essentially have to neutralize our environmental footprint.   Kevin Lee  13:29 I think that the energy efficiency movement has been going on in Canada for a long time. And you know, we developed the R-2000 program back in the 1980s, in response to the oil crisis prior to that, and then as climate change and environmental concerns have grown and grown, there's been a constant movement of improved energy efficiency, and energy performance of houses and net zero is really that ultimate goal. And as concerns about climate change, continue to escalate, obviously, every sector of the economy needs to do its part to get there. And homes are a big part of that. I will say that, you know, we can definitely get to net zero from every house in Canada built that way, at some point. As I said, it's really about at what point are we able to do that where it's not making it too expensive for homeowners. And the other really critical thing when you're talking about climate change and GHG emissions from housing, it's the very much the existing housing stock that's really critical. The new houses are very efficient, we can make them more efficient, the returns are diminishing a little bit though, and the more energy efficient, you make it the less you get in terms of savings over time. But the existing housing stock and especially the older housing stock is so critically important and that's why we've added renovation to our program and we always recommend to governments things like there should be a home renovation tax credit for energy efficiency, so that people in their existing homes can improve them and we can help defray the costs that,   Dan Seguin  15:04 Kevin, we've covered renovations and new builds. What about apartments and condos? Are they a challenge or an opportunity?   Kevin Lee  15:14 Well, you know, as with every challenge, of course, there is an opportunity. So a little bit of both, for sure. We can, again, you know, the technology is there, it's a little trickier, with big buildings because you tend to have more units in them and not as much surface areas. Actually, for renewables, you know, you need a certain amount of surface area on the roof for photovoltaics and the solar systems that would go on them. They also tend to have a lot of glazing, windows, people like to have, you know, their exposed walls to be all glass if they could have it in many cases, and that glazing is often the weak spot in in energy efficiency. It looks great, but it tends to be not as efficient as a nice thick wall with lots of installation, but the technology exists, it really comes down to the cost and also potential and those types of systems, you might have to have your renewables off site, or you might be looking at your company draw renewable energy from another place rather than trying to be generating it all with the building itself. And frankly, we also think that that's a big part of, as, you know, we look down the road to the future for net zero homes, you know, should every house be generating its own? Or will it make more sense and will it be more effective for there to be more community systems that generate the renewables and you don't have to have it on your individual unit, I'm going to do a home it could be nearby. So the power generation or renewable power generation is also going to be a big part we think of the future as we move towards sort of net zero economy at large.   Dan Seguin  16:53 You've alluded to this earlier. There's a variety of home energy performance standards to make homes more energy efficient, are you able to expand on the Canadian Home Builders Association net zero home labeling program? How are those standards baselined?   Kevin Lee  17:12 Well, when we set out to develop our program, we wanted to go with sort of tried tested and true rating system. And so, as I mentioned, we base our program on the government of Canada's energuide rating system. That system has labeled over a million homes in Canada. It's backed by the Government of Canada, there are energy advisors trained and certified by the Government of Canada. So that we feel like that is the system to use. The Energy Star program uses that as well. The R-2000 program uses it as well. So the energuide rating system is sort of the point system that grades how much energy you use, and then programs like energy star and our net zero label are points on that scale, if you will, that you're trying To achieve to show a certain level of energy efficiency. And this is the kind of thing that was also used through the equal energy retrofit homes program, a grant program run by the government that through that program, over 600,000 homes are renovated and each one of those dots and energuide label as well as the nice thing about the existing home side of things. And that renovation path is the energuide. Label also provides the homeowner full report on where they can go with their house to make it energy efficient. So you kind of get this pathway, which we think is really important because you can't always afford to do everything on a renovation at the same time. But the energuide system allows you to plan over a few years to do maybe not maybe you can do your windows this year, you're doing insulation in the basement and sealing the next you're going to replace your furnace and three years, whatever the case may be, but you can sort of see that pathway laid out so we really feel like the inner guide rating system is super important. We also think that it should be the rating system for every home in Canada and every program, I often use the analogy, boy, if we have all different rating systems for nutrition labels, it would be very difficult to imagine if you if you went to buy mushrooms off the shelf at the grocery store and you pick up two cans, and it's two different energy labels and you can't compare you wouldn't know which one to buy. And so we're big proponents of saying let's use the energuide rating system, it's the Government of Canada. Let's get that on for all programs, so that everybody can compare and we can what we need to improve in Canada is energy literacy for consumers. It's hard sometimes - it's an invisible thing, energy efficiency. So good labeling and information would help everybody make the decisions.   Dan Seguin  19:39 Okay, time to dust off your crystal ball. What are some of the emerging technologies, innovations that hold much promise for the future of an energy efficient and a net zero home? What's exciting you right now in the industry?   Kevin Lee  20:00 Well, I think you know, what's exciting is that we have within our membership, leaders in the industry all across the country that are working together to find the solutions. And the interesting thing about a home is its builders putting together all of these different technologies and making choices and using energy advisors to help them and make those choices. So I think what's exciting is that everybody's working together. And we're also working together to innovate, and also identify to manufacturers, what are the next things we need, especially to make the energy efficiency componentry even less expensive, so it can be more readily available to everyone. And so whether you're looking at there's some very one of the most important things in energy efficiency is air tightness and air sealing to avoid air leakage. And there's some great new technologies coming in to help make that easier because it's one of the most important things and also one of the most complicated things. Think about every  penetration if you own the house, whether it's your, your cable guy or your, you know venting for gas appliances, or there's always lots of things popping in and out of what we call the building envelope, as well as it's hard at floor-wall intersections and wall to ceiling intersections. Anyway, there's some very interesting technology coming out for air sealing. Another thing that's very interesting is net zero energy homes. Sometimes joke, you can eat them with a candle. So you need very little energy. And interestingly, our heating systems and even our cooling systems are built for bigger loads are built for bigger houses or even a house with things that uses more energy. So optimizing our mechanical systems for really small loads becomes very important, as does then the distribution of that air around the home to make sure that the temperatures are always balanced. And then there's also the opportunity to integrate ventilation smartly into those sorts of combination systems. Things that we still need to do you know, and would be great to find solutions for in research and development. You know, if we want to pack more insulation in the walls, we really need to have more effective R-values, those are called like, basically we've sort of hit a limit right now on how much how much insulation we can put in a wall, and then you have to build a fatter wall. But building a better fatter wall becomes more expensive, it'd be really great if let's say within the standard two by six wall, you can put insulation in still what ends up being five and a half inches, but it had what we call greater, much higher R-values. So you'd have to build a thicker wall, you just put better insulation inside. So those are some of the directions that we're headed, I'm looking for a very good technology to build the stuff right now, but we're constantly innovating and we know we need more research and development to work together with and the government's always been a big supporter of that and housing because our industry is made a lot of small organizations, we don't have the Fords and the Mercedes and none of the world that have been r&d shops themselves. So collaborating with government to find these solutions that are more affordable is going to be really important as we move to do more and more of these over time.   Dan Seguin  23:14 And let's take this from R&D to behaviors, what kinds of lifestyle changes are required within net zero home?   Kevin Lee  23:23 Well, I think the great thing about energy efficient homes is they tend to not require any lifestyle change. Energy Efficiency is about being more efficient using technology and construction techniques so that you can live in your home and enjoy it. I always draw the distinction between energy efficiency and energy conservation. Energy conservation is taking a shorter shower, turn down the thermostat, and wear a sweater that's conserving energy. Energy Efficiency is about using technology to make sure that you can still do the things that you like to do, but the houses energy efficient in the first place. Now, lots of people who buy a net zero home are very energy conscious and environmentally conscious as well. So they'll probably elect to do lots of other things. They're probably very avid recyclers and composters and maybe they will turn down the thermostat just because they want to save even more energy. But the nice thing about energy efficiency and net zero homes is sometimes you can't even tell that it's an energy efficient home other than maybe, wow, this is a lot more comfortable than the other house. There's no draft. I can sit beside my windows and I feel really great. There are a lot of benefits and lifestyle benefits, but you typically don't require lifestyle changes.   Dan Seguin  24:41 Despite demand for greener homes. The majority of homes built in Canada continue to be built to a minimum standard. Why is there a disconnect between housing desires and what is actually constructed? Will we see a time where building codes could force all new housing to meet the net zero standard. What does the future look like?   Kevin Lee  25:07 Well, I think we need to be a little bit careful when we say there's a disconnect between code and what people want, because you also have to add in what people are willing to pay for. So there are a lot - So for example, we already have in our net zero program, and the Energy Star program has existed for a long time, known as quite successful. But as we've talked about all through this, it's a little bit more expensive to build to these standards. And so people have a choice and they often choose and I've spent my whole career working in energy efficiency, and sometimes it's been frustrating because homeowners rightly have the choice. What do they want? Do they want to have a hot tub? Do they want granite countertops? Do they want more space? Do they want to pay more to live closer to town or, or do they want to live a little further away from town where it might be cheaper, and then on top of that, you've got to save If you want a more energy efficient house, it'll cost more. And you're sort of doing these trade-offs  within your budget is why we're so keen on making sure that energy efficiency standards are also married to technology that makes it not more expensive, so that people don't have to make that choice, and in terms of today's minimum requirements through the building code, they're actually very good. And they continue to improve and they're much higher than they were years ago. So when will the code end up being net zero? Well, we would suggest that that should be at a time when you're not causing affordability challenges for Canadians especially for first time homebuyers. That of course you have to build the code, social housing, and even social housing,  ask a social housing provider why they're not building to ENERGY STAR net zero standards. And the reason is because it's very expensive for them, and they're more important for them. It's just to put roofs over people's houses and so it's that that trade as it's happening right now, and it's why we're really pushing for advancements in technology so that it's not more expensive. So we can, when the regulation comes, we're not causing affordability challenges so we can get there. It's just a question of when.   Dan Seguin  27:15 So until net zero homes become the standard, what are some simple things that people can do to improve on to make their existing home more energy efficient?   Kevin Lee  27:26 Well, the first thing I would say is, you know, think of it holistically. And there are various programs that will supplement the cost of having an energy advisor come by, but really that the best thing is to have an energuide rating system evaluation of your home, and that'll give you the big picture. Sometimes people think for example, that, uh, you know, I just, I should replace my windows and usually you're replacing windows because the seals shot at that point and they're starting to get milky and there's some condensation or whatever, and it's time or maybe wood windows and there's been condensation And the paint is chipping, you know, I want to I need to get the window. Turns out that if you ask an energy advisor to come in and do an energy analysis, he or she'll probably tell you that you can do that and you'll get good enjoyment out of that. But for a fraction of the cost, you can actually just go and blow a bunch of cellulose insulation in your attic and you'll save twice as much energy and so you know, looking at the insulation is a big thing but I would start with an energy assessment to have somebody come in and tell you all the things you can do but through the you know, air sealing is really important. Insulation in the attic is tends to be cheap. Go up through the attic hatch, blow insulation, you're good. Obviously insulating your basement  is a good one to do. It's usually accessible if you have an unfinished basement and does have the benefit of all that improved comfort. Obviously if you have old mechanical systems and old furnace and old water heater, replacing those tends to be a really good move as well. So there's lots we can do lots we need to do over time to help us. We're hoping through the economic recovery that hopefully we're going to get into very well over the next little while that the government steps forward and helps a little bit with what we're recommending would be a tax credit that really incentivizes people to do this. And the other thing I have to say is, when you go to do this stuff, hire a reputable contractor. It's not worth getting the cash guy to do a side job ladder off the back of the truck, save a few bucks, there are so many risks. So we have a whole get it in writing program that we promote. If you go on our CHP website, it just talks about the pitfalls of not getting a contract, not getting receipts, not getting warranty, all the things that we should all do with your house is probably the biggest investment you'll ever make in your in your lifetime. Let's make sure we take care of that and protect ourselves. So just hire a reputable contractor. And if you're looking for that list, you can go on our website at chba.ca and we list our members all across the country.   Dan Seguin  29:57 So Kevin, I really think this is worth repeating where can folks learn more about net zero homes and find a list of builders in their region?   Kevin Lee  30:06 Yeah, absolutely well, so we are the Canadian Home Builders Association, and our acronym is CHBA. So if you go to CHBA.ca, or frankly, if you just Google net zero in Canada will pop up on your Google Search pretty much at the top. And on our website, there's all the information there's information about buying a new home, there's information about renovating, renovating the home and making smart choices. And there's information about our net zero program and a full list of all of the builders that we recognize through our program across Canada. So you can find a builder in your region that would be more than happy to work with you and more and more so renovators as well I could help you get on your pathway to getting to net zero.   Dan Seguin  30:51 How about we close off with some rapid fire questions? What is the one thing you can't live without?   Kevin Lee  30:59 I think it's music, I love music. I'm a bit of a musician. So let's go with that.   Dan Seguin  31:03 What is something that challenges you?   Kevin Lee  31:06 To try to change the world in positive ways, and it's fun to work on that every day. It's a never ending challenge for all of us. But trying to make good, solid contributions. We have a better world and a better Canada is a big challenge and something I love doing.   Dan Seguin  31:22 If you could have one superpower, what would it be?   Kevin Lee  31:26 It would be too slow time. I don't have enough time to get everything done. So I would be able to just freeze time, get a bunch of things done, and then turn time moving forward. Again, that would be that would be great. Even for doing hobbies. I don't have enough time to read. I'd love to stop time and read a couple of chapters every once in a while.   Dan Seguin  31:47 If you could turn back time and talk to your 18 year old self, what would you tell them?   Kevin Lee  31:52 Well, I would tell them the same thing that I'm telling my kids - which is, you know, do the best at everything that you do this work put in the hard work. It will always pay off even if you think it won't. If you're working on something that you don't enjoy, get it done, do a good job on it. And you'll be surprised down the road when, even if it's 'Wow, I hated doing that. I never want to do that again'. Well, you learned it, you did a good job. Yeah, work hard and put in the effort and have fun while you're doing it. Find the fun and everything.   Dan Seguin  32:24 What do you currently find most interesting in your sector?   Kevin Lee  32:28 The most interesting thing in our sector right now, I think is the challenges that we're facing with affordability and trying to make sure young Canadians and new Canadians can afford their homes. We have a lot of things that are driving up the prices of new homes and, and mortgages and mortgage rules have been tightening, making it even more challenging. So finding that right solution that will really help people become homeowners and get into it. While we also are continuing to try and improve all homes. We've spent this whole time talking about energy efficiency, but we want to make sure it doesn't cost more so people can afford owns that. That whole affordability challenge, which our members are working on all the time, I think is the most interesting and the most challenging, but a huge opportunity because we know, almost every Canadian either owns their home, but two thirds of Canadians own their home and most renters wish they could and hope they will one day you know, so helping to achieve Canadians dreams, I think is a huge opportunity and a huge challenge that we're all working on.   Dan Seguin  33:28 Well, Kevin, we've reached the end of another episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast. Last question for you. How can our listeners learn more about your association? How can they connect?   Kevin Lee  33:43 Yeah, definitely check out our website at chba.ca. All the information is there. We are also structured as an association with provincial and local associations as part of our organization. So we have local associations all across Canada. And pretty much every urban center and so that's another place that you can connect very locally with the members of our organization that can help you with your housing dreams.   Dan Seguin  34:12 Again, Kevin, thank you very much for joining me today. I hope you had a lot of fun. Cheers. Thank you for joining us today. I truly hope you enjoyed this episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast. For past episodes, make sure you visit our website hydroottawa.com/podcasts. Lastly, if you found value in this podcast, be sure to subscribe. Cheers, everyone.

Guest Co-host:  Kevin Davis:  kevinkaera@comcast.netPodcast Guest:  Steve Franklin:  sgfranklin@bellsouth.net Transcription:Kris Parsons00:02Welcome to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do it too. Join us with your life. The host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.Ray Loewe00:17Hello, everybody. This is Ray Loewe. And I'm sitting here in scenic Woodbury, New Jersey, at the Wildfire Podcast Studios with our engineer Taylor, who makes sure that everything runs in the background so that we can focus on our guests. And we've got a great co-host today and an incredible guest. And let me start off by recapping real quickly that we are working with the luckiest people in the world and the luckiest people in the world are those people who take the time to personally redesign their own lives and live them under their own terms. And, Kevin, let me introduce Kevin Davis. He's been our co-host for this month. And he has a good friend of his Steve Franklin, who's going to join us in a minute. And Kevin, thanks for being with us. Say hi.Kevin Davis01:08Hey, Ray, thanks so much for having me again. This has been a lot of fun. And I'm really excited about the conversation we're gonna have today.Ray Loewe01:16Yeah, you know, and I want to build on something you and I did a special podcast and extra one because we wanted to focus on knowing what you want, and how important it is to being one of the luckiest people in the world. Because if you don't know what you want, you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you can't design the life that you want. And what we found is that those people who truly are lucky, are able to redesign their lives constantly, no matter what life throws at that. And, here were five factors that keep coming up. And we're going to explore some of these with Steve Franklin. But one is purpose. They all have a Purpose Driven Life. They know who they are, they know where they're going from that standpoint. They have a mission, they're involved with helping others is not just themselves. They have a series of values, they know what their values are. And every time they have to make a decision, they go back to their values. They know what they're good at, and where their passions lie. And they don't do things that aren't going to keep them exciting and interested. And last but not least I and this is the most important I think that culminates in everything at the end of the day, they want to like their day. And that doesn't mean that everything goes perfect in the day, but it does mean that they get joy out of having achieved. And Kevin before you introduce Steve, I have a quick story I want to tell. Okay, I'm a competitive swimmer. And I was down at the National Senior Games in Birmingham, Alabama about I guess is about three years ago now. And after I did my swimming thing, I'm wandering around and I see this guy, and he's carrying six medals around with him. And what's important is that five of them were gold, and one was silver. And I later quite a haul, yeah, quite a haul and more important. You'll see. When I got a chance to meet John and talk to him. I found out that he won his medals in the 100 to 104 age group. Wow. Yeah. This leads into what Steve Frankel is going to talk about. The interesting thing is at age 103, he won his medals in the shot put, the javelin, the discus, the hammer throw, and you know, I can't even pick these things up. And he lost one of that to a crummy 101-year-old whippersnappers. Yeah. And you know, when I came out of that experience, I thought about two things. I mean, first of all, is if I'm lucky enough to live to be 100. Am I going to be the 100-year old that's winning medals in and out celebrating with his friends? Or am I going to be the 100-year-old sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home? And then the second revelation is, you know, I think there's a really good chance that many of us will live to be 100. And so what are you going to do with the rest of your life? How are you going to make it count? Are you just going to sit on the golf course and wile away your time? So Kevin, why don't you introduce Steve, and we know that Steve introduced a whole bunch of people over 100 so he can comment on my story?Kevin Davis04:37Yeah, thanks. Well, you know, Ray, it's great to have Steve Franklin, Steve and I go back a number of years. We worked together for a number of years and had a lot of fun doing that. He is and for those of our listeners who have heard me talk about barbecue before. Steve is he's my barbecue mentor. He is the one who taught me how to  smoke and just got me down a path that has been so much fun in life. So I'm sure we'll have to talk about some of that along the way. But you know, Steve kind of falls into that category of what's I term a renaissance person. He's done a number of things. But never just the normal way that this idea of why not go out and talk to people who have gained great wisdom by living life started a number of years ago. And so Steve, thanks so much for being with us. today. It's great to have you on the podcast.Steve Franklin05:35Ah, Kevin, and Ray. Thank you what an honor really is, Ray, it's good to hear your voice. And again, it's been a while but golly, great to be on your program. Well, I gained a Ray, yeah, by the way, I'll bet my bank account, you'll be one of those centenarians still swimming laps well into your hundreds.Ray Loewe05:53Well, you know, it doesn't matter whether I make it to 100 or not, but I'm certainly not going to shut off life. Making up my mind that I'm not going to make it there.Steve Franklin06:04It's a good goal to have. I mean, it's just got me started this adventure. Her goal was to live to be 120. I had lunch with her on her 107th birthday, she died not too long after that, hey, she made 107 out of 120. Good for her, she said, Look, it's just a good goal doesn't matter whether you make or not, it's a good goal.Ray Loewe06:19Yeah, so  tell us a little bit about your Emory University, I think, if you're on the faculty then, but you had this project and this goals, so once you refresh my memory on what you did.Steve Franklin06:33I was at Emory, actually, a couple of times, I was a tenured professor there for a number of years and went out and say, to see if I could do what I taught, you know, remember the old saying those who can't teach. So I want to make sure I could do what I taught. And I did was in business, went back as the associate dean of the business school and later I was involved in the industry in the financial services industry. And that's really where I got the idea of interviewing all these people, you know, you've got all these financial seminars, Ray? You've been to plenty of them, they'd have the economist talk about, or the economy or a banker talk about interest rates or something. And I got to think, got so bored with all of that. And I happened to sit down with a woman one day who was 94. At the time, I thought she was 70. And she invited me to 100 birthday party six years from then. And she said I'm serious. I said, Okay, great. And I kind of forgot about it. Six years later, she called me and said, Hey, I'll be 100 next week, her name is Katherine Durnell. Are you coming to my party, I said, I'm coming. She was in Lincoln, Nebraska, got on a plane, flew out there, interviewed her, danced with her, dined with her, laughed with her we just had a ball. And I got to thinking as a professor, having done a lot of research, I said, you know, shame on me, if I don't collect the wisdom of her and many other centenarians and share it with the younger generation, does man to the young, younger generation need to hear this wisdom. But that's what started at all, I just started to interview people. And over, over about eight years traveling all over the country, I interviewed I videotaped over 225 centenarians and dozens of other phone call conversations. And then we surveyed about a total of about 550, asking them to fill out a lengthy questionnaire. So from that, you know, came up with a book called celebrate 100 centenarians secrets to success in life and business. And so it's just was a wonderful journey, learn so much about their thoughts and wisdom, about money, about work, about life, about politics, about family, you name it.Ray Loewe08:19Incredible. You know, and I know when you gave that presentation for a group of my clients, it was just so motivating. And all of a sudden, it just opened up this horizon of saying, you know,you got to think about the future, and you got to make it count. Right. So, you know, tell us a story or two about some of the more interesting people that you ran into, and what they're thinking about. You got it, you got a couple-three hours. I'll give you a couple. The short version.Steve Franklin08:52Let me give you a quick context, Ray, you know, as I did this with your group, too, you may recall, and when I always start these presentations, I'll say, I want everybody to get a number in their mind to what age do you think you will live? To what age do you think you will live? And I get a number that I will call on people? What do you and the average number across all of America, Cali several 10s of 1000s people I spoke to is 85? Most of most people have in their mind, the average is I think I'll make it 85. And then I qualify that say now let me ask a question. If you were healthy can still swim laps or rent walk or whatever. And if you're financially well off enough to live, you know, a lifestyle you would like to how is how long would you like to live? Well, of course, 99% of people want to live to be 100 or more. So that's a good context. I think again, hundreds of good goal to have. But golly, I could just go Let me I mentioned a couple of First of all, Walter Bruning at the time. He was according to the Guinness Book of World Records the longest are the oldest man in the world. He was 114 at the time. Throughout the Great Falls, Montana spent the day with Walter. He woke up every morning very early, got on a suit and tie came down to This wonderful senior home that he was living in, would have breakfast, go over his mail, walk down to the bank, come back, have lunch, and he went up at two o'clock every day. And that was it. I mean, e only ate two meals a day and he listened to talk radio, the rest of the day, went to bed about eight o'clock. Well, when he turned 114 is the world's oldest man, of course, the governor of the state got hold of it, and said, and so he goes over to the house at about 3:20 in the afternoon. They call up and say, Walter, the governor is here he wants to see he said, I don't see anybody after two o'clock. They said but Walters, the governor, he said, Tell the governor, I don't see anybody after two o'clock, come back tomorrow. The governor went back to the Capitol. He came back the next day before two o'clock. So I love that. But another quick one on Walter. I asked Walter what he did. He was in the railroad business for 50 years. They made him retire 65. He hated to retire. He hated to retire. And so he said, so I kept working here in Great Falls. I did work for nonprofits. And he was an accountant and financial kind of guy, he said, but in 99, I decided I need to quit doing two things. So what was that? He said, Well, I decided I need to quit working. I need to quit smoking. He gave up smoking at 99 two packs of lucky strikes every day. He said, but I think quitting early has contributed to my longevity. I'll tell everybody, if it goes smoke, make sure you start knocking off at 99 or whatever. But Walter was a great guy. Just just. And he had a blog. He started a blog at 112. Ray, think about that. He started blogging at 112. At 114. You could get on the blog and ask Walter any question. And then he had an opinion about everything. So one of my real heroes in that group. Another lady, let's see Mary Tyler. She was the world's oldest living Girl Scout lived in Southern California. Marian's name was Marian Tyler and at 88. She did a 45-minute video called Marianatics. And where it was kind of like yoga and exercise or whatever at 88 gave me a copy of the DVD. And at the time, I was probably what 60 something. I went home and it wore me out, you know, but she was going strong at 104 living in her own home gardening in the back, just one of the world's oldest living Girl Scout at the time. So again, just a wonderful lady. Oh my goodness, one of the questions I asked is this is important for your listeners, which I think is to your point, right of having a purpose I and one of the questions I asked him, I said if you had your life to live over again, would you have liked to have done something different than what you do? And they have, they had done all kinds of things, and a lot of jobs that you and I might consider quote-unquote, mundane 82% of them said no, I would have done the exact same thing. I loved what I did. And so loving what you do, I think is a real key to longevity, I really, really believe that. They just they slowly you know 18%  saying Yeah, I'd like to maybe been a radio talk show host like you or a financial adviser or a pilot or an astronaut or something like that. But 82% of them actually loved what they did. Another question I asked I thanks very important for your listening audience is this. I said if you had your life to live over again, what is one or two things you wish you had done more of? What's a couple of things you wish you had done more. And the number one by far was they said, I wish I had traveled more. I wish I had gone to more places in the country. In the world, I could have. I had the money to I had the health too. But I just was lethargic. I didn't set goals and put it on my bucket list and go do it. The number two behind that was I wish I had read more or learned more not gotten more college degrees. But I just wish I had read more books, read more magazines, which had gone to more classes to learn things in which it tied perfectly with what I used to tell my students and Emery Ray and Kevin, I said, Look, you and I are a composite of three things in life, the books we read, the people we meet, and the places we go. That's what we're made up of the books we read, the people we meet, and the places we go. So do as much of all three as you can. And the centenarians nail that when I asked him if you could be more and lived your life over again, do more. They both said they wish they travel more and read more books or articles or whatever. So I think it's very important  for your audience to know.Ray Loewe14:51Yeah, you know, let me turn this around a little bit. So you did all these interviews. It was part of a project you were doing. I don't know what you're motivation was for doing that at the time. But you obviously personally benefited from these interviews and meetings. So when you look at things and all the people that you talk to, how did this affect your life and where you're going in your life?Steve Franklin15:18Yeah. Well, you know, I've always kind of been a goal setter, but it really had me it really one of the things that is really Catherine Brunel was the one that really got I set a goal to be 120. Kevin knows that you may remember that. That's my goal. And it really is a good goal to have. I mean, it comes down to Janet here. She said, Genesis six, three, it says, everybody, we live in eight or 900 years. And if you read the Old Testament book of Genesis, it says, My spirit will continue with humankind for 120 years. She said, Look, I don't care whether I'm making it on not, it's a good goal to have God said it, I believe it I'm going to go for and she made it to 107. So I thought it was kind of cool, mixing a little bit of biblical theology in with a lifetime goal of life expectancy. So my goal is 120. So it because I had always thought about, it'd be nice to live to be 100. But now I have a very definite goal that I want. And I tell everybody, I know that my goal. is to live to be 120. That's the goal. And unlike Katherine, it doesn't matter whether I make it or not, but it's a darn good goal to have. That's one thing. The second thing I learned was that they were masters, they were masters at managing stress. You know, that wonderful Serenity Prayer, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. They are masters of embracing that prayer because the only thing you can change is yourself, you can't change anybody else. And so, most all, and by the way, they live through some pretty stressful times in life, if you think about it. World War One, they lived through the Great Depression, they lived through World War Two. I mean, these people did not live stress-free, free lives, but they really, they really learned to just manage stress very well. And it's really helped me a lot to just realize it you know, there's really nothing is really that big a deal. Another thing it did financially speaking is, is and when I asked them, you know, one of the things about giving us your wisdom about money, you know, you all have you lived through the Great Depression. And they were all in teenagers or young or in their 20s a number of them as they were living through the depression. One lady said, she said, I live by the three Do's make do, do without, and do-over. Make do, do without, and do-over. So I think I probably learned to be a bit more frugal myself a bit more sensitive to being a little random  with my money. They all say said pay cash. They hated that that was a nasty four-letter word to centenarians. They hated debt, you know, most all of them were debt, all of them were debt-free, very few, even a very few pay for anything. Except for with cash. And so, I sort of go by that, mantra now I've got an I'm debt-free, you pay for almost everything cash, pay off our credit cards at the end of every month. So I have no debt so that I don't live with that stress. And think about if you live without any debt, most of your life, you're going to be a lot less stressed and which may contribute to your longevity. Another thing they taught me was, and Kevin knows this, I've really had about 16 careers. And they because they all said they loved what they did and, and I have always when I got bored doing something, I went and did something else. And I've always loved what I've done. And I've told people I said, Look, if you're loving what you do, you have eight hours of your day is lousy. The other eight hours a day that you're awake are gonna be wonderful. But if you're loving what you do eight to 10 hours a day, probably the other eight or 10 hours a day are really gonna be fine. So I've really pursued that I've always done what I've enjoyed doing and what I quite enjoy doing. Like you said some of that mundane days, but I've always stayed focused on enjoying what I do. So those are some very practical personal. And, and man I am traveling, all I can. Now two years ago, my wife and I celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, we did a 44 day around-the-world trip. We went from Atlanta, the ship to Japan to China to Hong Kong to Cambodia to Vietnam to Singapore to India to Dubai. You name it, man. So we're going to see all of this Earth that we can before we get slapped in the face with a shovel.Ray Loewe15:19Yeah, that's cool. You know one other quick story and then I want to get back to your stuff. Sandy and I were in Antarctica a few years ago and we met a couple of down there that one of the days didn't come on one of our side trips that we went on to and it's an expensive trip so everybody does everything. And the short version of it is they said you know, we put off taking this trip too long, not realizing that we have to be physically healthy to do some things. And we, we didn't have the money we needed, we saved the money. Now we have all the money when we want, we can't walk up the hill to see the penguins. And it's so significant to do what you can when you can, you know, what have you changed? Now, you've gone through this career at Emory where you were doing all this research, what are you doing now?Steve Franklin20:28Well, it's great. I finished working for money, let's just say eight and a half years ago, you know, finished up in the financial services business we did four successful rates and hung it up. And I had a wonderful ministry called North Point ministries, they that it's a it's an interesting organization, it has eight or 10 churches in the Atlanta area, but it supports probably 75, all types of nonprofit ministries throughout the Atlanta area, and all throughout the United States in about six or seven foreign countries. And so and this was really neat that the Lead Pastor of that organization a guy named Andy Stanley he and the executive pastor said, you know, we do a great job helping people who are struggling with finances, you know, the ones that are really you know, surviving, struggling, we've got all kinds of great resources to help them get out of debt, get on a budget, pay off credit cards, you know, all of those sort of things. But we do nothing, we do nothing. For people who are in that, let's call it that cert, that that that stable to surplus stage of life that you and I are in, right? I mean, we're in a stable surplus age you say, we assume all those people fine they got plenty of money, they're gonna retire, they got no issues and whatever. And we did nothing to really focus on them to help them be let's just say, enjoy their retirement more, be more strategic with their generosity, he said, I'd like you to come on board and see if we can develop some environment, some irresistible environments, that would help these people be more strategic in their stable surplus years, that second half of their life. So I spend my time now with a lot of people, most of them I would say are in their late 50s, 60s and early 70s. But a goodly number of people in their young people in their 30s talking about once you get to that finish line, whatever your retirement goal is all those sorts of things. How can you be more strategic in your generosity to give away money so that you really do jokingly say die with a smile on your face? A good friend of mine, Ron Blue says do you're living while you're, do your giving while you're living. So you're knowing where it's going, you know, we're not telling you that there's going to be a meeting about your money. And either you can be present or you won't be. So let's get strategic about being generous with what you got now in the stable surplus years. And so I do a lot of that do one on one meetings, I do a lot of group meetings, I bring in various speakers to talk about that. Just really, really a fulfilling kind of self-actualizing chapter of my life.Ray Loewe22:57Oh, cool. So we're, unfortunately near the end of our podcast time. So do you have any final comments you want to make before we have to break off?Steve Franklin23:08Ah, you know, pay cash for everything. Get out of debt, love what you do. And if you're not finding what it is that you're doing? And just be nice to people,Ray Loewe23:18and sharing your wisdom in some way, maybe some money is a good thing too, isn't it? Absolutely. Cool. Kevin, any last comments that you have?Kevin Davis23:28So I just got to say, you know, along with this, do things now right and enjoy some of what you have now. For anyone coming to Atlanta reach out to Steve or I because you got to come to Das barbecue. There's a couple of them now. Steve's son, Steven started them legitimately. And I'm not just saying this legitimately, probably the best barbecue joint in Atlanta. And that's saying something. But you know, enjoy life a bit. Bring a friend. Let's go have a fun conversation about your passions. And did you notice the theme this common thread over the last three or four podcasts Ray of people who, who didn't talk to each other ahead of time, which I think's interesting about how when you're others-focused, whether it's giving of your time or giving of your money? It seems like there's an immense amount of joy that comes from that. Isn't that interesting? Right? Yeah. Ray Loewe24:27And we're gonna dwell on that going forward. You know, Kevin, you've been a great co-host. I really appreciate your time and your energy. And you know, our next podcast, we're gonna have another co-host. And his name is Jeff Wuorio. He's a ghostwriter. And he's helping me write my next book as we speak. So that'll open up some interesting stories and some interesting opportunities to, to search into life. So everybody, thanks so much for being with us. Thanks, Steve Franklin. You know You got me excited about older age and by the way, I'm going to live to be 154. That's a good number. A good number I like that. All right, great, everybody. Have a great day. And we'll see you all again next week. Thank you much.Kris Parsons25:18Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do that too. Join us with your lively host of Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world. 

Podcast Co-host:  Kevin Davis:  kevinkaera@comcast.netPodcast guests:  Lance and Penny Davis:  lancedavis@livingscience.com Transcription:Kris Parsons00:02Welcome to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do it too. Join us with your lively host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.Ray Loewe00:16Good morning, everybody. This is the lively host from we're sitting in the podcast studios and in wildfire podcasting, and Woodbury, New Jersey, our engineer here, Taylor is here to make sure that everything runs smoothly. And we can focus on just talking to our guests. And we have wonderful guests today. So Kevin, say hi to everybody. Kevin is our co-host for this month.Kevin Davis00:44Hi, everybody, Ray, thanks so much. It's a privilege and honor to be back here. You bought me back again, we're on a roll here?Ray Loewe00:52Well, because we're doing fun stuff, and Kevin and I did a great podcast a couple of weeks ago. And it focused on five things that are kind of the theme for this month. And let me bring, let me kind of recap those four. So the luckiest people in the world that have to know what they want. Now, our definition, the luckiest people in the world are those people who actually take the time to personally redesign their own lives, and live them under their own terms. And if you don't know what you want, how are you ever going to design your own life. So we found that there are five key characteristics of why some people, the lucky ones, are able to design their own life, and then redesign it when things change. And we certainly get a lot of that today. And they're able to pivot and they're able to stay on type of life. And they're able to enjoy it and get the most out of it. So the five things are the luckiest people are purpose-driven. They know why they're here. And they remind themselves why it's so important to go back to purpose. They're mission-driven. They're, interested in other people, they want to help other people and their best when they help other people. Whenever they get into trouble, they go back to their values, they have a list of values and might be family, it might be faith, it might be a whole lot of other things. But their values are important. And they base their decisions on what they want on their values. They throw in excellence, okay. And you know, we're all good at some things. And life is more fun when you're working on things that you're good at. And it gives you the best chance of being able to do things for other people. And last but not least, they come back to the fact that at the end of everything when they put all these things together, they want to like their day. So, Kevin, we beat those up a while ago. And we're going to talk more over here. So why don't you introduce Lance and Penny, and give us a little background and start us off on this wonderful world of exploring life?Kevin Davis03:13Sure, well, so it is. It's an honor and I say this with a bit of trepidation to have Lance and Penny Davis, my parents here, you know, Ray, you know, I love a good story. And I have a bunch of them. We're gonna have to be careful today with the funny stories because, for everyone I have, they probably have two or three about me. So but I'm gonna have to call you mom and dad. But so mom, dad, thanks so much for joining us today. Super excited to have you on the podcast here. That's okay. Okay, thank you.Ray Loewe03:48We don't want you to do that of all things. Don't mind your manners and misbehaving is part of the game. So let me start out with something you guys a big part of your life was you're both missionaries in Africa. Why don't you give us kind of the short version of what happened there, because that certainly created a foundation for where you're going.Lance Davis04:12Yeah, we were both teachers early on in life. And then we went to the States, and we went to a college, up in your neck of the woods. And then we went back to Africa as missionaries, and we were already there for about four years. And during that time, Kevin was about seven years old. So he went back with us and his early life was riding on a motorcycle behind me sitting on the backseat, and riding around the neighborhood, getting kids together and having them to our house so that we could have Bible storytimes and things like that, and then starting a church and he'd Sing with us. So it was an amazing time. We actually left Zimbabwe or it used to be Rhodesia came back to the states and went back to college. And that's where the rest of our life sort of sprang up in the northern part of the United States, but then in about 93, we didn't like the cold so much. Tell me why you think that is. We came down south  to Atlanta, Georgia, and we've been here since 1993. And are absolutely loving it. Ray Loewe05:26And go ahead, Penny.Penny Davis05:29I was just gonna say I'm not I don't think we're doing a whole lot very differently. Because I think it's all wrapped up in what you said, we're living in our sweet spot. And so we just take our sweet spot everywhere we go.Ray Loewe05:39Okay, so you guys actually formed a school?Kevin Davis05:44We did. Yes, that's correct. Ray doesn't everybody?Ray Loewe05:51Well, you know, some of us don't think that far ahead. But give us an idea of what the school is and what it's about because I think this is going to drive the rest of our conversation.Kevin Davis06:03Well, let me add a little context before you answer that because I'd love this as part of the answer. You didn't just form a school, you waited until you were at a stage of life where your kids were grown and off and married, where, you know, Ray and I met in the financial industry. And so a lot of what we did professionally was helping people prepare for this thing called retirement. And under a normal plan, you would have been 10 years away from that. And so rather than coasting into the retirement years, 25 years ago, you guys decided to start a school. So there's some context to explain it.Penny Davis06:43Yes, of course. So I mean, really, the whole essence of what we need to be doing is building into other people's lives. And we'd like kids and kids are more palatable and more pliable. So that was the best thing to do. And that's our training. So I love your five points because we definitely are purpose-driven. But our purpose is based on our mission. And you know what, that's what we're doing every day of our lives. And so we come home exhausted loving it, and we go back the next day. And what's that word? retirement? I don't compute.Ray Loewe07:18Thank you for that. So if you don't mind, can you share with everybody your approximate ages at this point?Lance Davis07:26Oh, yes everybody knows. I'm 29. Again, every single year reminds the kids that and it's a test question at the end of the year. How old is they don't call her Penny? They call her Mrs. D. How old is Mrs. D? And if you get 29, you get extra credit.Penny Davis07:44So, therefore, as a school teacher, my answer to your question is that if you go back to the age that most people are retiring at 65? Or will we breezed past that by 10 years? So you can work that one out?Ray Loewe07:57That's higher math. Okay, so I need to go to so I can learn that, he can do that. And I think this is one of the purpose of things is, is you guys have just kind of taken this thing called retirement. pushed it out of the way. And you're living life under your terms.Lance Davis08:19Yes, yeah, it almost seems re it almost seems like we are loving it more now doing what we do now than in the past. And I don't know how that computes. The sweet spot really is something that we look forward to every day. And sometimes an average year, we'll experience that sweet spot a couple of times, hugely, like when we come back from an expedition to the Golden Isles of Georgia, with 100 kids or something like that. And we have seen what changes have been made in their lives. And a parent calls us up and said, What do you do to my kid? And we say, Well, what do you mean? And they say, Well, he's come back changed. He helps me in the house. He takes out the garbage. He's civil to me, doesn't bad mouth, his siblings and we say Good, good. That's the sweet spot, hearing all that stuff. Cool.Kevin Davis09:19You know, Ray. I want to connect the dots here for some of our listeners who might have been listening last week when we talk with Joe Colavito. You know, he gave an interesting definition for purpose. And I don't know if I got it exactly verbatim, but he said an individual's unique design for how you can help improve the status of others. And you know, we talked about how it was others-focused. And we're hearing that same theme here today, which I think is pretty interesting. Could you guys share a bit about you have this program that you've developed a Living Science to Stem Academy? You call it a servant leader program? Talk a bit about that, because I think that ties in so much to this idea of building into the next generation helping others, being others-focused.Penny Davis10:15Okay, so I think the first thing I want to say is that you do gain wisdom as you get a little older each year. I mean, we've made lots of mistakes. But what are you going to do with that wisdom bury it? No, you have to take that wisdom. And it's got to be pulled down to the lowest common denominator. So wisdom continues so sweetheart how do we do that? What are we doing?Lance Davis10:35Well, one of the things that Mrs. D has always had in the classroom, is her philosophy of education is this, it should be preparation for life. And so our kids are servant leaders. For instance, in the high school, ninth through 12th graders, they are taught the tips, T I P S, which stands for target, which is your vision, influence, you influence others and others influence you and passion, always find your passion and go with it. And then the last one is servant leadership. And those are the hallmarks of our servant leaders. And the last one is we teach them how to be leaders, by helping them to serve others.Penny Davis11:18Then, of course, they make mistakes. And so that's a wonderful teaching model right there. I think the big thing here is that we do this with encouragement, not negative and put-downs, we are teaching them how to build others up and we're trying to build them up, we actually have a rule, no put-downs. And we also have another saying which you'll love Ray, there will be change. And I just they've learned to hold their hands off and say they will be changed. Because in any given day, especially when we're on mission on the Golden Isles on the beaches with 100 to 150 kids. I mean, doesn't everybody do that when they're supposed to be retiring it's such fun? The river changes, the tide changes, and they have to know how to react on the dime and turn around now they're not perfect. We're not perfect, but boy, they're amazing, and how much they are learning?Lance Davis12:10Yes, but here's the thing, if you start doing that with a ninth-grader, and he experiences the wisdom of changing and maybe how difficult it is to change or how hard it is, then he does that again in the 10th grade. And then in the 11th. By the time he gets to the 12th grade, he's learned that aspect of life, right, and he's preparing himself for the future, there will be change. And another saying that we've always used is there's no growth in a comfort zone and no comfort in a growth zone. That's one of the things we teach them. It's purposeful teaching.Penny Davis12:49And we use it, we use something else as we really working with them. And this is for the parents as well. Well, it starts with us, we use a term form and function. See, what you were saying is, you have to make changes. And yes, that's your form, the form of education since we first started all those bunkies years ago has changed. But the function, our goals, you know, what do we want coming up the other end, that hasn't changed? It's just the road to get there. That's changed. So if kids can learn this, they're going to be successful.Kevin Davis13:22Yeah, okay, so let's have a fun story to give an example of what some of that could look like. Because most of the people listening, have no idea what an expedition is. And I'll frame it, it's this crazy, thought that you put 100 plus kids into a whole convoy of cars, you drive five or six hours, down to the Golden Isles, you know, on Georgia. And then you spend the next five days teaching kids out on the beaches and in the marshes. But the weather doesn't always cooperate. And then I remember there was one year where we had tsunami-like weather flooding. And you had to have these kids change the entire agenda on the fly because you couldn't go outside. I mean, it was torrential that year.Penny Davis14:14Actually was like Noah's flood that that year was really bad. There was a second one. Yeah.Kevin Davis14:20And the ark wasn't quite finished. I remember.Penny Davis14:25So actually, that's amazing that you say that because we have the forethought to say what if the weather isn't cooperating. And we've been watching the progress of the weather report, and we just said, well, just in case. So we have teams, and there were eight teams that year. So instead of just having eight rotations, we actually created boxes the day before we left because my science team is well trained. I said here, here's what we're going to be doing run for the equipment, get the boxes, and we packed up eight additional boxes. And the place where we stay was kind enough to give us a second hall and we just simply arranged the kids inside doing the most fun things. We've got videos of amazing things happening. If they'd known what we were doing in their halls, they might have charged us double that year, but they never did find out. So we have lots of fun. Lance Davis15:14But that's what we lead them to we let the kids know there will be change. And you've got to be proactive. And you've got to say, What if? What's your plan B. And now the kids all know, what are we going to take for Plan B? So we look at it very carefully a couple of days before we go. And we say now it's not needed. We don't need that much. We'll only take a few things. But now they have a principle. Well, ifPenny Davis15:41we travel in cars, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Kevin. We have such funny stories about the cars, they're all numbered, and everybody's in small convoys so that it's a safety issue? And this one year we just lost a whole convoy of I think was four or five cars. And we're like, oh, my goodness, we're not allowed to lose kids. I mean, the parents is fun, and we lose. We can't lose the kids. And finally, we got and this was before everybody had their cell phones. And we were using actually CB radios, CB radios. We finally got this one lady who was kind of meeting this up. She says, No, no, really. I'm in the convoy. I'm following Mr. Parker. Silence, honey, Mr. Parker is not on this trip. We don't know who you are following, but you got all our kids stop and turn around.Ray Loewe16:34Go ahead, Kevin. Where'sKevin Davis16:36So I was gonna say it's interesting, Ray? You know, you see the thread of all these different conversations we're having. One of the things that you and I have talked about is how, you know, you have a plan, but then life throws you a curveball. You know, my famous quote about Mike Tyson's comment, everyone has a plan to get punched in the mouth. And what we've observed, as you know, the luckiest people in the world have learned how to pivot. It's not that they've got this airtight plan. It's that they know how to pivot when things get kind of crazy. And I love that. You know, this servant leadership program is trying to teach kids that skill. You know, we're here trying to encourage adults to exercise that skill. Right, Ray.Ray Loewe17:12Well, yeah, but you know, why not drop it down to kids? I mean, why shouldn't somebody in their 30s and their 20s enjoy life more? Why shouldn't they find their purpose and know their mission and life in and figure out where they're going? And then take that all through life? Too many of us don't find it until we get old.Penny Davis17:51Yeah, yeah, that's sad. That's sad. Now, you know, COVID hit us pretty hard. And so last year, we weren't able to have an expedition because we were all sort of locked down as a school, we were allowed to have a certain number of people. And so we just said, well, we're not canceling this. The kids have looked forward to this the whole year, we said, we will have a virtual expedition. And we were called mad, but that's okay. Because we know we are. It was so much fun our servant leaders, we trained them to put together bags of equipment, so that we could be online, showing these kids and having fun with these kids online. And they could be at home actually doing little labs and having fun. And we said, All right, how are we going to get these there. So we got convoys of kids driving out to all over creation because people come from far away. And we hand-delivered sacks of lots of fun things, t-shirts, and all the equipment. And we actually had an amazing experience during a virtual expedition.Lance Davis18:48Yeah, at that time, there were six teams, and we have six separate rooms, and they were all on zoom. And the seven leaders were in groups of two to four, and our science team, kids who are normally the 10th graders, they were running from room to room with different sets of equipment, because our seven leaders were actually doing the experiments in front of the kids and watching the kids do the experiments at home. It was just an amazing time.Ray Loewe19:17And that comes from the fact that you have a well-defined purpose and a well-defined mission and you know what you want to accomplish? So you're gonna get there somehow, someway even though the world is not necessarily going to let them take the path easy. How many kids do you have in your school?Lance Davis19:38Oh, 150 Plus, it goes between 150 and 200. And that's kindergarten through 12th grade. Ray Loewe19:44And the whole purpose of this is to build this kind of sense of leadership into kids and experience so that there'll be better people and they know where they're going.Lance Davis19:55Yeah, Ray part of our mission statement is we want our kids to become leaders so that they can drive truth and godly values into society. That's actually the last part of our purpose statement. So we keep that in mind all the time. And the how question comes at, well, how are we going to do that now? And last year? So how are we going to do that in this particular situation? Well, we came up with some ideas.Penny Davis20:22And I think to add to that, being an educator and having been one for more years, and most people, most of our parents are old. And that's a fact. You know, what, you can't just throw information at kids and expect them to be excited about doing something with that information. So we are very, very big on doing hands-on things, and getting the kids excited to want to learn if they don't want to learn, there's no purpose and trying to show them the excitement that's outside of the school. One has to get them saying I want this they have to be hungry. You know, there's a saying that you can take a horse to water and you can't make a drink. That's not true. Feed it salt, it'll want to drink.Ray Loewe21:06That's mean and nasty, but it works, doesn't it? The, you know, take a minute and talk a little bit about the sweet spot that came up several times. And the sweet spot is what you guys are living. I think I know, I'm sure everybody else is living it too. But you keep talking about you find the sweet spot in life. What do you mean? How does it drive you? I don't even know how to ask the question any better than that?Lance Davis21:37Well, the sweet spot I've described is at the end of an expedition, I'm exhausted. And I relax. And I say wow, that, to me is the best expression in the world. Wow. And we try to put the wow into learning. But when it happens to you, it's even better. And so when I see results, that helps me, my sweet. I'm doing what I love to do now, even though I get seems like every year I get a little bit more tired. But that doesn't matter. That's him, that's not Mrs. D.Penny Davis22:09So I think you know, when you talk about sweet spot, to me, it is getting to the end of the day and saying, I am so thrilled with what I've been able to impart unto others but much more than that. I'm so thrilled at what I see them giving back. Because we're not meant to live forever. And so we need to make sure that we can share our values and share how to have a mission and how to be purpose-driven so that these kids grow up into adults that want to give back. That's so satisfying. That's a sweet spot for us. Lance Davis22:41Yeah, Ray. Here's another thing, often parents look at us and they say, Wow, once again, they say this is the best environment for our kids because they see you two. And I'm thinking, how does that compute? Well, you two are still together, you two to fight together, you are doing everything together, you're going on trips, and you're upholding each other, you're giving the kids a visual picture of what their lives could be. And we hold hands all the time to by the way. Oh, yeah. And once in a while, we will kiss, you know that peck on the cheek, and the kids love it. And we will say we have a license you don't. Yeah. Cool. Ray Loewe23:23So can I say, Wow, as a result of this podcast, because I got so psyched up listening to you. And you know, first of all, you're not letting age get in the way at all. You're focusing on life, not about age, and you're making a difference, and you've got a purpose. And that purpose gets thrown roadblocks, and you seem to get around them pretty well. What a great lesson in life. Kevin Davis23:48You know, Ray, when they talk about they get a little tired, and they imply they might slow down, I got to give context. People in their 40s can't keep up with them. So when they say, they, get a little tired, I laugh because I'm looking at you know, all of the people laying on the ground with their tongues hanging out. But I think that goes to, you know, passion. And purpose matters infinitely more than age. When you're in your sweet spot. When you're purpose-driven. You're doing something that gives you energy. Others will look around and go How do you keep going? And what do you mean, how do you not? And all of a sudden age is immaterial. It's more about, you know, doing what you love. And I want to touch on one last thing because we're running out of time, Ray? This the fifth thing that you had mentioned at the very beginning that we've observed, the luckiest people in the world tend to have they like their day. Yes. Does like your day mean everything's great and easy or is there a different definition of what that might mean? Penny Davis25:00Are you asking us? I think liking your day means that you fulfilled a purpose. And you've taken action in the hard things, and you survived all the attacks.Lance Davis25:12Yeah, maybe that's easy. Just that's the best way of putting it. We survived. Yeah.Ray Loewe25:19Yeah, but at the end of the day, you have joy. And I think Kevin's right. I mean, life is not simple. Life isn't smooth. Everything doesn't work right every day. But at the end, if you can sit back and say, Wow, yeah, I'm that word is now part of my library. Okay. Cuz I there's no better way to say it. It's just Wow. Okay. Yeah, we give you permission, you can use it. Well, thank you much. And we have time. Do you have any quick last comments that you want to make before we break off here?Penny Davis25:58Just very, very quickly, I think that what I want, I want to say and I hope that people really hear this is such a funny little quip. When you aim at nothing, you hit it every time.Lance Davis26:11Yeah. See, that's the first. The target is what we teach kids, we teach them. Here's your target for this year. Oh, sorry, wrong statement, what is your target for this year? And so we don't give them a target. We force them to make a little target, whatever it is, because if they don't buy into it, then they're not going to shoot for it. If it's my target, they'll just say, No, I don't think passive it's got to be their target. And then we teach them how to go with passion. And often it's because their friends lift them up and their friends encourage them.Ray Loewe26:51Well, incredible. So you know, thank you so much for being with us. And we'll have to do this again because I think there's so much wisdom and enthusiasm in here. So we'll give you a little time to prepare for the next one. How's that? And then we'll do another Wow. Wow. We'll be around. Thank you, Ray. Well, thanks for being with us. And stay tuned, because next week, Kevin, and I will be back. And we'll be interviewing a young man by the name of Steve Franklin, who's interviewed a whole lot of people over the age of 100. And I think what you can see from our meeting with Lance and Penny today is to quit focusing on age and focus on living. And you just get all those extra years of all that extra excitement, and Lance and Penny. Thanks again, and I'm going to finish off with one word. Wow.Kris Parsons27:49Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do that too. Join us with your lively host of Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world. 

Co-host and guest:  Kevin Davis:  kevinkaera@comcast.netTranscription:Kris Parsons00:02Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life, and how you can figure out how to do that too. Join us with your lively host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.Ray Loewe00:15Good morning, everybody and welcome to changing the rules and changing the rules is is a podcast dedicated to showcasing some of the people that we think are the luckiest people in the world. And our definition here is that luck is not just luck, the luckiest people in the world actually take the time to design their own lives, under their terms. And then they live them under their terms. So they're some of the happiest people in the world. And because of that, their journeys, take them on some of the most interesting paths in the world. And we have with us today, Kevin Davis, and Kevin is doing double duty today. He is our co-host, and he'll be with us for the next three or four podcasts. But today, I wanted to tap his brain because he's got this tremendous experience, dealing with financial advisors dealing with a financial community. And he's just got some great insights to what it takes to be lucky and how you put things together. So Kevin, welcome to changing the rules.Kevin Davis01:26Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Great to be here with you. Co-hosting and getting to talk about some fun stuff. Glad to be here, Ray.Ray Loewe01:34Yeah. And last week, we talked to a great guy, didn't we? And it was a guy who was actually making a change from work to being one of the luckiest people in the world.Kevin Davis01:46Yeah, I mean, that was a lot of fun talking with Mike, and boy, you've got to have a real direction and purpose in your life if you're willing to leave the NFL to go do something different, right. I mean, that's, free tickets to the Super Bowl he walked away from.Ray Loewe02:05Yeah, absolutely. So give us a quick preview, you're introducing us to three new guests, we're actually doing an extra podcast this month, and give us the short version of who the next three are and why we need to listen to their podcasts.Kevin Davis02:20Sure, well, you know, we're gonna, this will sound interesting and different all at the same time, we're gonna have a chance to talk with my parents, Lance and Penny Davis, which, you know, on the one hand, you better listen, because they're my parents. And if I don't, I might get in trouble. I mean, even though I'm about 50, Mom's still mom, right. But it's, weird when it's your parents, and it's, you know, your family, it's just life, you know, their experience just as normal, because it's the experience we all lived. When you step away from it, and you made some comments, it really made me realize this, and you have a chance to talk with a couple that lived in a war-torn country in Africa and basically decided to do something crazy and take their one child and whatever, they could get on a plane and show up in another country and start over and go through everything that comes with that. And all these years later, you know, here they are, successful entrepreneurs, in this country, having run their own business for the last 25 years, it's really very interesting to get their perspective. And so I think as we talk with them, you will begin to see more of where a lot of my thinking came from. But I'm the lucky one because they're the ones that took all of the really significant risks. And, I got to benefit from that, you know, so that'll be a lot of fun, then we're gonna get, we'll get to have a chance to spend some time with a dear friend of mine, Joe Colavito. Joe and I worked together for years. And he is just very focused on helping people really think through and understand their purpose. And that's a thread Ray that we've been hearing. You know, and the not too distant past here, and that you and I have talked about is it. It seems like the luckiest people in the world. When you really peel the onion back. They're lucky and they're living, shall we say living life on their own terms? Well, that makes it sound like everything goes perfectly and there's no problems and we know that's not the reality of it at all. I think it's because they have a purpose and a direction that they tend to figure it out and make the best of situations and they keep moving. And when you look back you go Wow, look at that. That's what a great life they've been living. And so Joe's gonna talk about purpose and I think that's just so important. And then, you know, when we talk with Steve and you've met Joe and Steve and, you know, Steve, so not only is he one of the foremost experts on centenarians in our country today, what started out as a small project one in an interview, a handful of people over the age of 100, turned into a passion and he just kind of kept going. And between in-person and then, you know, in writing.Hundreds and hundreds of centenarians later he amassed wisdom, that is just, it's fun. It's, it's humorous, it's, it's sad, but it's just filled with truth. And maybe, more importantly, he's my barbecue mentor, he is the guy who taught me how to how to smoke meat that you know that you'll hop in the car and travel 15 hours for so. I think the real problem we have Ray is how are we going to get all that done in 20-25 minutes each, right?Ray Loewe05:57Well, we'll manage. We'll manage to scrunch them all in and, you know, each of these people are going to back up some of the things that I want to talk to you about today. And, you know, we talk so much about the luckiest people in the world designing their own lives. Well, you know, if you think about it, if you design your own life, and you live it under your own terms, and one of the goals of being able to do this is that you are happier than you've ever been in your life. I mean, what's not to like? But the problem is that it takes some work to do that. And one of the things that I want to bounce around with you today is one of the mindsets of the luckiest people in the world is that they have to know what they want. And if you don't know what you want, how can you design your own life? So you got to figure this out. And yet, I get the comment from so but so many people, how can you know what you want when things change so fast? You know, we all kind of knew what we wanted before this COVID thing, and then look what happened. So why should we take the time to plan and think about this, but you know, the luckiest people in the world? And this is a hypothesis I'm going to put in front of you. And then I'm going to turn you loose and let you comment on it. I think there are five things that the luckiest people in the world need to have in order to know what they want. And be and when you do this, you can pivot you can go from one place to another whenever you need to do that always finding the path that you want to be happy and lucky. So here's what the five are Kevin. Okay, let's go. The first one is purpose, you know, they all have a purpose. And you know, you said Joe Colavito is going to come in and talk about that more. But I think the people who know who they are and why they're here have a sense of direction built into them. Yeah, the second one is mission. And that's kind of related. But mission, I think is where you take your purpose, and you figure out how to transform it into something that will help others as you go. You did a session for us a long time ago on values. And you know, I think the people who know what they want always go back to the values, they have a good sense of what's important to them. On the fifth one is a passion for excellence. I mean, you've got to have skill levels. And when you work within those skill levels that you're really good at and you're passionate about, then everything seems to work better than when you try to do other things. And I've got some sneaky examples I'm going to pull out of you on that one, Kevin. And then the last one, which I think is just really cool, is they want to like their day, at the end of everything. They want to go through a day and they want to say I liked my day. Yeah, so I so where do you want to start? Oh, Master, oh, pitmaster barbecueist, executive coach, and Master of the meaning of life?Kevin Davis09:09Why don't we jump into the value one because, you know, Joe will be with us talking about your purpose and submission will be woven in there as well. Like you said, We don't have time for all of them. But the value is one I think is so important because, you know, it's life happens. And who knows what tomorrow brings. And I think how we respond and move through life is really a big part of what determines that you know, are we happy? Is there joy our lives? Do we feel like we're living the life that we want to live? And I think that means when there are moments where there are tough decisions to be made and remember doing nothing is a decision. Right? And I think we forget that because a lot of times the default might be Oh, I don't know what to do, I'm not going to do anything. But it's a decision that we just made. And it's a tough decision. So I think having a set of values you can look at, really gives a great lens, now I'll share, you know, three or four of my core values. And then I want to give a story. So, you know, I grew up in a family of deep faith, my dad's a Reverend, my parents were a bit of a cliche, but they were actually missionaries in Africa. And so faith is very important to that. So that's a key foundational value. So decisions will always be made through that lens. Another one is family. You know, it's very important to me, to be with my family, spend time with my family. So that's another important lens. Another one is creativity. You know, Ray, I've got a creative streak in me. And so it's very important to me that I get to use that. And if I just stopped there, there's others. But if I kind of stopped there, here's the problem with those faith, family, that's almost a cliche, right? We hear it, you know, you could throw an apple pie at the end too if you want. What's that look like, though, when it really comes time to make some significant decisions. So I thought I'd share a story about the family one. So as you know, I lived in Jersey for about 10 years, that's when we met didn't live too far from you. And two, if you go back about eight, nine years, there were two significant things that happened in about a six, nine-month period, that really kind of caused me to step back and ask some good hard questions around what is the life we were living as good as it was, I mean, we were just happy we had good friends and a great job. You know, I in the financial industry working in and around the metro New York area, that's kind of the mecca of the financial industry. So you'd look from the outside and go, Well, why were you even asking questions? Everything's great. Well, so here are the two things that happened. My grandmother passed away. Now she lived a long life just shy of 90. But I'll share a bit about why that had such an impact beyond all of the obvious. And then I went to a funeral for a friend when his father passed away. So here's the context. My grandmother was living in New Zealand. We need another whole podcast to talk about her life, because she started out in Africa, ended up in New Zealand. She was you know getting up there in years, and she got sick, and my parents rushed over to be with her. But you know, New Zealand is almost exactly halfway around the globe. It's not an easy place to rush to. And just with everything that was going on, we sort of made a family decision that I would sort of stay behind to try and help from here. And they would go to be with Gran, it was my dad's mom. And so there was a good decision about what that meant is I didn't get to see her that one last time. We had seen her maybe nine months before. And we were blessed and thankful. But you know, it's not like we just seen her two weekends ago. So that got me thinking, boy, you know, family is important. But I've got part of my family halfway around the world. When you get to these moments where you're celebrating or you're mourning, you're far away. Then I went to this funeral, maybe you know, 6,7,8 months later, for a gentleman, I knew an advisor in North Jersey, we became friends, his dad had passed, I didn't know his father. So it wasn't the same level of emotion. But I'm sitting at the back and I'm watching his whole family taking up, you know, the front eight, or 10 pews it was a big family, and watching the interaction with them that there was certainly the sorrow but then afterwards, you know, that there's the reliving these memories, the joy of all that. And I had gone with a friend of mine, and I looked at her and I said, Wow, that's amazing to watch that. It makes me kind of wonder, is it wise for me to be raising my family, my daughters, my three girls up here away from their grandparents, and potentially repeating what happened to me away from my grandparents. And so as only a true friend can do, Ray, she looked at me, she said, Yeah, you're right. You're stupid. You need to move. And I was like, What are you crazy? As you know, we did. So when we say family is a value, right? That's what I think it looks like when you do those things that from the outside. Someone go? What are you doing? Yeah, that's insane, man. You're moving without a job. At the time the decision was made before I had a job. Thankfully, we had one before we got there. But we made the decision based on the value. And I look back, what an amazing decision when I look at the things we have enjoyed in the last eight years, since being back living 15 minutes from my sister and her family, 15 minutes from my parents, and my three girls growing up with cousins. And then my wife's sister's an hour away with her two boys. So we have seen the kids grow up with their cousins around the pools and at the beaches and all that, oh, he's just looking at Oh, man, are we lucky. But it went back to there was a process that we could look at life lens we could look at life through. And that one core value where we realized, Hey, you know, it's not quite right, something's off. So that's what I mean with value.Ray Loewe15:57Okay. Let me inject a couple of things. You know, one of the things that I get from people about designing your own life, is they say, isn't that selfish? And I think when you put your values in place is not selfish at all. Okay, yeah. Because you're not doing this, at the exclusion of your family, if family is important, you're going to include them, and you're going to base what you do around them. And that's why values are so important. And let me throw in one other thing we've seen since this COVID thing, that a lot of people who have decided or had decided that at some point in time, they were going to move into one of these over 55, continuing care kind of communities, and are now changing their mind. Because they're saying that what I missed during this year is I wasn't able to be with my family. And I'm now gonna rethink how I do this. And go ahead, Kevin.Kevin Davis17:01Well, no, You said something I think's profound. Isn't it selfish? I would argue that making decisions that aren't based on your values are selfish, because here's the thing, how many people do you know that will say, hey, one of my core values is selfishness. Probably not many. There's something sure lived that way. When you get down to it, most people have core values that are as much about others as themselves. And so when decisions are being made that way, they are almost always others-focused. And I think that's maybe part of why those people are so happy, though.Ray Loewe17:47Yeah, because the other focus, okay, I want to change direction, because we'll run out of time if we're not careful. So I want to talk a little bit about this passion for excellence. And, this whole bit about taking into account what you're good at, and what you're passionate about, and building your life around those things. So start making your comments, and then I'll force you into a story about you.Kevin Davis18:13Well, I think I even know the story you want. So I'll just jump right in. I think you nailed it, when you're doing something that you're passionate about that you're good at mind you, right? So you can be passionate about something and candidly would be pretty bad at it. And there's a point where that, you know, that's not fun for anybody. But when you're good at it, I think you gain joy and energy from it. You know, I enjoy talking to people I know, that's a surprise, you might catch some of the energy in my voice when we're doing this. Because this is fun. This isn't work. This is I love this, right? Give me a spreadsheet, and I want to kill myself or but let's give a real-life example. My bathroom. You know the story. So we were looking my wife and I over the holidays, we're looking at the bathroom. And we noticed we had those big plate wall mirrors up on the walls over the sinks, you know, whatever they are five foot by four foot those big ones. And she noticed that one of them had slipped it had dropped out of the little piece that holds it. And she's like, you know, we need to fix that. You better get someone to come in and do that. Because if that falls forward, it's going to shatter oh man and it'll be dangerous. It'll be a massive disaster. And so I of course looked at that and I thought, How hard could that be? That doesn't I don't need to hire someone to come. I can fix the mirror. I said honey, I got this. Now, my wife, is an amazing woman, very wise were married almost 28 years. And she very lovingly said Are you sure that's the best idea. No, no, I got the hun. I got a little extra time on. Okay. And she stepped back. Well, you know how the story goes, I get into it. And it turns out, I can't fix it. So then I'm like, well, I'll just take it off the wall. And that'll probably help me figure out what to do. And maybe I'll just replace it and put a new one up. Well, you know, these have been there since the house was built. So I take them off the wall, and I realized, Oh, no, it took part of the wallboard with it. Now I've got this disaster of a wall. And, and in the process of taking, there were three of them. And they were on sort of an angle two sides, and then one on an angle in between the two of them, and it was the middle one that had slipped. So in the process of getting it out, I, of course, loosen the other two and advertently. Now I'm taking three mirrors off the wall, and this whole project starts to snowball. Before you know it, I'm having to do drywall repair. Now we're starting to think about well, maybe you got to paint right. And well, if you're painting should you repaint, and now that leads into Well, you know, the fixtures you kind of nicked one of those and they're kind of old and now we're replacing fixtures. I am not an electrician. Here I am face timing my father-in-law who built his house, and he's up in New York. Hey, Dan, how do I do this? Well, he's laughing at me. And a month later, I'm about ready to just jump out the window.Ray Loewe21:37And it took you that long?Kevin Davis21:39It took me that long. We won't talk about the number of times I was redoing things because I did them wrong the first time, I would say the miracle is to this day, you know, a couple of months later, the light fixtures are still on the wall. And they actually turn on when I throw the switch. Now it looks okay, right now it looks pretty good. All right. But here's the problem. It took way longer than it would have for someone who's actually good at that. It cost me more money because I messed stuff up so many times, and don't even talk about the level of anxiety and frustration that came with it. And at no point in that stretch. Would anyone have thought I looked like a lucky guy? Now you would have been lucky to watch and laugh. But I think that crazy story underscores the point. Excellence matters. If you're good at something, get phenomenal at it. And you will love the process and everyone else around you will love being part of the process. If you're not good at something, that's okay. We're not you know that that's the beauty of life. We're all good at different things. But we're all good at something. Understand what that is and strive to be excellent in that area. And let the others who are excellent in other areas, let them Excel there, I think, isn't that the beauty of a painting, right? A painting with one color is just called paint on a wall. Yeah, painting with a bunch of colors is called a masterpiece. And I was just reminded that in my masterpiece of life, it should not include me doing extensive home repairs.Ray Loewe23:27And this is all part of why the luckiest people in the world know what they want and are able to pivot and they know in advance that they're going to crank their values into it. And they know they're going to crank what they're good at and what they're not good at, and not get caught up in something where they have an obligation where they just don't have the mental commitment to follow through. So um that all leads to I just want to like my day.Kevin Davis23:55Yeah, well, you know, the first four lead to the fifth. And I don't think you get to the fifth without the first four. It's a process and I think it's important that we allow ourselves to be okay, with not doing things if they're not what we're great at. And not to feel guilty about that. I think that's real important. But I hope that there's maybe I hope this is encouraging to people. Because I do think and you sort of alluded to this earlier, I think there are some people that go well, how do I live this life on purpose? When crazy things like COVID happen. That wasn't in my plan. I yeah, that's called life. When you have a process that you can loosely follow. I think it helps you. As you said, figure out where do you pivot to because life's about pivoting? It's never a straight line.Ray Loewe24:57Yeah. And if you base it on your values, and you know what they are and you base it on what you're good at, it's going to come out, okay. And you're going to find that solution. And I hate to interrupt you Kevin, but we're near the end of our time. Okay. And all good things come to an end. And what we're going to be able to do is we're going to be able to follow up on this concept of how do you know what you want? Over the next several weeks? Because we're talking to people who are experts at pieces of this, I think.Kevin Davis25:28Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I, my dad shared with me something that is wonderful that he wants to talk on is he wants to talk about sweet spot, living in your sweet spot. It's this idea of passion for excellence. Right? Okay. And I think it's cool because he's obviously at a different stage of life than I am at a stage where a lot of times I think society says you're supposed to be winding down, retiring, you know, sitting on the golf course, and not being valuable to the rest of the world anymore. And yet, they're talking about how do they make sure they're in their sweet spot for the next stage of life? Think about that for a minute, the next stage of life?Ray Loewe26:10Yeah, and then we're gonna bring in Steve Franklin, at some point time he's going to talk about these centenarians, people will live to be 100. And there's a good chance that all of us have a chance to do that. And what are we going to do with our time going forward? So uh, Kevin, you know, thanks so much for being with me today. And I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks. And we'll do some great guests. And we'll see our guest shortly on changing the rules. Have a good day.Kevin Davis26:39Thanks, Ray you too.Kris Parsons26:41Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do that too. Join us with your lively host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.

Guest Co-host:  Kevin Davis:  kevinkaera@comcast.net Podcast Guest:  Mike Smith:  mike@huddleadvisory.comMike's Website:  https://huddleadvisory.com/ Transcription:Kris Parsons00:03Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life, and how you can figure out how to do that to.  Join us with your lively host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.Ray Loewe00:19Good morning, everybody. This is Ray Loewe with the luckiest guy in the world. And I'm sitting here in wonderful downtown Woodbury, New Jersey, at the wildfire podcast studios. And we have a whole new flow for the next month. We've got our co-host, Kevin Davis, who's an Atlanta-based person, I'm going to introduce him in a minute, we have a great guest today. And what this show is all about is it's about highlighting some of the luckiest people in the world. And the luckiest people in the world are those people who take control over their own life, and then live their lives under their own terms. And what's proven out is that the luckiest people in the world are also the most interesting people in the world, I think will bare that out today, as we talk. So let me introduce Kevin Davis. Kevin is a longtime friend of mine say hello, Kevin.Kevin Davis01:19How are you? Ray, it is great to be here with you in sunny Atlanta.Ray Loewe01:22Uh, well, except Atlanta has no gasoline. Right?Kevin Davis01:26Well, you know, there is that minor detail. But other than that, it's all good.Ray Loewe01:32Yeah. So stay home for the day. So Kevin is a coach to financial advisors. And he has tremendous industry experience on the product side of the financial industry. And the most interesting thing about Kevin is he's probably one of the most creative people I've ever met in my life. And let me tell you a quick story. So a couple of years ago, I was thinking about selling my financial planning practice. And Kevin was a member of my advisory board, and we're sitting around a big table in the back room. And we're talking about, you know, what the path was going to be after I walked away from the business. And I kind of weighed out this grandiose plan, and Kevin piped up and he said, you know, if you can do that, you've got to be one of the most interesting people in the world. And then he did this double-take, and he said, but we can't use that, because that's a beer commercial. So you're gonna be the luckiest guy in the world. It just stuck there, Kevin ever since. So thank you for that. Kevin Davis02:40Well, you're welcome. And of course, and anyone who had ever been into your office knows that we were sitting there with pictures you had taken from various trips, over the years around the world, some of them I think, you might have even told me National Geographic used the one of their brochures and one of the polar bears. And so it wasn't hard to kind of come up with that looking at this thinking, wow, this guy's been all over the place. It does. I will say this, and I'm sure you've said it over the years. It is interesting how the people who tend to work the hardest and tend to have a little purpose around the work end up seeming like the luckiest people out there, isn't it Ray?Ray Loewe03:21Well, they work at it, you don't become the luckiest people in the world just by sitting around. And you're gonna see an example of that when we introduce Mike Smith in a minute. But, Kevin, you know, thanks for being with us. And Kevin's going to be with us for the month of May. And we've gotten some incredible people coming in, in a week or two. And there are people that Kevin has introduced me to over the years. I think one of them Steve Franklin, his claim to fame is he interviewed 100 people over the age of 100. And we're going to be talking to him about his interest and where he's going. And we've got some other equally as interesting people. So make sure you stay tuned. And you're going to get a glimpse of Kevin as we go through this, too. So Kevin, are you ready to do some interviewing?Kevin Davis04:12I am really excited about today. And of course, I'll let you talk a little more about Mike's background. And but I'm going to spoil it. Spoiler alert here, you know, we just went through one of the most exciting non-competition-driven moments in the NFL, in my opinion, with the draft. And you know, it's always a bit of a tease for me because I get fired up, I get back into football mode where I really am excited about hanging out with friends and family and watching football. And then you gotta wait the whole summer. But this is a real treat because of who we have. So why don't you tell everyone who Mike is and a bit about his background?Ray Loewe04:55Sure. So Mike Smith, one of the luckiest people in the world, and you're going to see because he is in the process of continuing to revamp his life, to live it under his own terms. But Mike started in the world of accounting at one of the big accounting firms, and then went from accounting.Kevin Davis05:15Right, right. I thought you said, I thought you said we're talking to interesting people. In accounting?Ray Loewe05:23He left the accounting field, okay. By the way, I started in the accounting business too. So there's hope for accountants. But Mike left a Deloitte touche, after several years there, and went to NBC. And then went from NBC to the NFL, and he spent 16 years at the NFL. And I think Mike said he's been to, I don't know, Mike how many super balls, have you been to, it would be 16. 16, and you had to go to those, didn't you?  It was part of the job.Mike Smith05:58Yeah, no, it was a real chore. I must say that. That was one of the things that was a requirement of the job was attending Super Bowls.Ray Loewe06:05Okay.Kevin Davis06:06I'm sensing the pain and your voice about how hard that was?Mike Smith06:11Oh, it's funny. The one Super Bowl I ended up missing was the Super Bowl that actually had my favorite team in it, believe it or not, but we can get to that a little bit later.Ray Loewe06:20Okay, so what we're going to do is let Mike talk a little bit about his journey, and how he got from the accounting field to NBC to the NFL, and where he's going forward here because that's actually the most interesting part of his whole career. So, Mike, tell us a little bit about your journey and where you come from, and where you're going.Mike Smith06:45Well, thanks, Ray. Thanks, Kevin. And thanks for having me. And I truly am humbled to be on a podcast with a name such as the luckiest people in the world. It's not something I really would have ever envisioned. But I do love that you're trying to inspire people to be more intentional about how they're living their lives. I just think that's really, really a great purpose and a great focus for your work. And, you know, I am incredibly fortunate, but it's funny, I actually don't believe in luck. It's, funny, I just think that you know, sometimes low probability events happen, whether they're, you know, good or bad. But really what, I try to do, what I try to tell other people to do is, you know, what are you doing to actually maximize your chances of success, that, you know, a positive thing will happen, as opposed to a negative one? You know, because in life, you know, decisions have consequences, and sometimes you're not making a decision has a consequence. And so, you know, the question, you know, I have for the audience is, you know, what steps are you taking to actually create your own luck, because I think you said earlier that, you know, there's a fair amount of work that goes into trying to, you know, live a life that you really want to be living. And, you know, that starts with having, you know, that intention, but, you know, my journey started, like you said, in public accounting, and how I got there was just because my father was in accounting, and my brother was in accounting, so it was ended up just being the family choice. But, you know, it was really the start of an amazing journey that, you know, taught me, you know, the value of having quite honestly, really good boss, that, when you have a really good boss, it just creates an environment that allows you to learn, allows you to fail, allows you to experiment and try new things. But what's great about it also, is that you know, instilled in me from the onset of having a mindset of how to always be learning and how to always be pushing myself out of my comfort zone. So, you know, when I was at Deloitte, I started there, working on the Comcast engagement, which was the largest client they had in the Philadelphia Office, and I got the sports bug because one of the things I ended up doing was working on their acquisition of the Flyers and the 76ers and the stadiums in Philadelphia. So, you know, being a young sports fan, born and raised in Philadelphia, and actually looking at the financial statements of, you know, two of my favorite teams and seeing how the salt is, which made inside the sports industry was just an incredibly thrilling, thrilling moment. And, you know, in many respects, that first job I had at Deloitte because I was working with close friends who I still keep in contact with, you know, one of my best bosses ever. It was probably the best corporate job I ever had, which, you know, maybe is a sad statement that the best corporate job I ever had was when I was 22 years old, but it really was a great experience and a little bit of maybe a thread is that I actually followed that boss at Deloitte to NBC. You know, I, we had such a great connection, we complemented each other really well. And first at NBC. I was in Philadelphia ultimately became the CFO of the local TV station. And then at the time, NBC was owned by General Electric. And so if you remember the Jack Welch era of General Electric, they put a real focus on talent, they put a real focus on talent development. And really, every two years or so their high potential executives would be moving to their next opportunity. And so they came to me with a choice of, you know, a safe corporate job that I could leave Philadelphia for up in New York working and 30 rock where, you know, I'd be dealing with spreadsheets all day, or an opportunity to start something new out in Los Angeles and create a finance team with their growing NBC studios in house production arm. And you know, it was a great example of me pushing myself out of my comfort zone and wanting to, you know, take a personal risk and try something new.Ray Loewe10:47So can I interrupt for a minute, Mike, because you said a few things here that I think are really significant. And, you know, one of the purposes of the show is to showcase some people who are some of the luckiest people in the world. And you're absolutely right, you create luck, luck doesn't just happen. But you know, one of the things that you said is you search out the perfect boss, and you follow them. And then the second thing is that you push yourself and don't be afraid to jump off the cliff a little bit in order to try new opportunities to challenge your comfort zone. So, you know, as we go, let's highlight more of that because I think there are too many people that just get complacent with a job and don't move. And if not, how you get lucky is it?Mike Smith11:39No, and I think let's hit just a little bit of a pause button and linger on that for a moment because the phrase pushing yourself out of our comfort zone has become a little bit cliche, but I think the thought is, you know, what does that actually mean and translate to in terms of an activity or an action? And sometimes, you know, you do have to jump off that proverbial cliff in order to push yourself. And, you know, this is a question for people that are listening is, you know when was the last time you really jumped off that proverbial Cliff from a career standpoint? You know, has it been 10 years? Has it been 15 years? And if that is the question, then you know, you probably should be really seriously contemplating, you know, some type of move that would actually push yourself and actually make that jump. I think that's 100% spot on? Well,Kevin Davis12:30you know, Mike, it's interesting, it's interesting, because we, you know, we're obviously a very sports-centric society, we have all of these wonderful sports analogies, and we tend to talk about pushing ourselves, you know, going to the next level, we tend to talk about that a lot relative to athletes, and as they're trying to perform. We don't hear some of this language necessarily applied to how we make decisions about our own life, though. I mean, that's just very interesting thinking, right? Hey, let's push myself out of a comfort zone in my career. Well, that sounds a little scary. What are your thoughts about some of how you develop that mindset? Because I think it's a really important mindset. Mike Smith13:16Yeah, I think, you know, I love the notion of sort of everyone thinking about themselves as an athlete, do you want to call yourself a corporate athlete, you know, have at it, but, you know, it does start with, you know, having a mindset that you want to make an improvement in your life. And so, whatever that improvement is, you know, is a personal decision. But, you know, when I think about mindset, there's a handful of things that I focus on. One is having a real awareness around myself and my environment, you know, are you really looking in the mirror around sort of what my strengths and my blind spots are, you know, what is my current situation in whatever my environment is. Then really getting locked in on your personal purpose and your motivation, you know, what is really going to bring you the most satisfaction. You know, there's a lot of work out there. But oftentimes, you know, your real purpose in life is driven, is really linked back to some core emotional challenge you even had very early in your life, and really identifying that and creating that linkage is just such a powerful moment for people. And, you know, I remember when I actually made that link around what I want to be doing and linked it back to my core emotional event that happened earlier in life. It was just such a warmness came over my body, it was so incredibly satisfying and powerful, and it just drives you in a way that is hard to explain. And then the last thing that I think really contributes to mindset is probably not appreciated enough is just your physical, emotional, and mental well being, you know, how you feel and how you see the world and what you leaving yourself open to really does impact opportunities that come your way and how you see the playing field, so to speak. So I think all those three things from you know, your self-awareness, to your motivations too, you know, your well being really contribute to the mindset, you need to then get after something. And I think, you know, the outcomes will happen if you have, you know, the right mindset driving, you know, the activities you want.Kevin Davis15:27Yeah, that's, what do you think two books out of that right there? Yeah.Ray Loewe15:32Well, I think we're gonna see that this is where Mike's going, because, you know, when most people look at your career, and you say, you know, well, maybe not the accounting part, but you know, you get to NBC, and you're working with the stars, the TV stars, etc. And then you go to the NFL, and we all know what that's like, and the power of the NFL, and then all of a sudden, you leave to go off on your own. Because I think what you said something along the way is, in the end, it's just a job. And it's not the ability to express yourself and be yourself. Mike Smith16:12Yeah, I think, you know, you end up spending so much time in your professional career, to not be doing something that is bringing you deep personal satisfaction, and fulfillment really is just sort of a waste of how you're spending your time. And, again, there's a lot of reasons financially or otherwise, why people do the things that they do. But, you know, get locked in on your tension, tried to link it back to some real deeper purpose, and give yourself that self-drive to just live a much more fulfilling life. And, you know, for me when I was out in Los Angeles, you know, learning the TV business in Hollywood, you know, so it was such a great experience. But what was awesome about it is that I also ended up working with another great boss, who I ended up following to the NFL. So she was the CFO of the entire West Coast entertainment business, another person that I really connected with, and we were just fundamentally different and complemented each other. So so well, that she went and took a job at the NFL. And six months later, she got promoted, because she's a superstar and brought me over to work at the NFL. So again, a thread of me being fortunate, identifying good bosses doing good work for them, and then following their trail that they're blazing for me.Ray Loewe17:33Give yourself credit, because you wound up a senior VP of Finance for the NFL, so you had to do some good stuff along the way.Mike Smith17:42Well, I tried to you know, it certainly helps too, you know, surround yourself with really great people and work in cultures and organizations that really value performance and really give you the tools to be successful. And, you know, the NFL, during my time there over the 16 years went through such its own transformation of really moving from, you know, a sports league to really a global multimedia entertainment organization. You know, I think when I started, they probably would have looked at their peers much more to the other sports leagues. And then by the time I departed, you know, their peers were ESPN and Disney, and Fox, because that's sort of where their business model has taken them. And it really was an amazing experience. So many friends, so many great memories. But it also is, it's kind of interesting, you know, to work in your passion, you know, there when your passion and your job are intertwined. You know, you don't view your passion sort of the same way that you would normally and that's something that I always share with young people as they're entering the sports business is, you know, be ready for what you're wishing for, because, you know, it comes with some trade-offs that people probably don't appreciate.Ray Loewe19:00You know, I want you to interject a story here, a little bit out of sequence in a way but it's such a great story that you've got to tell it. And tell me about the photograph that you showed me long ago, about a football game. I think it was a high school football game back in the 1990s or something like that.Mike Smith19:19Yeah, there's a fairly famous photograph that as really made the rounds all over the NFL league office, because it's such a powerful picture. But back in 1965, in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, I believe is the town. There was a high school football game that was going on between two local rivals, and the science building right behind the field caught on fire. And so there's a famous picture that I think actually won the AP sports photograph of the year of 1965 of the game being played, the stands being full, and a raging fire in the background of the science building with fire trucks. You know, dousing it with water. And it just sort of always spoke to me around the power sport has especially football, but sport generally has in people's lives to, you know, build community and to really bring joy to people. And you know, my joke when I share that picture is that it ultimately resulted in the most unusual hattrick in history where Mount Hermon lost the game, they lost a 17 game winning streak, and they lost their science building all in the same day. Which, you know, I feel bad for Mount Hermon. But it really is such a powerful reminder of, you know, the power of sport. Okay.Kevin Davis20:38You hate to lose a winning streak like that. I mean, the building too, but yeah.Ray Loewe20:44Yeah, the winning streak, let's put it in perspective, the winning streak is what was really important, they're not the science building, right,Kevin Davis20:50You can rebuild the science building.Mike Smith20:53So you know, they decided the fire didn't pose a risk to the game, they just kept on playing, I mean, who would not make that decision, given the same choice. So I think we all appreciate that. Okay,Ray Loewe21:04So as usual, we're approaching the end of time here, but I want to get into a couple of other things. So,you recently decided that it was time for you to leave the NFL, and go off on your own. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing. And tell us a little bit about what it took to make that leap from your standpoint because it's a gutsy move.Mike Smith21:30Yeah, you know, I reached the point of my NFL tenure, first, you know, 6-7-8 years in the finance role. And then the last six, seven years in HR-related roles. And, you know, after 16 plus seasons, you know, staring at, you know, 50 years old, and just thinking about sort of what the next phase of my career look like, you know, I realized, you know, I did everything I was going to do there, and, you know, it was better for me, and, you know, quite honestly, it's better for the NFL, as well too, you know, create some you know, runway for other future leaders in that organization. And it was time for me to just, you know, go live a life, that was a lot more flexible in one respect, but much more dedicated towards the specific activities that I really enjoyed doing, you know, I just wanted to retake some control. And then I also wanted a real diversity of leaders and challenges and industries to be working from and growing with. So, you know, I jumped off the cliff again, and, you know, had really, really great conversations with the leadership team there, including the commissioner around where I was, and, you know, executed a transition to a great new HR leader, and, you know, exited stage left in 2020. So, it certainly did not expect to be leaving, right before the pandemic, for sure, but it was, but you know, it's one of those things that you, you have to always look at what's in front of you and figure out, Okay, this is a really rough situation, how do I make the best of it, you know, I always preach to people that you have to have this realistic optimism in your life. It's not, you know, all rainbows and unicorns, but it's looking at what's in front of you and figuring out, okay, what's the upside of the fact pattern that's staring me in the face. And that's what I'm doing now. So right now, I've got a handful of different silos. The first is around executive coaching, which is, you know, one-to-one leader development, which I just love to do. You know, I love building trust, I love trying to pay it forward to the next generation of leaders and using all of my experience of being in the trenches and a lot of difficult issues and how to make people you know, the best version of themself. Second, is I do human capital consulting. So, you know, I've got this very unique background of being, you know, finance, HR executive, you know, a real left brain and right brain thinker at the same time. And so, I end up just looking at human capital and culture issues and just a different way than the traditional consultant. So I find that satisfying. And then, you know, the third silo is I actually am still learning and investing in myself and pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and started a doctoral program at Vanderbilt in leadership and learning. So, you know, I think at some point, when that is done, in the next few years, you know, I'll find myself in a classroom setting, you know, in some type of academic world, and that'll be incredibly satisfying. And so, you know, now living this sort of next phase of my life, doing one-to-one coaching, working on human capital initiatives, and, you know, academic work where I really helped to shape you know, students leaving college is just incredibly satisfying for me.Ray Loewe24:56Well, you know, last for quite a while question we're getting to the end of time here. Go ahead.Kevin Davis25:03I was just gonna say it's interesting, um, we tend to, you know, collectively we tend to look at people, you know, like Mike or like you, Ray who have these really interesting and diverse set of circumstances and we say, man, what a great life, they're living How lucky they are, I would love that in my life, right. And then, at the same time, so often we tend to cling to security and stability. And kind of a thread that I'm hearing here and I see this over and over again, is, you don't get this really interesting set of opportunities in life if all you do is sit behind the desk and never leave home, you have to be willing to be thoughtful about what matters to take these, you know, calculated risks. You know, Mike, as you said, his point, we've got to be willing to go jump off the cliff. And I love that. Not only do you say that, and encourage people and coach them to do that, but you've been willing to consistently model that. And I think there's a lot to be learned from that, you know, for those of our listeners who are sitting there going, gosh, I want a life, I'd love to live like that. Well, you know, chances are, there's an opportunity for whatever their equivalent is, by being willing to be thoughtful, purposeful, and say it's time to get off the you know, the couch and take a risk, you know, run and jump off the cliff so to speak. Mike Smith26:34Yeah, I think the only thing I would add to that is, you know, everyone's an expert in something. So for people that are sitting at home, you know, contemplating, well, you know, jumping off the cliff, sounds a little bit too risky to me, you know, first do some self-work and think about what am I an expert in, because everyone listening to this is an expert in something. And once you identify that, then it just becomes a function of your business model and your structuring which are, you know, quote-unquote, easy things to work through if you've got the real will, to make a change.Ray Loewe27:08Great, great. Yeah, and unfortunately, we're at the end of our time, and I wanted to thank Mike Smith, who is CEO and founder of Huddle Advisory. Great, great name, by the way, Mike, given your background, and uh, we'll post that with our podcast notes. So if you want to get in touch with Mike, you'll be able to find him. And Mike, just thanks for being with us and showing us you know, how you kind of journey to being one of the luckiest people in the world and certainly one of the most interesting people in the world, and best of luck going forward. And I don't think you need the luck. I think you're going to make your own luck. So thanks for being with us.Mike Smith27:52Thanks so much, guys. This was fun.Ray Loewe27:55Okay, we will see everybody next week where we'll have another interesting guest and stay tuned to changing the rules.Kris Parsons28:08Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do that too. Join us with your lively host of Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world. 

The identity issue is central to our lives. Who we think we are determines what we do and how we live, but it is ever changing. Jesus, on the other hand, gives us a brand new identity, which never changes. When we put our faith in Him and are born again, Christ comes to live inside us. He gives us new life, makes us righteous, perfect and holy in His sight.  Transcript Unknown Speaker 0:01 Want to discover your freedom in Christ? Then listen in as Mike Stone and Kevin Smith talk about it. Today on grace coach, Unknown Speaker 0:10 welcome to grace coach. I am Mike Stone, and I'm with my good buddy and podcast host Kevin Smith. Unknown Speaker 0:17 What's up, Mike? How are you? Unknown Speaker 0:21 Good to be with you. Unknown Speaker 0:23 Doing great. Great to be with us. Nice, beautiful sunny day in Chicago. Unknown Speaker 0:28 Yeah, we need that here. Unknown Speaker 0:31 Yeah, I know. You said you were out in your backyard with your dog. I was out in my front yard with my dog planting grass passes today. So hopefully it will grow. That's right. Well, you know, Unknown Speaker 0:43 we put down seed. And while I was watering it, I was thinking, well, Carlos, my landscaper, he put down the seed. I'm watering it. But God makes me Unknown Speaker 0:56 Oh, amen. Well, I'm Unknown Speaker 0:58 part of this Unknown Speaker 1:01 small part. But you know, you're a part. Unknown Speaker 1:03 Yeah. So Kevin, we're going to talk about our identity today, both in the world and in Christ. So it should be a great show. Unknown Speaker 1:13 Yes, I am. So looking forward to this love just talking about the most important things in the world that we can talk about. And one of the things that I love about talking about your identity in Christ is because it's vital to understand this to enjoy your relationship with God, not just a muddle through, not just to grind it out, not just oh, okay, Sunday morning, got to wake him go to church or you know, whatever activities you're doing. But when you truly understand your identity in Christ, it really well, I would even go as far to say, you can't really enjoy your relationship with God unless you understand this. Because it's just going to be a drudgery, it's just going to be a to mark off to do list and get it done and, and go on. But when you understand that you were born in Adam, and now you are in Christ, you can you can rest. And as we get into these some of the Scriptures, when I read today, our prayer is that everyone listening, if you're not in Christ, at this very moment, that you would just surrender your heart and your life to God, and enter into a new relationship with Him. And if you are in Christ, you do understand that he is your Lord and Savior, that this would be a great encouragement. And maybe you are in that drudgery aspect. And that you can just change your way you relate to God, Unknown Speaker 2:56 our identity before we were saved, you know, up to the time of our salvation, versus in our identity, after we were saved, it's like you said, it's so different, because we did go from being in Adam, to being in Christ. But I know for me, up to the time of becoming born again, in my early 30s, I really felt like a fish out of water. I never felt like I belonged. Wherever I was, even though I might have been in a club or in a neighborhood. I never really knew who I was. I just really struggled with my identity. And then also the identity that I had was really just a 30 year old guy. It really determined what I did, it dictated my choices just like as a born again, Christian. Now, my choices are dictated because of my new identity. So dictionary.com says that identity has to do with your condition, or your character as to who a person is, and that it dictates the values that you hold. And again, it dictates the choices you make. Many of us think of ourselves as an athlete, or not everyone thinks of ourselves as an athlete. We all have these identities in the world. Maybe you're a mother, maybe you're identified by your religious affiliation, as a Baptist or as a Presbyterian or it might be based on that you're a businessman. Well, that's okay until you either go out of business or sell your business, and you're no longer a businessman. Maybe you're just now you're ready retired, and now you have a new identity, but it's always changing. That's the thing about these worldly identities, they're always changing. And we're the identity we have as a born again, Christian, that never changes, once you become a born again, Christian. Unknown Speaker 5:20 Absolutely. And, you know, we're not saying that there's anything wrong with all the other identities, whether it's a mother or a father, family member, business person, a sports star, there's nothing wrong with because it's, you can't stop that. I mean, if you're going to have that, if you're a mother, you're a mother. But what what the deal is not to put your credibility or your livelihood or who you are in those identities, because like you're saying, they all they all change at some point or another. Most most, any identity that you're going to get is going to fluctuate, you're either going to be good at it, or bad at it, or maybe not that are, Unknown Speaker 6:09 then you're always comparing yourself to other people, other mothers, athletes, other Unknown Speaker 6:16 levels. Another thing it's people's opinion of you in that role, is going to change. And that's the killer of putting any stock or value in those identities. Because compared to your identity in Christ, that as a child of God, that is never going to change that is rock solid. Hebrews chapter six, verse nine, as this hope, is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls, it leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary. And it's really the hope of having the hope of being in Christ. Hebrews is a great book, but that's just one of the anchored identities Unknown Speaker 7:07 that we haven't cried. And that's a great description. When do you think of a ship? And when they throw out their anchor, they're doing that so that it doesn't move any anywhere? And yeah, this anchor we have of being in Christ, it, it's an anchor for our soul, because it doesn't change, it doesn't move. Once you are born again, in Christ comes to live inside of you. So it's just awesome. You know, one of the things that we want to talk about is what does it mean? What does identity in Christ mean? What does it look like? Unknown Speaker 7:48 Yes. So what is your identity in Christ mean? Let me read Galatians 220. And it will kind of frame it up a little bit. In fact, it's a foundational verse Galatians 220 says, I have been crucified with Christ and is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, in a life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. And if you go through the the New Testament and just look at the word in, and I know we've talked about this, about being in Adam and in Christ, but please, readers, and listeners, don't just skim over that and kind of look forward to what is going on. But that small little word in is very pivotal to really understanding where you're at. You're either in Adam, or you're in Christ. And you can see that so many times through the New Testament. Unknown Speaker 8:54 Yeah, first, john five, I believe it's a nine to 11 says that if you have the sun, you have life, eternal life, if you do not have the sun, you do not have eternal life. So we're born into this world, spiritually dead separated from God. And that's our condition. That's our identity. That's who we are. Yes, we are in Adam. And Jesus came to not only take away our sins, but to offer us eternal life that anyone who believes in Him shall not perish. And when you believe in Him, you will now have a new identity. That is a great anchor for your soul. And you are in Christ and Christ is in you. He's not around you is not in front of you. He's not behind you. He is inside of you. And living it. Yeah, that's just great confidence to have no matter where you're at no matter what situation you're in, to know that Christ is inside of you. Unknown Speaker 10:07 So let me read this Second Peter one four says, by which he is granted to us as precious and very great promises, so that through them, you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. So we have a divine nature, we're partakers of the divine nature, that is God's God is the divine nature that comes and lives inside of us, as Peter says, and that's Unknown Speaker 10:46 actually Jesus Christ Himself. Yes, he is God, and He lives inside of us. Yeah. That's why we're partaking in the divine nature. Because he's, like Galatians 220 says, it is not no longer I who live but it's Christ who lives in me. Yes, so crucial. Unknown Speaker 11:10 Yeah, just another side note on that I think a lot about Yes, the Bible says that many, many times, you know, Christ has come to live inside of you. But think about the Trinity. And it's the whole package is the Holy Spirit. Christ said, I'm going away, and I'm going to send the comfort to you. Because it's good to send a comfort to you, because Christ could not be everywhere he was, he was limited in the sense of his human body. But the Holy Spirit is not limited, the Holy Spirit can go and live in each one of us. And as, as Jesus, in the book of john, when disciples are hiding in a room, Jesus came, he breathed the Holy Spirit on that tongues of fire came to rest on him. And he just foreshadow what's going to happen in Pentecost. So it's Christ is in every single believer, get it, get it out. Unknown Speaker 12:13 And you know, Kevin, you know, so many people struggle with anxiety. I mean, this is a an epidemic, going out, especially coming out of COVID. You couldn't get into seer counselor if you wanted to today, because there are two months booked out. So many people are dealing with fear and anxiety. And there's only one answer to that. And not any specific drug which alters your thinking, until the drug wears off. But it's knowing that Christ lives in you. And I understand some people do go on medication, and it gets them through. And I understand that. But ultimately, if they're really going to overcome fear and anxiety, it's all about them, knowing that Christ is living inside of them, and that he'll never leave them once he's inside of you. Because many teachers, you could lose your salvation. We've talked about that on other shows, that's a terrible identity to have. Because that's not an anchor for yourself. That's something that you have that you could lose based on your performance or behavior, you think that he doesn't forgive you, he doesn't, and that he left, he left you because of your sins? Well, that can happen. Because Jesus took away all of our sins. So not only does he come to live inside of you, but he never leaves you once he's living in you. Unknown Speaker 13:51 Yes. And so I just want to circle back on that, as far as the medical, you know, people taking drugs for medicine. And I know that there are many respected doctors out there that, you know, we're not doctors, we don't, we don't know, you know, all the whole ins and outs of your brain makeup. And I know there's respected doctors who do say that, you know, there's medicines that help out the brain function. And, you know, I've got two really close friends who totally ascribe to, you know, drugs, helping them out just an a, you know, being able to be in a right frame of mind, even to understand the truth of So, we're not throwing, like Mike said, we're not throwing medical medications totally under the bus. But we do have a greater hope that you definitely do not want to overlook and that is the hope in Christ and just understanding you know, this these great truths that will go So much further in your anxiety and we wholeheartedly believe that there is a battle for your spiritual soul. There's a battle for our spiritual soul. The Satan wants to destroy us He wants us to getting. He wants us to think anxious thoughts. He wants us think there is no way out that I've got to kill myself that I've got to take drugs. I've got to drink that I've got to go to other things in the world to medicate myself. Well, we're here to tell you. I'm here to tell you. I've tried many. You Sex, drugs, rock and roll? I've been down it. I've smoked crack cocaine. I've done many, many things that the world offers. And is a not not the answer. Jesus right answer. So got on a little rabbit trail. Now. Well, Unknown Speaker 15:57 thanks for sharing that. Hey, Kevin. So one another question about identity is when you when do you receive your identity. And I wanted to read Ephesians, 113 and 14 beautiful because I think that tells us exactly when we receive our new identity. And it says and you were also included in Christ, when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believed, you are marked in him with a seal, the promise Holy Spirit, who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possessions, to the raised praise of his glory. So it says when you believed you were marked in him, with a seal, you are marked as a born again, Christian in Christ, you receive the promise Holy Spirit. And he is a deposit guaranteeing our salvation, our inheritance, until the rapture until the redemption of those who are God's possession. What a great verse. That was, who we are, when it happened, and where we're going. Unknown Speaker 17:25 I love that man, that just that's that is the whole deal right there. Unknown Speaker 17:30 So yeah, there's just some great, great things about our identity in Christ. You know, the confidence that we have this new identity of who God says we are, that we're a child of God, we're forgiven, we're reconciled. We're born again, we're righteous. And now we have this great hope of eternal life. We have this great hope of the coming of Jesus to rescue us from Planet Earth here one day, and that will all gonna meet together in the air with Jesus and all be together. It'll be a great and glorious day when that happens. Unknown Speaker 18:16 Amen, amen. Amen. And France, we just hope that as you've listened to this podcast, and really that you can now I just enjoy your relationship a guide, but also a part of that enjoying is resting, resting in the confidence that Christ did the work and you receive the gift and just rest in that and that's, that's really kind of goes back to the whole stress and anxiety aspect of it when when you're resting. You're not you're not so anxious. You're not striving you're not striving if you know the God of the universe who created the world thinks you are a okay 100% that he can't wait to see you that he is sealed. You are always spirit. And he is literally counting the days in order for you to go to the great wedding feast in the sky with his son. Come on now. I mean that he How can you be anxious? If that's your destiny, if that is who you are. Unknown Speaker 19:35 That is good news. Unknown Speaker 19:38 Thank you for listening to grace coach. If you want to connect with us, we would love to engage with you. Email us at the Grace coach@gmail.com visit our Facebook page or visit our website Grace coach.org Transcribed by https://otter.ai

For folks working in IT, one of the situations we find ourselves in these days is fixing, upgrading, refurbishing, or replacing the PC's of our progenitors. The machines of our matriarch and patriarchs. The computers of creators. The Tech of our... well, you get the idea. But do we HAVE to? What I mean is, are we obligated by the bonds of family honor and respect, not to mention religious mandate, to make sure their desktop, laptop, tablet and pad are in tip-top shape? In this episode we're going to explore the ramifications of the commandment to honor our parents and whether that means we have to support their aged Windows 95 systems. Listen or read the transcript below. Leon (00:32): Welcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experiences we have as people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion. We're here to explore ways we make our career as IT professionals mesh or at least not conflict with our religious life. This is Technically Religious Leon (00:54): For folks working in IT. One of the situations we find ourselves in these days is fixing, upgrading, refurbishing, or replacing the PCs of our progenitors, the machines of our matriarchs and patriarchs, the computers of our creators, the tech of our... Well, you get the idea, but do we have to, what I mean is are we obligated by the bonds of family, honor and respect, not to mention religious mandate to make sure their desktop, laptop, tablet, and pad are in tiptop, shape. And this episode we're going to explore the ramifications of the commandment to honor our parents and whether that means we have to support their aged windows 95 systems. I'm Leon Adato and the other voices you're going to hear on this episode are my partners in podcasting crime. Josh Biggley. Josh (01:36): Hello. Hello. Leon (01:37): Along with frequent guest, Al Rasheed. Al (01:40): Hello everybody! Leon (01:40): and a new voice to the podcast. Kevin Sparenberg. Kevin (01:42): Hello and thanks for having me. Leon (01:44): Thank you for being with us. And we're going to kick off the show like we always do with uh, some shameless self promotion. So Kevin, being the Technically Religious newbie that you are, go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself. Speaker 5 (01:56): So my name is Kevin Sparenberg. I am the technical content manager for community at SolarWinds. I am found on pretty much all social platforms at a, @KMSigma, K M S I G M A. I have a blog at blog.kmsigma.com. I am officially a lapsed Catholic. Uh, my wife was the good Catholic and basically a Bible church Christian. Leon (02:17): Very nice. Well, welcome again to the show. Al. Tell us, uh, what do you doin' these days? Al (02:22): So my name is Al, and as you pointed out, I am a systems administrator for a federal contractor here in the Northern Virginia area. I'm pretty active on Twitter, so you can find me best there in terms of social media, Al _Rashid. Uh, there you'll also find in my Twitter profile the URL for my blog and I am a practicing Muslim. Leon (02:42): Very nice. Josh, what's up with you these days? Josh (02:45): Oh, well, lots of things. Lots of things. Josh Biggley, I'm an ops strategist at New Relic. You can find me like Kevin on almost every social media platform using Jbiggley. I do not have a blog and I am officially as of December, 2019, uh, an ex Mormon. Leon (03:04): and I'm still not sure whether I say congratulations or, or something else for that. Josh (03:08): There's gotta be a hallmark card someplace. Leon (03:11): Absolutely. So I'm in Cleveland, so American greetings probably has something for it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And just rounding things up. Uh, I'm Leon Adato, I'm a head geek. Yes. That's actually my job title, head geek at SolarWinds, which is neither solar nor wind because naming things is hard. You can find me on the Twitters as we say, just to trigger Kevin Townsend's daughter, uh, on the twitters @LeonAdato I pontificate on all things technical and occasionally religious at adattosystems.com and identify as Orthodox Jewish and sometimes my rabbi lets me identify that way also. Yeah, before we dive into the show, um, just because we are, you know, in the world that we are in right now, I want to, I want to do a really honest check in how, how's everyone doing? Kevin (04:03): Are we going to use the stabby to lottery scale? Leon (04:06): I, you know what, let's do that. Let's, you know, you know, on a scale of one to five where five is I won the lottery and one is I'm feeling very stabby, how are you doing? Kevin (04:15): Uh, I'm, I'm hovering at a good like two, five, like I'm doing okay, but I'm not pleased. I've realized something that my wife has broken about me is I actually like seeing people in person and the level of isolation is just starting to kind of hit me slowly. Leon (04:31): Oh, got it. Okay. Al, how about you? Al (04:36): uh, I, I didn't win the lottery. I'd probably say between a three and a four. Um, things could obviously be worse. We hope they can get better sooner than later. Uh, the biggest challenge for me personally, or as a father I should say as a parent, is just trying to keep the kids occupied and engaged and remain positive while, you know, we've been stuck at home just like everybody else. Leon (04:58): Yeah. I think a lot of parents are in that same position where, you know, it's, it's week number four or five depending on what your region of the country has done and, and every rainy day activity that you had is done and you're sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to figure out what else are you going to do when summer is looming. Okay. Josh, how about you? Josh (05:18): You know, this week I'm going to rate myself at about a four. Um, you know, I've, uh, I made some changes this past week. I started getting up earlier, forcing myself to get out of bed because, you know, it's real easy to, uh, stay in bed until, you know, eight or 8:30 and then, you know, grab a quick shower and bring your breakfast to your desk. I don't advise that it's really bad for your, uh, you know, for your work life balance. Uh, and, uh, in case anyone forgets, I live on an Island. So a couple of weeks ago we actually shut down, um, all ports of entry. So you can't cross the bridge, you can't fly in. The only way you can get across as if you live here or you're a deemed essential worker. And yes, we are turning people away at the border. So we're really fortunate on PEI and that we have a 26, uh, confirmed cases of covid 19. Um, of that only three are active. We've had no deaths and no hospitalizations and no evidence of community transmission. So really good to live on an Island that we're, we're very fortunate up here. Um, I mean, our, our worst complaint is, uh, you know, Oh my goodness, I, I'm living a dog's life. I'm getting up, I'm eating my, I'm taking a nap. I'm pooping and I'm going back to sleep, Leon (06:28): or an infant. Right? Or is the order the order doesn't matter. Oh no, I'm sorry. Between bed and pooping, it's very important to get those in the right order. There's a couple of places where orders are important. Okay. And I, for me and my family, we're, we're around a four. But, uh, as I mentioned before, we started recording Passover just finished. Um, and that was really taking a lot of our attention. And so with that finally, uh, you know, behind us, I think that this is going to be the first week that feels like not normal life because we were so focused on cleaning the house getting ready for an eight day holiday and things and being in an eight day holiday, you know, four days of which were offline. So you know that now we're going to see what you know, what's it really like. Leon (07:18): Um, and I also want to take a minute, although I know that these episodes are timeless. Uh, it is April 19th, and I want to wish people who observe it a happy, uh, post Passover and counting of the Omer, a happy post-Easter and an upcoming, uh, Ramadan Mubarak. So, you know, we are not yet problem. So yeah, it's, you know, some of us are trying to lose the weight that we gained and meanwhile, Al and, and his family are trying to bulk up in preparation for a month of fasting. Al (07:51): I think I've done enough bulking up in these last few weeks. So hopefully uh.. Leon (07:55): You've been training for this your whole life. I get it, I get it. With those things, things behind us. Um, I want to start off with what I'm calling talking 0.0 in this talk. And that is, uh, just to say upfront that while we are talking about parents, we are not necessarily talking about our parents unless we explicitly say, my mom or my dad did something. Leon (08:18): We are using fictional examples. So mom, as you listen to this, I'm not talking about you unless I say I'm talking about you, so please don't worry about it. Um, because we're not really here to spread gossip or make our parents feel insulted or give them a reason to feel embarrassed in any way. So I want to put that up front. And the other thing I want to point out is that we know lots of people have parents who are incredibly tech savvy. You know, some of us are lucky enough to have parents who still know more about tech in it than we do. Um, I, I've seen on Twitter and other places where the inevitable joke about how to get your mom to use her iPhone is like, my mom teaches computer science classes and probably taught, you know, you and your parents both, you know, and that kind of thing. Leon (09:00): So we know that there's lots of parents who are very tech savvy. Um, we're not playing on that old trope. What we want to focus on in this episode is the boundaries of sort of the filial obligation when it comes to us having skills that they don't, we could be talking about plumbing or you know, car repair or dog training or whatever, but you know, we're technically religious, so we're going to focus on tech because #geeks. With those disclaimers out of the way, uh, the first talking point, I think because we're in it, let's go ahead and define our terms. What does it really mean to honor thy father and mother? What are we talking about when we say that? Josh (09:40): I mean at this age or like when I was a kid. Leon (09:44): Well, I think now I think, I think kids, it's a lot more cut and dried, but I think as an adult, that's where, and especially again, because we're gonna be talking about fixing our parents' computer stuff and dealing with their needs as a user. And Al, you probably on the show have waxed the most eloquent about users. You know, users are always users. They are, they always have an opinion. But you've said a lot about whether their requirements are always valid and our parents are just as much a user as anyone else. Sometimes Al (10:14): how it can be a challenge, there is a fine line, especially as you just pointed out, one where adults, when we're parents, when we're husbands and or wives, um, you can't always be there for them. You want to provide as much as possible, but sometimes being honest and blunt and saying politely, no, I can't do it. It might sting a little bit at first, but if you build that solid relationship leading up until that point, both sides can get past it. Leon (10:42): Sure, absolutely. I still want to, I still want to focus on what does honor your father and mother mean though as an adult, what does that come down to? Josh (10:51): So I have an interesting perspective on this. Um, and it really is tied to my status as an ex-Mormon. Um, when I told my family and I was the first one to leave the Mormon church or the church that is currently using the term, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is their full name or LDS church, I called up my father and I said, Holy crap, did you know this stuff? And his response to me was, yeah, I did. My response is, why didn't you tell me? And he said, I didn't think it was important. And so when it comes to, yeah, right. So when it comes to honoring your father and your mother there, there is a, uh, a fine line and I think it comes, it's or is best articulated in that moment you have as a parent, when you say something and you're like, Holy crap, I am my parents. Josh (11:46): You, you know, that intonation the words. You're like, Oh my goodness, I have become, I have become my parents. Now that can be both a good thing and a bad thing. And honoring your parents is, for me is recognizing the things that are really powerful. Uh, one of my, I think one of my favorite LinkedIn posts that I've ever written is about my father and his level of honesty and the lengths to which he went in order to be seen as an honest and truthful man. Um, on the flip side, when we see things that our parents have done that are not in keeping with the things that we would want to honor moving beyond those things, as parents, as, as Al said, as husbands and wives as, uh, as members of community and doing good, to me that's honoring the name and it's something I always told my kids and I still tell them when they go out. Josh (12:39): I said, remember the things you do reflect on us as a family. So just remember that when you're out in the community and interacting with people and it doesn't mean you can't call BS, BS. That's okay. You know, you can't call in when you see stuff, say something. Right? It's not, it's not just for the department of Homeland Security. Quite literally. If you see something, say something and that's okay, but you, you know, you need to remember our name. So for me, honor thy father and thy mother, do the things that your parents did awesome - continue to do and the things that your parents sucked at, be better at that than they were. And, and so doing, you honor the name that you carry. Al (13:15): One thing that I took from Joshua's point is things do come full circle. So things that you saw as a kid, maybe you didn't necessarily improve or you didn't understand. But now here you are as a parent and you have to decide, do I honor my parents? Do I follow in their footsteps? How do I approach this? Leon (13:34): I want to offer a perspective from, from the Jewish point of view that honor thy father and mother, um, comes down to some pretty cut and dry things. The bare minimum in Jewish thinking is that you have to make sure that your parents have food, clothes, and shelter. That that's, that's what honor means. Um, and as long as you've done that, then you have fulfilled your obligation as a child. Now, there's, there's ways to express that honor, um, that aren't considered the bare minimum. You know, for example, when a parent enters the room, you should stand up. If you're at a meal, you should, uh, pour, you know, a drink for them, pour water or whatever. Um, you don't have to necessarily run to get your dad, scotch or your mom a scotch, but, uh, you should pour them a regular drink and things like that. Leon (14:22): Those are, those are ways that you express it, but that's not a requirement. That's simply an outward expression of the idea of honoring your parents. But at no time does the Torah or Talmud say in either medieval French or Aramaic or Hebrew that you have to fix their iPad. You're not required to. So again, when we talk about honoring your father and mother, there are some, there's some fairly explicit boundaries. Um, honoring your father and mother also does not, in Jewish thinking, require you to take abuse or bad advice. If it my parent. And so I'm Orthodox observant. My parents aren't. They never were. We became Orthodox just a few years ago. So if my, if my parents said to me, which they, they don't, luckily we have a good relationship as far as that goes. They say, you know, you know what, I really need you to come over on Shabbat. I really need you to do these things and honor your parent comes before that. You can say no, you can say no, no, that's not how this works. You can't, you can't leverage honor your father and mother for me to break other commandments. So you don't have to do that or take abuse or what have you. So all of that also falls into it. Josh (15:32): I mean, I feel like I honored my father when I told him to get an iPad. Right? And so my dad, my dad is a tinkerer. Uh, he, he is, uh, he tinkers and all sorts of things. Um, and he loves to tinker with technology. And I, I got tired of, I got tired of him having a broken computer. And finally one day I said, dad, you gotta buy an iPad. You're killing me. You gotta buy an Apple. Uh, and uh, and he has, and that is the one thing that is consistently the iPad just works. And you know, bless my parents, their, uh, my, you know, my mom is a [cough cough] years old and my dad is in his mid sixties. And um, I mean they, they're both pretty good with their technology, right? They've got the whole, you know, hold it with one hand and you know, press with one finger thing, you know, they're, they're not texting, you know, like my kids text. But it's cool. Right. But so my question for us then ultimately is how far do we have to go with, with fixing? Kevin (16:35): Well, I think it's a little bit of what everyone said, but for me it's been, I don't want to say it's been a struggle, but it's been a, it's been an ever-changing line. So obviously when I'm young, when I'm five, 10 years old, it's listening to obey near practically everything they tell me. But it's when I transitioned into adulthood, you know, and maybe some of that's being a teen is you, you stop listening or you fight back or whatever. And then when you finally get in to be an adult. And I think there's, there's kind of a, I can honor and respect my parents more now that they honor and respect me as an adult. And that's probably not the way it always should have been. But that's been the ultimate end of it. And I think you're right. I think there's, there's, there's the mid bar there is, and I think you mentioned, you know, uh, you know, making sure they have food and shelter and if that's the absolute bare minimum, great, but does that mean I take the time to still call them out on their birthdays? Do I still check on them every so often? And those are things that I do because I enjoy being as part of them. I don't do it as an obligation. If I was obligated to do it, I probably wouldn't do it too much teenage rebellion stored up. Leon (17:40): You're not the boss of me. Kevin (17:41): There's a lot of that. Uh, but I think there is, and I've become friends with my parents, which is good, which means if, and when I do have to tell them no, that's not a good idea. They acknowledge it. Josh (17:52): So I think ultimately the question that I have is how far does this honor thy father and thy mother go when it comes to tech support? Look, I love my parents. I don't always agree with them, but I'm not their tech support. Right. I have fixed their computer, I have fixed their printers. I have helped my mom with Excel formulas, uh, because she worked well into her sixties and was still doing, you know, reasonably complex Excel formulas, at least for, uh, someone who works in a administration and education. But like I said, I, I came to this point and I said, mom and dad, you just need to buy an iPad because I am tired of fixing your technology. Um, just, just don't touch that crap anymore because, I mean, I live across the country now. They live in Ontario and I live way out here on the East coast and I can't roll down to your house. Josh (18:44): And fix your stuff for you anymore. I mean, sometimes I think it means, uh, love me and saying no. Like I'm not going to keep that antiquated, whatever. And I know we're, we're geeks, you know, #geeks as Leon you said earlier. So we're talking about computers and not, you know, phones and you know, that old flip phone that your dad had, like those things. But, uh, it also means there are some things that we need to tell the parents to just let go of. Right. You know, classic cars. You should let go of them and they should come to me. Kevin (19:16): Subtle. You're good at subtle, Josh. Al (19:19): Your inheritance, nah, I'm just joking. Josh (19:22): you know, a old coin collections, uh, any, uh, bearer bonds of... I'm sorry. No, sorry. Sorry, mom and dad. There comes a point in time where we just need to say to our parents, okay, Hey, you know, I'm just, it's time. It's time to put that piece of technology to bed. Kevin (19:39): Yeah. But it's weird for me though because my father taught me computing like originally. So to then me have to turn around and tell my dad, yeah, uh no, I'm sorry you don't actually know what you're doing right now. And it's, it's not an all things, there's always like an edge case kind of thing. But being able to like be have that conversation with them was like, no, I'm sorry. That's not how operating operating systems work anymore. No, I'm sorry. That's not the way bioses work anymore. No, you can't look for your dip switches. They aren't there anymore and there's a conversation needs to be had there that my father has been thankfully very gracious about, but he could have taken an alternate viewpoint of, you know, you're my child and how dare you. Thankfully he hasn't done that, but I've also been able to, how do I say this nicely? I've been able to pawn off kind of desktop support on him than he does himself. Like he supports himself and my mother and when it's network level stuff, that's when I have to get involved. Leon (20:39): I think a lot of us who grew up at a certain point in time as far as the computer age, our parents, the first, uh, people who taught us computer because they bought them in the very early eighties, uh, my dad went out and got an Atari 400 computer and you know, there was a word processor and things like that. I was a better typist, but, uh, you know, he was the one who had the computer and he was the one who had the cash. So when it was time to get the 800 and then the 1600, he got it. And he was the one who got deep into it as a hobbyist. You know, and this is partly why we're having this, this episode is that I've spent, I'm now on hour number 40, upgrading my dad's piece, windows seven PC, and it's taken 40 hours because, uh, it's, it's a little older. It's okay. He got one of the most overpowered computers you could get about four years ago. It's no longer overpowered, but it's still powerful. Leon (21:34): But the components are all custom components that he paid someone to put together. Um, he got a, you know, super duper graphics card because, uh, Microsoft publisher needed it to create a PDF. And yeah, Kevin, to your point, like he keeps talking about dip switches and things like that. There aren't dip switches anymore. So I've been working for 40 hours to upgrade this and Windows seven simply won't upgrade. So I bought a SSD drive and I'm going to put windows 10 on the SSD drive, but I can't because he won't let me redo everything because he needs to get a replacement for his beloved paint shop pro. Kevin (22:16): and an in place upgrade, which goes for that age is not really a good idea. Leon (22:21): Yeah. And, and I, I give him credit because he grudgingly let me replace Outlook express a couple of months ago. Thunderbird. Yeah. Thunderbird. Thunderbird. Yeah. Leon (22:34): So the point is, is that, um, they, some of us have parents who might have been better than us at tech at one time because they were hobbyists. Um, but they're not anymore. And the thing that saved me was the fact that my dad is, was a hobbyist when it came to technology. He didn't have a whole lot of ego tied up in it. I think that if it had been something closer to his area of expertise, if, you know, if I had gone into music and we had had, I'd had strong opinions about, you know, the music scene or things like that, he might have felt a little bit more strongly. Who knows? He might've been more gracious about it. I don't know. Um, but it, thankfully being able to honor my dad means being able to tell him the hard truth and trust that I'm going to say this. He'll be adult enough to accept that hard truth. I think if I told him there is no replacement for Paint Shop Pro, which he's used exactly zero times in the last two years, um, he probably would be disappointed, but he, he deal with it. Al (23:42): Yeah. If I could, I'm actually in a unique situation. Um, both of my parents have never been in the tech growing up. Did they buy tech equipment for me? Laptops, desktop computers, yes. But they never themselves got into tech or had an interest in tech. Up until about maybe 12 years ago, I bought my mother a desktopm, set up a modern, this one, their spare bedrooms at the house, connected it to their, you know, uh, wifi connection and whatnot and she had no use for it. She couldn't acclimate to it. She found it hard. She found that a challenge and the time I spent, to your point, Leon, trying to assist her over the phone, trying to guide her on how to do simple tasks, it became kind of cumbersome and I didn't see this going any further or it becoming a learning experience. Um, my brother who happens to live about 20 minutes away from my parents, I live about an hour away. Al (24:37): He is my default tech guy when I can't get through to them on the phone. What I've done, what I've done is share everything with my brother via Google shared document in terms of how their network is set up at home, what their passwords are, what their usernames are, but they still found it cumbersome, more so my mother, about six or seven years ago or whenever the iPad was introduced, it seems like ages ago, these days, while we're sitting at home for weeks, I've gave my, I bought my mother and iPad and she's adjusted to it flawlessly. It's been a piece of cake, requires no maintenance. I don't have to struggle with her over the phone for hours at a time. And most recently during this covid shutdown or however you want to describe it, my, my kids and I, including my wife, we will call my parents on my mother's iPhone and have a FaceTime call because it makes them so happy they get to see the kids and vice versa. Leon (25:31): And I think that as, as IT pros, there's a couple of, there's a couple of lessons there. First of all, um, for every user, and this is both in corporate settings as well as in home settings, finding the, the form that works for the, for the application. And when I say application, I don't mean the program but I mean the use case, that not every use case is a desktop computer and not ever use cases, a laptop and not ever use cases, a ruggedized strapped to your wrist, Borg style computing device. But some use cases are one of those things. And figuring out the correct use case is as necessary for our family members as it is for, you know, the corporate environment. You know, trying to figure out whether this is a cloud based app or if this is better as a microservice or this is better as a on premises, you know, legacy, uh, application running on Cobalt. Al (26:26): Right? Absolutely. Yeah. And when I set up, if I could go back real quick, when I set up her wifi network at home, I created a simple SS ID. I tried to create, not necessarily a complex password, but kind of in between. That became a challenge. Trying to explain to them upper case, lower case, special character. even after I printed out everything for them as well and stuck it on the refrigerator so they can see it for themselves. And it just got to the point where, you know what, here's your password. It's ABCD, one, two, three, four, five, whatever and everything works fine. No, nobody heard that. There'll be those where they live either, but it just, it's a fine balance. You want to accommodate them, you want to create a comfort level for them. So they accept technology, but you don't want to be their full time geek squad employees. Leon (27:15): Right. And that was the other piece I wanted to point out is that again, as IT professionals, we have to recognize when the job is bigger than just us. Uh, my brother works in desktop support very much like you, Al. Um, when I can't get there or it's just something that, you know, I've, I've tried, I've tried to have, the conversation wasn't working. It's like Aaron, Aaron, can you please, please Aaron? So, you know, it was like you are going to owe me a steak for this. Okay, fine. I will buy you a steak for this. Yeah. Um, so, so knowing when you need to call in other members of the team and sharing documentation, absolute 100% sharing the documentation, all good things. Um, I do want to point out sort of one of those, on the other hand things where we say that, you know, the, our responsibility is IT pros doesn't necessarily require us to support our parents in their tech. Uh, Jessica, uh, I hope I'm saying her name right. Jessica Hische, um, has a very famous webpage. ShouldIworkforfree.com that you'll find in the show notes and one of the very few yes, Workflows in should I work for free? Is, is it your mother? So just as a counterpoint, should you do it, you know, 32 hours of labor and you can't make a flyer for my garage sale. Al (28:38): They can see me, but no, but. Josh (28:42): This reminds me, this reminds me of my, my neighbor who is well into her eighties, and every year around Christmas time, she calls me up and says, Josh, can you come upgrade my computer? And the very first time she called, I thought, Oh my goodness, what does she want from me? And what she wanted was for me to install the new antivirus for her. Um, and you know, and just make little tweaks, you know, she uses it for email and, uh, every year she sends me home with, you know, a box of chocolates or something else. It's, you know, you usually take it right into the hall... Hook them up by the, yeah. Actually hooked me by the belly. Right? It's more of the thing. Um, and it's, you know, it's a, a great symbiotic relationship that we have. Josh (29:32): It's usually an hour long, uh, engagement, but it, it, it brings to my mind who, because my parents don't live near me, who else should we honor? Is it just our father and mother? I know that in Christianity there's a, uh, a creed, uh, that's in the King James version, um, of the New Testament in Matthew 25 verses 40 and 45 says, "verily I say unto you, in as much as you have done it on to one of the least of these, my bretheren you've done it unto me." And then in verse 45, "Verily, I say unto you in as much as you did it, not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me." So, you know, if we do it to one of the people that we should honor, then we know we've done it to God. And if you don't do it because of whatever reason, you've also not done it unto God. And I'm just wondering in the other religious observances, uh, of our guests, like what do you do, right? Like is, is there an equivalent to the, you know, in as much as you have done it unto the least of these. Al (30:34): So in Islam, one of the five pillars is zakat. It's a duty to perform by all Muslims. Um, but it's more on the religious side. It's, I don't know how to, I'll try my best to be delicate with this approach. It's, it's about giving back, giving back to the poor, to the needy, to the less fortunate. I don't know how to make this, this comparison when it comes to providing IT or tech support. Like I said, just drawing the line and saying, when is enough enough? I've gone above and beyond, There's not much else I can do. Um, so on and so forth. Leon (31:09): And I think it's, it's analogous to the Jewish concept of tsadaka, which people, uh, translate inaccurately as charity. But the concept of charity is that I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart to give. And that's not what tsadaka and I think in Islam, you know, zakat also the, the, the, the commandment or the, the deed of tsadaka benefits me, the giver. It doesn't benefit the, the receiver. In fact, the highest, the best form of tsadaka is where I'm giving and I don't know who's getting, and the person who's getting doesn't know that I gave, it's completely anonymous because it's not about giving and feeling some sense of largess it's to build, to cultivate the personal ethic of being a giving person. So I'm not sure that that zakat or tsadaka in, in Judaism necessarily. What I will say does, does match up is the idea of um, protecting or not afflicting the stranger among you, the widow, the orphan, the disenfranchise, which is mentioned in some people say 36 times, other people count up to 46 times in, in Torah or Old Testament that there's a mention of, you know, protect or do not afflict or take care of, again, the widow, the orphan, the disenfranchise, the stranger among you. And I think that that's more analogous. And that is if you, if you're going numerically, it's a much more important commandment to observe. Um, and so taking care of people around you in your community who can't do for themselves. Now again, Al, to your point, there's gotta be a line. There has to be a line at which I've given, but I can't give anymore. I can't be required to keep giving even though there are those who aren't. You know, if I was going to do free tech support for everyone in the community, I'd never, I'd never sleep Al (33:13): well, nor would you. Nor could you pay your bills. Let's be frank. There is a, it's not about finances or it's not a financial game. You're doing it because you're doing it out of the kindness of your heart. But eventually there are times where it's taken advantage of and you just have to say, I can't, I'm done. I can't do much more for you. Kevin (33:32): No, it's, it's funny though because I think, and this is tying back specifically to my parents is that, uh, for a number of years it was kind of, it was never mentioned. It was never spoken directly, but it was an, uh, in kind trade. So I would help my, my father and my mother with their computers, with their local network, with their wifi, whatever it was. And in exchange, my father would help me keep the cars running or teach me some stuff about how to do home repair and maintenance, you know, whether it's some plumbing or some electrical. And I think that when I mentioned earlier that kind of, there was a tipping point for me when, when my parents saw me as an adult that we could actually have this communication. Uh, almost like friends where my father saw that I was in need, that I as an individual, a member of his community, member of his family needed help with, you know, electrical or plumbing or mostly dry wall. Let's be serious. I can do the other two. Dry walls, I'm horrible at it. But, but my parents weren't able to do the computer side of it, including like building a machine from scratch, which my father literally hadn't done since about 85. I think it was a PS1 at the time. And I said, this is cool. Well let's order parts. And we built it together. So it was, you know, it was, he was honoring me as a son by including me in that project, just as I was doing the same. And each of us, it was a net gain for both of us. And I think that goes to the giving for the sake of giving is, is really about the giver. It's not about the recipient. Josh (35:06): There's one time where giving old technology is. Okay. Uh, and, and here's, here's the example about 18 years ago and I know because my wife was pregnant with our youngest child who is now 17, uh, my father-in-law who would often travel to Jamaica, found a school in St. Anne's Parish that he decided we needed to build a computer lab for. They, you know, they had, they had literally nothing. Uh, so not only were we going to, uh, build a computer lab, but we are also going to have to kind of refurbish this you rundown building, um, and put in desks and computers. Like the whole thing. And knowing that I, you know, was in the industry, I was tasked with designing and you know, helping to source. And so we ended up sourcing, I don't gee almost 20 years ago, I'm going to say, uh, 20 machines. Josh (35:54): We prepped them all, you know, packed it all into this big shipping container and shipped it down in Jamaica. And if you know anything about the wonderful Island of Jamaica, it is beautiful and everything operates at about Oh one eighth time. So what we thought was going to be, uh, you know, this quick. Hey, drop things off and then we'll fly down and we'll spend a week and you know, bigger thing. It took many, many months. What did we send them? Man, we did not send them the most cutting edge technology. We sent them the most simple technology that had been battle tested that we knew that was sitting on the desks in a hot, un-air conditioned room. It was going to keep running. It was the same technology, but at the time I used in a, an automotive plant, right? These machines that, you know, how do you fix them? Speaker 7 (36:40): You pick them up and you drop them and then the problem goes away, right? Like those are the kinds of machines that you want. So sometimes it is, it is okay to give technology that is fit for the purpose of is, you know, it's needed for in the case of these kids and this, uh, in the school at St. Anne's Parish, um, you know, they had these machines and I mean, I ended up sending my best friend out in my place because I couldn't go. And so he got a trip to Jamaica and I got a, a, a new child. Leon (37:07): Okay. Any final thoughts before we wrap this up? Josh (37:10): I want to, I just point out that across every, every belief, you know, and at the table today, we all come from a very different backgrounds and we didn't talk about, you know, Hinduism or Buddhism or any of the other isms that are of religious observance, but every one of them has this idea of giving because it is good to give, but also in giving because it is the honorable thing to do, you know, and you know, Christianity talks about giving a 10%, uh, you know, um, you know, Islam talks about, you know, two and a half percent. There's sure we can argue about the semantics of it, but the, the gist of it is you give, because it's an honorable thing to do. And, and I kind of think of it as this, I do a lot of what I do now, I've been in the IT industry for 20 years because I'm paying it forward. There are, you know, yeah, my dad was, my dad worked in sales. He wasn't a technical, a tech geek, but there are lots of people within technology. Uh, John Foster, I don't know, John, if you're ever going to listen to this episode, but he was the guy who said to me in my very first IT job, Hey, I'll hire you even though he had no reason in the world to hire me. He is the reason that I am still in IT today and that I did not go back to school to be a lawyer. I don't know if I should thank him or curse him,, but I'll definitely thank you. Okay. Okay, perfect. Definitely. But it's because of people like him that I'm successful. So honoring him by helping others, by giving to others. Uh, I think that that's very much something that we need to see continue in the industry and probably see more of in the industry that generosity, that pay it forward mentality. Al (38:53): Absolutely. It's good karma. You never wanted to come back and bite you in the rear end. And we do tend to see it more often than not in it. Uh, when you do good things good things come back to you and the same rules or the same philosophy should apply in our lives as well. Kevin (39:09): Yeah. I was just thinking that this seems so much like kind of where I came to be about five or six years ago actually about the time I started this job was that I realized that I like sharing knowledge that I like helping people out. It's a for a while I was, I was the bad it guy where I liked to hoard knowledge and I like to be the person who can answer the questions and then I realized that's, that's a one way street to loneliness and to basically self isolation and instead being able to actually say, you know what, let's come together. Let's talk about these things. Let's bring it all about. And being able to share that information, whether it's, you know, enough information with my parents to be able to do their stuff, enough information with my aunts and uncles when they're ready to buy a new machine. Let's not talk about scope creep when we actually support our parents because you know, their brothers and sisters will get in on that if, if we can't, if they can, they will. Uh, so there's a little limited you need to put there. But just being able to share stuff and being able to, as Josh mentioned, pay it forward. It's, if I'm able to help any one person do their job or help support their people a little better today than they were able to do yesterday, for me, that's a win. Leon (40:20): I like it. I'm going to play, I'm just going to be a little bit of a counterpoint here and remind people that especially in what's going on in the world today, the opportunities to volunteer, the opportunity to share, the opportunities to um, give that support, whether it's to your immediate parents or parent-like-neighbors or people who are of the same generation or Kevin, to your point to aunt Sally and uncle Bob and all that stuff. You know, the opportunities are many and that, um, you know, you also have to take care of yourself. That you have to balance the desire to, to give and the desire to share with um, your ability to give tomorrow. That, uh, to put it in terms of again, the concept of tsadakah, a great rabbi from the middle ages was asked, is it better to give 2, Oh, I'm going to put it in dollar terms. Is it better to give $200 once or $1 200 separate times? And he said unequivocably, it's better to give $1 200 separate times because after giving $1 200 times, you have built up the habit of giving. And you also have put limits. You've built up the of not giving. You're not required to give everything you have. And by giving $1 200 times, you know how to stop. And that's just knowing how to stop is just as important as knowing how to start. So please, for those people who are listening, if you're thinking, wow, maybe I should do this thing, whatever this thing is, you know, to help out, just remember that knowing when to start is good. Knowing when to stop. Also important. narrator (42:01): Thanks for making time for us this week to hear more of technically religious visit our website, technicallyreligious.com where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions and connect to us on social media. Leon (42:15): Friends, don't let friends use windows 98 Kevin (42:17): or internet Explorer. Al (42:19): or simple passwords, Leon (42:20): or Pearl.

Find Kevin Davis on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/kevin-davis-7b809939 TRANSCRIPTThis is Changing the Rules, a podcast about designing the life you want to live, hosted by KC Dempster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world.KC Dempster  0:15  Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Changing the Rules. I'm KC Dempster, and I'm here with my co host Ray Loewe. And we're at the wonderful Wildfire Podcast studios in beautiful downtown Woodbury, New Jersey.Ray Loewe  0:29  You got that all in? That's pretty good.KC Dempster  0:31  Yes, I did. And we've got a great show for you. Today, we're going to be talking with an old friend and I'm not talking age old. I'm talking known for many years, and I'm really looking forward to it. And we're going to talk about the luckiest people in the world and taking control of your life and and living the life you want to live.Ray Loewe  0:50  And we're gonna throw in some changing the rules in there, too. And before we get into this, I have an announcement. Oh, it's national popcorn day today. Now, this is important. This is a chance to support your local community because as movie theaters have not been pushing popcorn lately,KC Dempster  1:11  are they even open?Ray Loewe  1:13  Well, who knows? But, but have some buttered popcorn later today and celebrate? Okay. Okay, so, Kevin Davis? Yes. Okay, now I have I have three things to say about Kevin. Okay. Okay. Coach to Wealth Advisors. And he certainly was one of those to me when we were in that business. Barbecue pitmaster.KC Dempster  1:37  intriguing,Ray Loewe  1:38  extraordinary. And last but not least creative genius.KC Dempster  1:43  That is definitely not least Oh,Ray Loewe  1:45  yeah. So Kevin, Kevin, quit blushing. We can we can see it online over here. But But I have to tell a quick story before we let Kevin in here. And that is years ago, Kevin was on an advisory board to me. And he was he was a key part. And we were sitting around in our conference room one day, and we were talking about what was going to happen as I divested myself of my financial planning practice. And we were talking about all the great things that I can do. And these guys were really got me going and, and Kevin finally perked up over on the other side of the room. And he said, Well, you know, if you can do all that, you're going to be the most interesting man in the world.KC Dempster  2:31  I think he said, the luckiest guy in the worldRay Loewe  2:34  No he said interesting. And then he said, we can't use that. That's, that's a beer commercial. So he came out. So he came up with the luckiest guy in the world. And Kevin, it is stuck ever since. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think I was lucky before you said it. But I feel even luckier now. So welcome, welcome to Changing the Rules.Kevin Davis  2:58  And thank you. Great to be here.Ray Loewe  3:00  And and I know you're down there and hopefully Sunny, warmer Atlanta than it is up here up north. Okay, and I'm anxious to talk to you because you recently put some stuff out on LinkedIn that I think is absolutely phenomenal. And and we want to milk that for the show today. Because you've always been a great coach to financial advisors. But I think you're a great coach to people too. So let's start out with some of the things that you did in your little video releases. And let's talk first about improvise, adapt and overcome.Kevin Davis  3:39  Oh, super well, thanks. And it's it's so much fun to talk with you. I had forgotten about that day sitting around the table in the conference room. What a fun day that was. So yeah, you know, this improvise, adapt, overcome, you'll find I am. What I'm really good at is I'm a librarian. I don't know that I have a lot of brilliant original thoughts. But I'm really good at cataloging things that other people say or that I, I hear about and maybe figuring out where they can apply in other parts of life. So here's a a fun piece of useless historical knowledge. I grew up in the Capital District region outside of Albany, New York. And when I was growing up, there was this guy who started showing up on the evening news, who was this rising boxer and the guy was he was ferocious. They would actually show his entire fights on the evening of the local evening news because they would take less than a minute. And it was Mike Tyson. Oh, we all we all know Mike Tyson now but I remember when he was this 19 year old beast in this, you know grainy footage that someone would would shoot there and these poor people who were I suppose Really good amateur boxers, he'd dispatch them in sometimes seem like you're five or six swings and they were down. Yeah. As he came into prominence and you know, became the the individual he was somewhere along the line, he had this great Mike Tyson line and it was just so much him, because I don't think it was ever intended to be this brilliant wisdom was just him talking smack. And what he said in an interview one day was, "Hey, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."KC Dempster  5:33  Wow. I you know, I've heard that before. And I absolutely love it because it is 100% true.Kevin Davis  5:40  Yeah. And and, you know, I just laugh now because it was born out of just cocky self assuredness about how true that was in the boxing ring. Yeah, no matter how much these guys were preparing, he'd walk out there, and he just punched him in the mouth. How's that working for you, buddy? Yeah. But, you know, I got thinking about all of this recently, because that's what that's kind of what COVID did to all of us. It really didn't matter what your plan was business or personal or family. We all got punched in the mouth last year. And you know, what do you do with that. And so then I got thinking about a another classic from the 80s. I'm clearly a child of the 80s. Heartbreak Ridge, the old Clint Eastwood movie. And you know, so many memorable lines in there, it never got the play that maybe some of his other movies did. But there's a point in there. And it was just one of those throwaway lines almost, that just stuck with me, where I don't know the platoons complaining. And he just kind of looks at them and says, "We're Marines. we improvise, we adapt, we overcome." And off he went. And I thought, what wisdom in that simple little line, because that's really where I think we've all been, is we had to improvise. And we did. And then we had to shift to adapting. And I think a lot of people did, but it's that last step that I think's interesting is, you know, the shift from adapting to overcoming, which is acknowledging that it's changed. You've got to change as well, if you want to move on, you can't just sort of live in that spot. And I guess I view adapting, it's like, treading water in a river. It it doesn't work, you're going off or you're going down the river, you're not staying static. And so that's just kind of where I think we've all been as how many of us have found a way to say, we've got to get back to living and running businesses and running lives and having families. How do you do that? What's that look like? So that was kind of the impetus of all of that.Ray Loewe  8:02  Well, you know, I think there are a couple things are really important that just came out of this. We need to have plans. But I think you quoted on your The last time I saw a quote from one of our presidents. Yeah. Why don't you get that in here right now? It's perfect.Kevin Davis  8:23  Sure. So it was Dwight D. Eisenhower, and I had a little fun with it. I said, he tweeted that, and I was thrilled, because actually a few people said Twitter wasn't around back then. I was glad they were paying attentionKC Dempster  8:36  I thought the same thing, but I didn't have anybody to say it to.Kevin Davis  8:42  So what he said, and this is fascinating, because there's a speech he gave, I think it was 1967 to a whole group of learned individuals around the military preparedness of the country. And he said plans are they're worthless, but planning is everything. And I read that and I actually read the whole speech because I wanted the context, I went back and found it. And what was really intriguing is, you know, he made the point is that, you know, we have these plans. And the problem with having plans for emergencies is precisely that you don't know what the emergency is until it shows up.KC Dempster  9:22  Right? You're until you get punched in the face.Kevin Davis  9:25  Yeah. And so I'm like, wow, maybe mike tyson had been studying. Maybe not, maybe not. But he's, I thought about that a lot. Because he said, you know, planning is what's critical because it builds this, this muscle this ability to stop and quickly think about what's going on around you and assess and make some decisions and then decide how you're going to go forward. And, you know, Ray, obviously, we you know, that we've had lots of conversations about planning. You know, whether it's A lot of times it used to be planning financially having a financial plan in place. And what's the purpose of that to let you kind of live life the way you like to enjoy it, but that presupposes you have a plan of what that look like. And so this whole idea of planning, I think, is really key. because it uses muscles and builds that strength so that when you really need it, you can do it. Well not just sort of sit there. But But here, here's the fun part. And you've got plenty of experience with this. In your experience, Ray, how often do you see people actually take the time to sit down and very thoughtfully, plan? What have you seen over the years?Ray Loewe  10:46  Well we did a conference not too long ago as a virtual conference, because we weren't compliance. Okay. And we, we did a little planning questionnaire. And it amazed me out of the group, almost nobody planned quarterly. A couple people said, Well, I kind of look at things once a year. And a large percentage of them said never.Kevin Davis  11:14  Yeah. That's, think about that. You know, that that's the equivalent of, and you'll laugh because this is your background. I know, you've been swimming for years. And, you know, my, one of my daughters is a competitive swimmer in college. And so I've been in the pool over the years a little bit. That's the equivalent of saying, I'm going to go swim a mile in the pool today. Excellent. How much have you been swimming lately? Oh, boy, I was in the pool six months ago and I did five laps...I hope lifeguards are strong and notfeeling sick today, you know?Ray Loewe  11:52  Yeah, you know, and, and part of the problem here is if you don't take the time to think about where you're going, the odds are, you're not going to get there. And and even if you start moving forward, you know, you're not prepared for these contingencies, like COVID. And, you know, we all found our plans were just kind of beat up. But those people have planned to have a real edge, I think and go from there.Kevin Davis  12:18  Yeah,Ray Loewe  12:18  you know, there's a couple other things that you talked about recently. You, you talked a little bit about the S curve.Kevin Davis  12:27  Yeah.Ray Loewe  12:28  So fill us in on thatKevin Davis  12:29  . So that we call it the business S curve, because that's the context it's usually talked about. But when you really look at it, it applies to everything in life. So if you think of these sort of three stages, you know, in the life of a business, or relationship, or what have you that that first stage, the formative stage, you're looking for a pattern of success. You know, it's interesting, it's exciting, if it's in business, nobody's making any money. But if it works, you kind of shift into the next stage, the normative stage. And this again, in the business context is where things are going smoothly, they're growing, you know, you scale and staff up, if it's in a relationship you've got out of that early stage of is this going to survive, and now you're in hey thi, this is great. But invariably, there's a spot where you hit a wall, and things start to change. Most people miss that. And and they keep doing what they've always done. And you know, what that will lead to is just in time, you just kind of you miss it. And you know, as I like to say you ride that wave right down into the ground. On the other side, again, what great leaders do and what thoughtful people do is they identify something changed here, we've got to retool, we've got to really rethink how we do things. Look for the the best of what was working and and figure out what do we keep? What do we add things like that? When done, right, that sort of launches you to the next level. Now, that's all in a business context. But you know, we've got to think of it in a life context as well, because here's what I find is interesting. Normally, that's an organic process. Every company goes through it in their own timeframe, every relationship goes through it in their own timeframe. But something crazy, I'd say unprecedented, even though that words been overused happened last year with with COVID. And the way we literally shut the world down. Every company and every person out there got thrown into this, this bubble of chaos. That's what's around the wall. Same time. Yeah. And I've never seen that happen before. And now here's, I guess the beauty of understanding that the hardest part of that process where you kind of retool is having to admit and determine that Oh, something really radical changed. We got to do something different. Right. And there's, there's usually a lot of all now not us, right? Well, guess what? Yeah, all of us. You can't deny it. None of us canKC Dempster  13:33  Right. We'll look at how many of us thought that the shutdown was only going to last two weeks.Kevin Davis  15:08  just unbelievable. So the good news is we're all there. So that allows us, I think, some great freedom to say Oh, given that, then what? How do we go forward and start to retool? Now, I'll throw this out. And we had talked a bit about this Ray, one of the things that concerns me is not only do I not see enough people planning because I think there's sort of living in this perpetual holding pattern bubble, a things bubble. Yeah, they're just kind of enjoying being in the bubble of chaos. I see a whole lot of people living in fear. Yeah. And and that just worries me long term because nothing, nothing productive. nothing good ever comes out of living in fear. And I'll give you a wonderful story. And I don't know if I ever even shared this one with you. You know, my grandma was an amazing woman. She She left us about a little over 10 years ago. She grew up in Rhodesia, which doesn't exist right now. Zimbabwe. She she was in World War Two in North Africa. As a nurse, she then was married living on a farm out in the wilderness of Rhodesia, or you know, literally Gran's packing heat, because there's lions and leopards and legitimate animals that will kill you.KC Dempster  16:31  She sounds like an amazing woman.Kevin Davis  16:33  And Ray, you know, because I know you've been there, I have a picture of a leopard that you took of the house here. You know, she she lives through a communist revolution that led to a 40 year dictatorship under Robert Mugabe, she moved to two other countries. So she lives in three countries in her life. We're visiting her in New Zealand and there are these geothermal pools by this lake. And we're all going to go sit in these hot tubs that they have all naturally heated. And in the first trip My dad is like, No, you can't Mom, it's it's too dangerous because your heart because the water is hot. Right? I could tell you she was ticked. So we're going back a couple years later, and I just kind of, you know, being the son who likes to poke the bear, a bit I'm like, Dad, what are you gonna do this time? When grant says she wants to go cuz you know, she's gonna say, well, we, my mom calls our family doctor. Doctor, down here in Georgia lays the whole thing out, right? Because she figures she's going to shut her son up by having the doctor backing them up. Right? And here's what the doctor says. And he knew Gran he had met her before knew the whole history. He goes, wait a minute, wait a minute. She's 89. She's survived wars, multiple countries, all this stuff. And you think her going in some hot water is bad idea. Let her make the decision when the worst thing that could happen. And my dad's like, well, she could have a heart attack and die. And he goes, Yeah, doing something on her bucket list that she's been thinking about for years. With the people she loves the most. What's wrong with that?KC Dempster  18:12  Right and who hasn't taken a hot bath?Kevin Davis  18:16  What I thought to myself, wow, this woman was fearless in the face of all kinds of legitimate danger.KC Dempster  18:24  Right, right.Ray Loewe  18:25  Hey I'm used to this. I'm in hot water all the time. All right, we need to move on a little bit, because our time is getting short. And you have we have pearls of wisdom here. So talk to us a little bit about toddlers learning to walk.Kevin Davis  18:43  So this is one of those crazy things that struck me as I was looking at some pictures of my kids. And I guess that meant I was getting old and feeling nostalgic, you know, back when they were young. And it's amazing, because you watch a kid learning to walk and what do they do? They they try to stand up, they pull themselves up, they're super shaky, they fall down, you know, they fall forwards, backwards, they bump all kinds of things. We never yell at them and tell them they're stupid and they failed. We always encourage them and say you're doing great. And what do they do? Well, they learn something from what just happened. They kind of figure out a different way to stand up. They wobble and shake, they adjust their balance a little bit. And they take a step. Now usually they fall over but they get up and they do it over and over and over again. And it occurred to me what changed because what that would be if you took away the fact that was a toddler learning to walk and you said it was a person trying to figure out how to do something. Most of the time we would say boy, they stink at that. They can't stand up they fall over off you're train wreck. But we don't write because what they do is they are I used to say failing fast and I've changed it because I thought that puts too many people in the wrong mind. set their learning at an amazing speed. They're improvise adapt overcome savants, right? Yep. They just they're processing, learning, adjusting tweaking, about the only adult I can think of that I would say was a genius at being a toddler in real life was Thomas Edison. You know, because he didn't think of doing it the wrong way as failing. He just wrote that down as, okay. A plus B doesn't equal C, let's see which one does, right. And kept moving. And so I feel like we're sort of in that mode right now of the faster we can do things learn from them. not worry about, Oh, I didn't get the outcome I expected. What was what was good in there? What maybe wasn't what you're looking for. Okay. Well adapt.KC Dempster  20:49  Exactly differently.Kevin Davis  20:53  You know, so that that's, that's something I've been talking to my my kids about, and just a lot of people in business about as well right now.Ray Loewe  20:59  Yeah. And and you had, you know, again, it's, it's part of a process and, and a couple of things that you mentioned in your process, as you look at what's different, what's right, and what's missing. So take a moment and comment on that before we get into the final crescendo here.Kevin Davis  21:17  Sure. So those were three questions. a dear friend of mine, Joe Colavito, shared with me years ago, and they always struck me as being great questions. And you know, Ray, we I know you and I have talked over the years about what a gift a good question can be. Because it can really give us some clarity if we ask it and think about it. And so you know, you start with the What's different? Well, here's the good news. That's not a hard one to answer right now. Normally, that's pulling teeth, because you know, you're trying to get someone to admit they're in the bubble of chaos. And "no everything's fine." Well, yeah, everything's different. And so I love that we get some simple, quick clarity on that. as to what's right, I think is really important. We tend to go to the things that are wrong so quickly. Okay, who cares about the wrong things? What are the right things? Let's, let's take those and let's build on those. And I think that that's whether it's in business or relationships, or how we, how we interact with our family and friends right now, I think that stuff's really important to hone in on what's right. And Ray, we can do another five podcasts talking about the education system, I know we have a passion.KC Dempster  22:34  Let's not open that can of worms today.Kevin Davis  22:37  We won't deal with that one today. But but then what's missing? Okay, so if we say here that here's what's different here, the right things, here are some of the things that are missing. I think that gives us kind of a really reasonable look at the playing field. But then what do you do with that? And and, you know, I just was with an organization just this last week, we took an organization through this exact process where we asked those questions, then based on those answers, what you do and this I stole unashamedly from the the best selling book, Blue Ocean Strategy, you remember from back in '04? I do? I do. Yeah. And they had this, this wonderful little diagram. And and, you know, it was a big, thick, complicated book, and I'm, you know, what can I say, I'm a guy who likes barbecue. So pictures resonate with me. And I don't know if I can tell you much about the book, because I read it, you know, 14-15 years ago, but I remember the diagram, they had this simple four quadrant diagram that they used as a process where you start on the bottom left, and you ask yourself, you know, given what we just learned, by asking those other three questions, what do we need to do less of what do we reduce in life? Then your upper left quadrant is what do we eliminate? What do we just need to stop doing altogether? Your upper right quadrant is what do we need to increase or do more of? And then your lower right, the fourth one is what do we need to create that doesn't exist. And it's an ad some fascinating case studies in there. But I'm really encouraged. Now, that's quick to describe, right? We spent a whole day looking at this with this organization, and there'll be a lot of good follow up discussions that come out of it. But if you really stop and take the time to first ask those three questions, to sort of see what the landscape looks like, and then to kind of work through a process, looking at you know, what do we need to do less of what do we need to eliminate? What do we need to increase? What do we need to create? It is fascinating what you're going to come up with. It'll, you know, for some people it'll be revolutionary, it could really change the way they're approaching life.Ray Loewe  24:52  And it's a plan. Yeah. In a bubble of chaos, You know, I think the wisdom that you shared with us today is magnificent. And KC will put on our Rob podcast notes how to reach you and where you're at so that people can find you and, and follow some of these things because it just shows how great a coach you are to both people and financial advisors and business people And uh. Kevin, you're, there's no question. You're one of the luckiest people in the world, the luckiest people in the world design their own lives, and then live them the way they want to under their own terms. And you've done just that, ever since I've known you. And, and it's a shame, we didn't get a chance to talk more about pit barbecue. I remember you dropping off at the office one day, you know, meat for lunch, and it was just incredible. So so you know, here's a guy who, who has great creativity, the luckiest guy in the world. Remember, he created that he's a brand master. Second of all, you've seen some of the coaching wisdom that that he shared with us today. And and finally top that off with. He's gonna do this. While he's roasting meat. What?Kevin Davis  26:23  I'll leave you with a couple of thoughts. Keep watching the stuff I'm putting up on LinkedIn, because I think in two videos, I'm going to find a way how to tie in barbecue. And I'll give you a link to a YouTube video that I shot of me telling you how to how to cook the best ribs you've ever had. And, and there might be one about Turkey that I just saw that we just finished last night.KC Dempster  26:48  Oh, okay.Ray Loewe  26:50  Well, you know, Kevin, go ahead finish up.Kevin Davis  26:53  I was gonna say I've sort of I'd love to end with this, this thought, because we've talked about some things that I hope encourage people, I hope they challenge people. But you know, as you said, it's not the hearing, it's the doing it right? You have a plan, you got to go do something with it. You know, that age old saying you can lead a horse to water? Well, how's it end?KC Dempster  27:13  But you can't make them drink?Kevin Davis  27:16  Yeah. So remember, my parents are educators. And they started a STEM Academy 25 years ago. And so my dad posted something last week out on social media that blew me away. And yeah, I mean, when it's your parents, you're allowed to be skeptical because you know, all the stories. And he said, you know, puts it up there, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. And then it goes dot, dot, dot, unless you make sure they're really thirsty by feeding them salt first. And I thought, what a great perspective, talk about changing the rules. Why can't you make them drink, it just means you left a piece of equation out. And so I hope today, maybe what we did is we gave people some salt and made them a little thirsty.KC Dempster  28:02  I think you did.Ray Loewe  28:03  Yeah, I think you did too. And you know, thank you for being with us. Thank you for being a longtime friend and mentor. And thank you for joining us as one of the luckiest people in the world. And there's more to follow. So have a great day. And thanks again for being with us.Kevin Davis  28:20  Well, I appreciate it. It's been an honor. Great chatting with you guys.KC Dempster  28:24  and tune in everybody next week when we will be talking with one of our good friends from the Chicago land. And with more, more, more ways to help people be the luckiest people in the worldRay Loewe  28:37  and get out of the bubble of chaos or what a great line. Yeah.KC Dempster  28:42  Thanks again. Thank you for listening to Changing the Rules a podcast designed to help you live your life the way you want and give you what you need to make it happen. Join us next week for our next exciting topic on Changing the Rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world. 

Good Morning, Colorado, and welcome to the Daily Sun-Up. It’s Tuesday January 19th, and we’re feeling lucky to start the day with you. Join us daily for an in-depth look at one of our top stories.  Today - When Colorado lawmakers turned their attention to mobile home parks over the last two sessions for the first time in decades, one particular bill inspired some residents to start thinking big. Before we begin, let’s take a look at what happened on this day in Colorado history - adapted from Derek R Everett’s book “Colorado Day by Day”: Today, we take you back to January 19th, 1948 when, after nearly a quarter century of economic prosperity, a fire destroyed what had been the most productive lumber mill in Colorado. The mill site and the town that surrounded it now sit at the bottom of McPhee Reservoir. Now, our feature story.  When Colorado lawmakers turned their attention to mobile home parks over the last two sessions, one particular bill inspired some residents to start thinking big -- beyond the chronic battles with park owners over rising rents and questionable evictions. A new provision in the Mobile Home Park Act, which went into effect in June, gave individuals the opportunity to purchase the property where they’ve parked their trailers. It also gave them the opportunity to start calling their own shots as a cooperative.  Now, some are seizing that opportunity, banding together and taking steps toward purchases aimed at preserving a lifestyle that represents the state’s largest non-subsidized affordable housing option for more than 100,000 Coloradans. But a process that can be difficult is even more fraught in the age of coronavirus. Colorado Sun reporter Kevin Simpson is joining us today to tell us more. So Kevin, can you start by explaining why lawmakers decided to tackle the issue of residents buying their mobile home parks in the first place?                               Colorado’s legal provision requires that a park owner, if they anticipate selling the property or changing the use of the land, give notice to residents, who then have 90 days to make an offer and secure financing. For residents, the first step is typically creating an association or cooperative that represents more than half of the home owners, which is required in order to make the purchase. Park owners must file an affidavit of compliance with the appropriate local agencies. So, residents operate within two key parameters: the 90-day window to take care of due diligence and financing; and, of course, the assurance that the park owner will negotiate in good faith. The latter could eventually require a court decision for fine-tuning. Thanks for listening. Before we go here are a few stories you should know about today: Just two weeks after she was sworn in, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert may already have challengers in the 2022 election. State Democratic lawmakers Kerry Donovan and Dylan Roberts told The Colorado Sun they are considering a run against the highly contentious Republican to represent the state's third Congressional District. The district leans Republican, but the largest voting bloc is unaffiliated. A third Colorado man has been charged in relation to the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol. Robert Gieswein, a 24-year old Woodland Park resident, has six federal charges pending, including assaulting a federal officer. Federal court documents tie Gieswein to the Three Percenters, a radical militia group. More than three thousand tires are thrown out in Colorado every day. Most of those were recycled, but hundreds of thousands couldn’t be repurposed. And a massive fire at a tire dump north of Denver last summer illuminated the painful environmental tension over a consumer product everybody needs now and no one wants later.  For more information on all of these stories, visit our website, www.coloradosun.com. Now, a quick message from our editor. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If the Wizard of Oz was remade for the 21st century, Dorothy might now declare: there’s no place like a net-zero home. And she’d be right. But would she need the Wizard to grant her wish for a net-zero home or would Dorothy be able to afford one on her own? In this episode, Kevin Lee – CEO of the Canadian Home Builders Association (CHBA) - tells us what it means for a home or building to be “net-zero,” the pros and cons, and what the CHBA is doing to make net-zero homes an affordable reality for all current and aspiring homeowners. Related Content & Links: https://hydroottawa.com/ Websites: The Canadian Home Builders Association - https://www.CHBA.ca Linkedin: Kevin Lee - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-lee-bbb49782/ Twitter: Kevin Lee - @CHBAKevinLee Transcript Dan Seguin  00:42 Hey, everyone, welcome back to the ThinkEnergy podcast. Dorothy said it best: "There's no place like home." Now... If the Wizard of Oz was remade for the 21st century, Dorothy might now declare there's no place like a net zero home and she'd be right. But would she need the wizard to grant her wish for a net zero home, or would Dorothy be able to afford one on her own? On today's podcast, we're going to talk about the 111 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions that Canadian homes and buildings release into the atmosphere every year. And we're also going to talk about how net zero homes and buildings are combating climate change from foundations to rooftops with each new build. Designed and constructed to produce at least as much energy as they consume, net zero home buildings are up to 80% more energy efficient than typical new homes. The key difference is that a net zero home uses renewable energy to produce the energy it consumes With a growing demand from energy conscious House Hunters looking to make their environmentally responsible choice for one of their biggest life purchases. What do they need to know about purchasing in net zero home? Who are the builders? What impact will net zero home have on the purchase price on their future energy bills? What renewable energy system is the best option? Or are there government subsidies or incentives? In short, how can more and more Canadians take advantage of living greener and more energy efficient? So let's get going with today's big question. Is there any real movement whereby net zero homes will become the new standard in the next decade and what will it take for the industry to get there joining us to shed some light on net zero Homes is the chief executive officer of the Canadian Home Builders Association. Mr. Kevin Lee. Kevin, would you mind giving us a brief description of your background, what the Canadian Home Builders Association does, and why do you think net zero homes and buildings are the future? Kevin Lee  03:25 Well, my background is that I am an engineer with a master's in architecture. And I've worked in the housing fields my entire career, I ran my own consulting business for about 11 years and energy efficient housing, construction and research and development. I also worked for the federal government for several years running housing buildings and community research and development programs, as well as doing running programming like the R-2000 program. The energuide rating system for homes program the eagle energy retrofit homes program. So big background anon and I've been the Chief Executive Officer at the Canadian Home Builders Association for the past seven years at CHBA, as we call it. We represent builders and renovators and developers all across Canada as well as the suppliers and trades and services that support residential construction. And we work together to improve the performance of houses, improve the relations with governments to help. One of the big things we really pushed is housing affordability and making sure people can afford to buy new homes as well as afford to rent homes and there are obviously lots of challenges these days with the cost of housing. So we spent a lot of time on that. And we do have a net zero energy housing council that does work on net zero energy homes and advancing that we have a labelling programmer we have had to label close to 400 houses across the country now over the past couple of few years. And in terms of the future, with respect to net zero, we've always as an industry and as an association been leaders in energy efficiency we do incredibly well in balancing the performance - Houses today are, you know, more than 50% better than they were 25 years ago. Sometimes I hear people say, Oh, they sure don't build houses like they used to do, which I would always respond.: "Well, thank goodness!" We continue to do better and nowhere is that more true than in terms of energy efficiency. How far we're able to go with respect to net zero and under what kind of timeline I would suggest is very much a function of costing and affordability because investing in a net zero home is a great way to invest your money and in your home and there's a lot of benefits, but it's still not cheap. Definitely costs a little bit more and when it comes to regulations, we're always trying to think about affordability. So from the association perspective, or I was trying to say: Okay, well, yes, we want to make homes better, but we also want to make sure people can still afford to buy them. So let's find like most cost effective ways and cost efficient ways. And let's try not especially this day and age, and when we build such good new houses, how do we make sure that we don't increase the cost of houses with every code change that we make? Dan Seguin  06:25 Okay, Kevin, what's the difference between a green home and a net zero home? Kevin Lee  06:31 Well, when we talk about net zero energy homes, you're talking about a house that produces as much energy as it needs over the course of the year to sort of net out at zero, and certainly in Canada with our cold climate, you can expect that in the winter, you're probably going to be using some energy, more solar than you're able to generate, but on other times when you don't need as much energy - Typically in art programs as through solar energy, you're able to create surplus energy that you're able to feed back into the grid and net zero. So that's a net zero energy home. A green home tends to encompass many other things that will almost always encapsulate energy efficiency. But it'll also look at things like green environmental products, especially in different roofing materials, that kind of thing. So green tends to encompass a little bit more than net zero. And while many of so in our, in our case, in our program, we really focus on the energy efficiency piece. So, you know, builders do add a lot of other special features to homes that would be green, but the big differences the green is more about the broader environmental, whereas our net zero work is very focused on the energy efficiency. Dan Seguin  07:45 When building or renovating to net zero standards, what are the key considerations you should start with? Are we talking everything from walls, ventilation, foundation, windows, and more? Kevin Lee  07:59 Oh, absolutely. I mean, certainly when you're driving to get down to basically using close to zero energy, you have to look at everything that uses energy and that can, you know, save energy and be efficient with energy. So every element of the home, as you said, walls, ceilings, foundations, windows, mechanical systems: hugely important. So you have to look at all of it and where do you start? Well, frankly, if you're a homebuyer, you start by looking for a builder with the experience and know how to do this and even through our programs. And we follow, we use the energuide rating system, which is a government of Canada system and label for measuring the energy performance of homes. And there are energy advisories that are certified by the Government of Canada to do that. And we provide those energy advisors additional training, to work with our builders to be experts and getting all the way to net zero. So they're sort of recognized through our program through additional training and education. So really, as a homebuyer or a homeowner, because we now have a retrofit program as well for renovating houses to get to this level. Really it's finding the right finding the right contractor homebuilder, you know, you can look at CHBA.ca. And you can find a list of our rent renovators and our home builders that are certified, they know what they're doing. And they're working very closely with an energy advisor who works on the design because like I said, when you're trying to get to net zero, you're talking about squeezing every ounce of energy you can out of that house. And it's every element. So it's not so much that you start one place. You look at everything. Dan Seguin  09:36 You touched on this earlier, but wondering if you could further demystify for me, how does a net zero home produce as much energy - clean renewable energy - as it consumes? Kevin Lee  09:48 Yeah, well, and I did touch on that earlier. So I'll go back to that. And the idea is that again, especially in Canada, it's a little bit tricky, you know, when it's very cold, you know, you're going to have to use some energy. Typically in our program, the renewal Bull energy that is used is photovoltaics or, you know solar panels, on the roof generating electricity. But when it's when it's really cold, you're probably not going to be able to generate enough energy to meet the entire heating load of the home. As well as all the other loads that are going on: ventilation. We plug a lot of things in too, we're charging a lot of cell phones and all these other things. There's a pretty heavy what we call base load these days as well. So what you're trying to do is make sure that as you look at the course of the whole year, you're producing as much energy as you need. Sometimes you might be producing surplus energy. Sometimes you may be using a little bit more energy than your system can produce, but overall, you net out at zero through the course of the year. Dan Seguin  10:48 Okay, Kevin, I'm wondering if you could dispel any myths around the cost associated to building a standard home compared to a net zero home. Is it significantly more to be net zero? Kevin Lee  11:02 I think probably the biggest myth would be if somebody said it doesn't cost anything because it definitely you know, we're talking about you know, different technologies you're talking about things like moving from standard double pane windows to triple pane windows, you're talking about being more insulation walls, sometimes building you know, fatter walls and using you know, more lumber or whatever your material is to build more, so there's definitely an additional cost. Some of that clause is defrayed by your energy savings, which is great over time. And so it really varies it depends on your climate, it depends on the size of your home, it depends on the design of your home and those design features. You know, some people like to have lots of windows probably we all love having lots of windows are actually one of the more expensive things though, and they also are tend to be a bit of a heat loss. If you have lots of windows, you might have to spend money in other places. So is it more expensive? Yeah, absolutely it is. It's part of the reason why we say before we get this into regulation, we want to make sure we continue with a research and innovation and costing to bring those prices down. And then when it comes to how much more is it going to be, it also depends on what's the baseline construction standard of your builder. Some builders build the code, which is adding their energy efficiency measures in the building code, and that's still a very good home. Others build the levels like the Energy Star program, which is a little bit higher. So your jump from ENERGY STAR to net zero or net zero ready is a little bit less. So that's not a very direct answer, because it really varies and you can't say it's 5% 10%, etc. It really depends. But it's definitely a great investment. And for people who are looking to stay in their home a long time looking are conscious about climate change and the environment, want a more comfortable home because the nice thing about a triple glazed window just as an example as you sit beside there's practically no condensation. You're right comfortable sitting there. And it's like in the winter. So a lot of good reasons to choose to invest your money that way. And it really comes down to working with your builders to figure out, you know what those costs are going to be. Dan Seguin  11:58 Is there a net zero movement in Canada? Is it in the response to climate change science now showing that in order to have a real impact on carbon emissions, reducing isn't enough, we essentially have to neutralize our environmental footprint. Kevin Lee  13:29 I think that the energy efficiency movement has been going on in Canada for a long time. And you know, we developed the R-2000 program back in the 1980s, in response to the oil crisis prior to that, and then as climate change and environmental concerns have grown and grown, there's been a constant movement of improved energy efficiency, and energy performance of houses and net zero is really that ultimate goal. And as concerns about climate change, continue to escalate, obviously, every sector of the economy needs to do its part to get there. And homes are a big part of that. I will say that, you know, we can definitely get to net zero from every house in Canada built that way, at some point. As I said, it's really about at what point are we able to do that where it's not making it too expensive for homeowners. And the other really critical thing when you're talking about climate change and GHG emissions from housing, it's the very much the existing housing stock that's really critical. The new houses are very efficient, we can make them more efficient, the returns are diminishing a little bit though, and the more energy efficient, you make it the less you get in terms of savings over time. But the existing housing stock and especially the older housing stock is so critically important and that's why we've added renovation to our program and we always recommend to governments things like there should be a home renovation tax credit for energy efficiency, so that people in their existing homes can improve them and we can help defray the costs that, Dan Seguin  15:04 Kevin, we've covered renovations and new builds. What about apartments and condos? Are they a challenge or an opportunity? Kevin Lee  15:14 Well, you know, as with every challenge, of course, there is an opportunity. So a little bit of both, for sure. We can, again, you know, the technology is there, it's a little trickier, with big buildings because you tend to have more units in them and not as much surface areas. Actually, for renewables, you know, you need a certain amount of surface area on the roof for photovoltaics and the solar systems that would go on them. They also tend to have a lot of glazing, windows, people like to have, you know, their exposed walls to be all glass if they could have it in many cases, and that glazing is often the weak spot in in energy efficiency. It looks great, but it tends to be not as efficient as a nice thick wall with lots of installation, but the technology exists, it really comes down to the cost and also potential and those types of systems, you might have to have your renewables off site, or you might be looking at your company draw renewable energy from another place rather than trying to be generating it all with the building itself. And frankly, we also think that that's a big part of, as, you know, we look down the road to the future for net zero homes, you know, should every house be generating its own? Or will it make more sense and will it be more effective for there to be more community systems that generate the renewables and you don't have to have it on your individual unit, I'm going to do a home it could be nearby. So the power generation or renewable power generation is also going to be a big part we think of the future as we move towards sort of net zero economy at large. Dan Seguin  16:53 You’ve alluded to this earlier. There's a variety of home energy performance standards to make homes more energy efficient, are you able to expand on the Canadian Home Builders Association net zero home labeling program? How are those standards baselined? Kevin Lee  17:12 Well, when we set out to develop our program, we wanted to go with sort of tried tested and true rating system. And so, as I mentioned, we base our program on the government of Canada's energuide rating system. That system has labeled over a million homes in Canada. It's backed by the Government of Canada, there are energy advisors trained and certified by the Government of Canada. So that we feel like that is the system to use. The Energy Star program uses that as well. The R-2000 program uses it as well. So the energuide rating system is sort of the point system that grades how much energy you use, and then programs like energy star and our net zero label are points on that scale, if you will, that you're trying To achieve to show a certain level of energy efficiency. And this is the kind of thing that was also used through the equal energy retrofit homes program, a grant program run by the government that through that program, over 600,000 homes are renovated and each one of those dots and energuide label as well as the nice thing about the existing home side of things. And that renovation path is the energuide. Label also provides the homeowner full report on where they can go with their house to make it energy efficient. So you kind of get this pathway, which we think is really important because you can't always afford to do everything on a renovation at the same time. But the energuide system allows you to plan over a few years to do maybe not maybe you can do your windows this year, you're doing insulation in the basement and sealing the next you're going to replace your furnace and three years, whatever the case may be, but you can sort of see that pathway laid out so we really feel like the inner guide rating system is super important. We also think that it should be the rating system for every home in Canada and every program, I often use the analogy, boy, if we have all different rating systems for nutrition labels, it would be very difficult to imagine if you if you went to buy mushrooms off the shelf at the grocery store and you pick up two cans, and it's two different energy labels and you can't compare you wouldn't know which one to buy. And so we're big proponents of saying let's use the energuide rating system, it's the Government of Canada. Let's get that on for all programs, so that everybody can compare and we can what we need to improve in Canada is energy literacy for consumers. It's hard sometimes - it's an invisible thing, energy efficiency. So good labeling and information would help everybody make the decisions. Dan Seguin  19:39 Okay, time to dust off your crystal ball. What are some of the emerging technologies, innovations that hold much promise for the future of an energy efficient and a net zero home? What's exciting you right now in the industry? Kevin Lee  20:00 Well, I think you know, what's exciting is that we have within our membership, leaders in the industry all across the country that are working together to find the solutions. And the interesting thing about a home is its builders putting together all of these different technologies and making choices and using energy advisors to help them and make those choices. So I think what's exciting is that everybody's working together. And we're also working together to innovate, and also identify to manufacturers, what are the next things we need, especially to make the energy efficiency componentry even less expensive, so it can be more readily available to everyone. And so whether you're looking at there's some very one of the most important things in energy efficiency is air tightness and air sealing to avoid air leakage. And there's some great new technologies coming in to help make that easier because it's one of the most important things and also one of the most complicated things. Think about every  penetration if you own the house, whether it's your, your cable guy or your, you know venting for gas appliances, or there's always lots of things popping in and out of what we call the building envelope, as well as it's hard at floor-wall intersections and wall to ceiling intersections. Anyway, there's some very interesting technology coming out for air sealing. Another thing that's very interesting is net zero energy homes. Sometimes joke, you can eat them with a candle. So you need very little energy. And interestingly, our heating systems and even our cooling systems are built for bigger loads are built for bigger houses or even a house with things that uses more energy. So optimizing our mechanical systems for really small loads becomes very important, as does then the distribution of that air around the home to make sure that the temperatures are always balanced. And then there's also the opportunity to integrate ventilation smartly into those sorts of combination systems. Things that we still need to do you know, and would be great to find solutions for in research and development. You know, if we want to pack more insulation in the walls, we really need to have more effective R-values, those are called like, basically we've sort of hit a limit right now on how much how much insulation we can put in a wall, and then you have to build a fatter wall. But building a better fatter wall becomes more expensive, it'd be really great if let's say within the standard two by six wall, you can put insulation in still what ends up being five and a half inches, but it had what we call greater, much higher R-values. So you'd have to build a thicker wall, you just put better insulation inside. So those are some of the directions that we're headed, I'm looking for a very good technology to build the stuff right now, but we're constantly innovating and we know we need more research and development to work together with and the government's always been a big supporter of that and housing because our industry is made a lot of small organizations, we don't have the Fords and the Mercedes and none of the world that have been r&d shops themselves. So collaborating with government to find these solutions that are more affordable is going to be really important as we move to do more and more of these over time. Dan Seguin  23:14 And let's take this from R&D to behaviors, what kinds of lifestyle changes are required within net zero home? Kevin Lee  23:23 Well, I think the great thing about energy efficient homes is they tend to not require any lifestyle change. Energy Efficiency is about being more efficient using technology and construction techniques so that you can live in your home and enjoy it. I always draw the distinction between energy efficiency and energy conservation. Energy conservation is taking a shorter shower, turn down the thermostat, and wear a sweater that's conserving energy. Energy Efficiency is about using technology to make sure that you can still do the things that you like to do, but the houses energy efficient in the first place. Now, lots of people who buy a net zero home are very energy conscious and environmentally conscious as well. So they'll probably elect to do lots of other things. They're probably very avid recyclers and composters and maybe they will turn down the thermostat just because they want to save even more energy. But the nice thing about energy efficiency and net zero homes is sometimes you can't even tell that it's an energy efficient home other than maybe, wow, this is a lot more comfortable than the other house. There's no draft. I can sit beside my windows and I feel really great. There are a lot of benefits and lifestyle benefits, but you typically don't require lifestyle changes. Dan Seguin  24:41 Despite demand for greener homes. The majority of homes built in Canada continue to be built to a minimum standard. Why is there a disconnect between housing desires and what is actually constructed? Will we see a time where building codes could force all new housing to meet the net zero standard. What does the future look like? Kevin Lee  25:07 Well, I think we need to be a little bit careful when we say there's a disconnect between code and what people want, because you also have to add in what people are willing to pay for. So there are a lot - So for example, we already have in our net zero program, and the Energy Star program has existed for a long time, known as quite successful. But as we've talked about all through this, it's a little bit more expensive to build to these standards. And so people have a choice and they often choose and I've spent my whole career working in energy efficiency, and sometimes it's been frustrating because homeowners rightly have the choice. What do they want? Do they want to have a hot tub? Do they want granite countertops? Do they want more space? Do they want to pay more to live closer to town or, or do they want to live a little further away from town where it might be cheaper, and then on top of that, you've got to save If you want a more energy efficient house, it'll cost more. And you're sort of doing these trade-offs  within your budget is why we're so keen on making sure that energy efficiency standards are also married to technology that makes it not more expensive, so that people don't have to make that choice, and in terms of today's minimum requirements through the building code, they're actually very good. And they continue to improve and they're much higher than they were years ago. So when will the code end up being net zero? Well, we would suggest that that should be at a time when you're not causing affordability challenges for Canadians especially for first time homebuyers. That of course you have to build the code, social housing, and even social housing,  ask a social housing provider why they're not building to ENERGY STAR net zero standards. And the reason is because it's very expensive for them, and they're more important for them. It's just to put roofs over people's houses and so it's that that trade as it's happening right now, and it's why we're really pushing for advancements in technology so that it's not more expensive. So we can, when the regulation comes, we're not causing affordability challenges so we can get there. It's just a question of when. Dan Seguin  27:15 So until net zero homes become the standard, what are some simple things that people can do to improve on to make their existing home more energy efficient? Kevin Lee  27:26 Well, the first thing I would say is, you know, think of it holistically. And there are various programs that will supplement the cost of having an energy advisor come by, but really that the best thing is to have an energuide rating system evaluation of your home, and that'll give you the big picture. Sometimes people think for example, that, uh, you know, I just, I should replace my windows and usually you're replacing windows because the seals shot at that point and they're starting to get milky and there's some condensation or whatever, and it's time or maybe wood windows and there's been condensation And the paint is chipping, you know, I want to I need to get the window. Turns out that if you ask an energy advisor to come in and do an energy analysis, he or she'll probably tell you that you can do that and you'll get good enjoyment out of that. But for a fraction of the cost, you can actually just go and blow a bunch of cellulose insulation in your attic and you'll save twice as much energy and so you know, looking at the insulation is a big thing but I would start with an energy assessment to have somebody come in and tell you all the things you can do but through the you know, air sealing is really important. Insulation in the attic is tends to be cheap. Go up through the attic hatch, blow insulation, you're good. Obviously insulating your basement  is a good one to do. It's usually accessible if you have an unfinished basement and does have the benefit of all that improved comfort. Obviously if you have old mechanical systems and old furnace and old water heater, replacing those tends to be a really good move as well. So there's lots we can do lots we need to do over time to help us. We're hoping through the economic recovery that hopefully we're going to get into very well over the next little while that the government steps forward and helps a little bit with what we're recommending would be a tax credit that really incentivizes people to do this. And the other thing I have to say is, when you go to do this stuff, hire a reputable contractor. It’s not worth getting the cash guy to do a side job ladder off the back of the truck, save a few bucks, there are so many risks. So we have a whole get it in writing program that we promote. If you go on our CHP website, it just talks about the pitfalls of not getting a contract, not getting receipts, not getting warranty, all the things that we should all do with your house is probably the biggest investment you'll ever make in your in your lifetime. Let's make sure we take care of that and protect ourselves. So just hire a reputable contractor. And if you're looking for that list, you can go on our website at chba.ca and we list our members all across the country. Dan Seguin  29:57 So Kevin, I really think this is worth repeating where can folks learn more about net zero homes and find a list of builders in their region? Kevin Lee  30:06 Yeah, absolutely well, so we are the Canadian Home Builders Association, and our acronym is CHBA. So if you go to CHBA.ca, or frankly, if you just Google net zero in Canada will pop up on your Google Search pretty much at the top. And on our website, there's all the information there's information about buying a new home, there's information about renovating, renovating the home and making smart choices. And there's information about our net zero program and a full list of all of the builders that we recognize through our program across Canada. So you can find a builder in your region that would be more than happy to work with you and more and more so renovators as well I could help you get on your pathway to getting to net zero. Dan Seguin  30:51 How about we close off with some rapid fire questions? What is the one thing you can't live without? Kevin Lee  30:59 I think it's music, I love music. I'm a bit of a musician. So let's go with that. Dan Seguin  31:03 What is something that challenges you? Kevin Lee  31:06 To try to change the world in positive ways, and it's fun to work on that every day. It's a never ending challenge for all of us. But trying to make good, solid contributions. We have a better world and a better Canada is a big challenge and something I love doing. Dan Seguin  31:22 If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Kevin Lee  31:26 It would be too slow time. I don't have enough time to get everything done. So I would be able to just freeze time, get a bunch of things done, and then turn time moving forward. Again, that would be that would be great. Even for doing hobbies. I don't have enough time to read. I'd love to stop time and read a couple of chapters every once in a while. Dan Seguin  31:47 If you could turn back time and talk to your 18 year old self, what would you tell them? Kevin Lee  31:52 Well, I would tell them the same thing that I'm telling my kids - which is, you know, do the best at everything that you do this work put in the hard work. It will always pay off even if you think it won't. If you're working on something that you don't enjoy, get it done, do a good job on it. And you'll be surprised down the road when, even if it's 'Wow, I hated doing that. I never want to do that again'. Well, you learned it, you did a good job. Yeah, work hard and put in the effort and have fun while you're doing it. Find the fun and everything. Dan Seguin  32:24 What do you currently find most interesting in your sector? Kevin Lee  32:28 The most interesting thing in our sector right now, I think is the challenges that we're facing with affordability and trying to make sure young Canadians and new Canadians can afford their homes. We have a lot of things that are driving up the prices of new homes and, and mortgages and mortgage rules have been tightening, making it even more challenging. So finding that right solution that will really help people become homeowners and get into it. While we also are continuing to try and improve all homes. We've spent this whole time talking about energy efficiency, but we want to make sure it doesn't cost more so people can afford owns that. That whole affordability challenge, which our members are working on all the time, I think is the most interesting and the most challenging, but a huge opportunity because we know, almost every Canadian either owns their home, but two thirds of Canadians own their home and most renters wish they could and hope they will one day you know, so helping to achieve Canadians dreams, I think is a huge opportunity and a huge challenge that we're all working on. Dan Seguin  33:28 Well, Kevin, we've reached the end of another episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast. Last question for you. How can our listeners learn more about your association? How can they connect? Kevin Lee  33:43 Yeah, definitely check out our website at chba.ca. All the information is there. We are also structured as an association with provincial and local associations as part of our organization. So we have local associations all across Canada. And pretty much every urban center and so that's another place that you can connect very locally with the members of our organization that can help you with your housing dreams. Dan Seguin  34:12 Again, Kevin, thank you very much for joining me today. I hope you had a lot of fun. Cheers. Thank you for joining us today. I truly hope you enjoyed this episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast. For past episodes, make sure you visit our website hydroottawa.com/podcasts. Lastly, if you found value in this podcast, be sure to subscribe. Cheers, everyone.

Are you undermining your connection with your partner, or the others in your life, with microaggressions? While the “little things” can be the building blocks of something amazing - they can also undermine the very fabric of how you relate with another person, perpetuating sexism, racism, or other unhealthy power dynamics. Today our guest is Kevin Nadal, co-editor of Microaggression Theory: Influence and Implications. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on how to spot microaggressions and overcome their impact in your life. As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Sponsors: Find a quality therapist, online, to support you and work on the places where you’re stuck. For 10% off your first month, visit Betterhelp.com/ALIVE to fill out the quick questionnaire and get paired with a therapist who’s right for you. Resources: Grab a copy of Kevin Nadal’s book Microaggression Theory: Influence and Implications or his latest book Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and the Criminal Justice System You can also visit Keven Nadal’s website to find out more about his work and offerings. Check out my Secrets of Relationship Communication COURSE for a masterclass in how to improve the communication and connection in your relationship. I want to know you better! Take the quick, anonymous, Relationship Alive survey FREE Guide to Neil’s Top 3 Relationship Communication Secrets Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner’s Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE) Support the podcast (or text “SUPPORT” to 33444) Amazing intro and outro music provided courtesy of The Railsplitters Transcript: Neil Sattin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host, Neil Sattin. There is a lot going on in the world today. And of course, there's always a lot going on in the world today, but in particular, if you've been paying any attention to the news or to the Facebook or other forms of social media, then you're aware that front and center in today's world, along with the pandemic that's going on are issues of racial equity and justice and ways that we as a greater community can become more aware of what's happening in the world and also take action to improve our own situation and the situation of everyone around us in ways that are like a rising tide, where we all get to benefit from increased understanding and harmony and decreased acts of aggression or intolerance. Neil Sattin: And so, for today's episode, I wanted to tackle a particular topic that's actually come up a bunch in the Relationship Alive community on Facebook, and I've gotten a bunch of emails about it as well, and that's the topic of microaggressions. And we're going to go into what that even means, but basically, in a nutshell, these are the subtle ways that we do violence on each other or that we receive violence, and there... And I use the word violence intentionally, because I want you to recognize the importance of these things in detracting from the quality of interactions and relationships that we have with each other, but also because I think it's worth pointing out that these things are often very subtle, so they may be overt, but they may leave you or someone else with this subtle feeling that something just didn't go quite right. And we're going to dive more deeply into the topic of microaggressions, how they happen in your interactions out in the world, and in particular, how they impact your relationships with your beloved, with your partner. Neil Sattin: So in order to have this conversation today, we have one of the world's leading experts on understanding the impacts of microaggressions, or as I was just saying, subtle forms of discrimination on the mental and physical health of people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people, women, other marginalized groups. His name is Dr. Kevin Nadal and he's a professor of psychology at both John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Dr. Nadal received his Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Columbia University, and I believe that he was... He worked a lot with Derald Wing Sue, who's also one of the world's leading researchers and authors about the topic of microaggressions. Kevin has also been featured widely in all forms of media, he was on... He was a hot topic on The View, and perhaps least importantly, although I'm really curious to know how this came about, so that I can maybe get my chance, but he was named one of People magazine's hottest bachelors in 2006. So, now that I'm single, maybe Kevin can give me some pointers on how to get People magazine's attention. Neil Sattin: In any case, we're here to have a very important conversation about the ways that you may be perpetuating racism or any sort of discrimination in your own life, in your relationships, and not even know it. Or maybe you're the recipient of it and this will help you articulate better what's going on. And along, of course, with talking about it, we're going to talk about what to do about it. So, as usual, we will have a detailed transcript of today's conversation, which you can grab by going to neilsattin.com/micro, M-I-C-R-O as in microaggressions, or as always you can text the word PASSION to the number 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript of today's show. Alright, I think that's it from me. Let's get on with the show, Dr. Kevin Nadal, thank you so much for joining us here today on Relationship Alive. Kevin Nadal: Thanks Neil, I'm happy to be here. Neil Sattin: Awesome, awesome. And we were just chatting earlier about how you're in New York, so you're in the place that was kind of pandemic central for a little while and the numbers are coming down, so hopefully that's helping you live a slightly more useful life in the big city with everything that's going on. Kevin Nadal: Yeah, things in New York are getting better, so hopefully day by day we'll be back to not exactly where we used to be, but an even stronger version of what New York has always been. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I'm right there with you, for sure. So Kevin, I'm wondering, can we just dive right in to... I know you probably heard my little cursory introduction of what microaggressions are, but... Kevin Nadal: Sure. Neil Sattin: You're the expert, so can you just summarize what is a microaggression? And I know there are a few different categories of microaggressions, so maybe we can just flesh that out for people a little bit more so that they have a sense of the kinds of things that we're talking about. Kevin Nadal: Sure. Your definition was very good. Let me just add a little bit to it. So microaggressions are the subtle, more unintentional forms of bias that might manifest between people. Oftentimes, microaggressions are things that are unconscious and that people aren't aware of them. Sometimes, people are aware that they are saying or doing something, but might not recognize the impact that it has on others. And microaggressions in general may have such a detrimental effect on people who experience them. I appreciate that you mentioned the idea of violence with microaggressions, because when we talk about microaggressions, we're not talking about the idea that they're so micro or they're so small that they don't have an impact. We're talking about the fact that they're sometimes so small that the accumulation of these experiences may have a detrimental impact on things such as mental health, on physical health, on even things like substance use and body image issues and educational attainment and things like that. There are several types of microaggressions that are theorized to exist. Interested in reading the transcript for the rest of this episode with about Microaggressions with Kevin Nadal?  Click here to download the full transcript of this episode!

This week the guys decided to tweak the format. There are many mentions of friend Steve Smith on this podcast who is mostly referred to as “Other Steve” and Kevin was talking music with Other Steve one day and a band was suggested to check out. So Kevin decided to check the band out for the first time while recording an MCM episode! One of the biggest reasons this podcast started was to share music with each other and this episode is taking that even one little step further. Listen in as the guys listen to this band together and hear their thoughts on the music!There have been many mentions about suggesting music to listen to for the podcast and for the guys to check out. If you liked this format of the show then why not continue to do it! Reach out to the MCM crew and suggest some music to check out! All of the contact information is listed below so do not be shy! If you have been listening to the podcast for some time you would know that the music taste can vary so don’t hold back! Pass along your favorites and lets get this music out to the world! Don’t forget to follow us on Social Media and don’t forget to check out the patreon page. As always, we’ll see you next Monday!Support us on Patreon!www.patreon.com/musiccrushmondaypodcastIf you want to listen to the episode as intended, please do not look at the featured band links beforehand if at all possible. Check out our Spotify playlist for more of their music and please reach out to us via the links below. We’ll see you next Monday!Website: www.musiccrushmonday.comEmail: musiccrushmonday@gmail.comPatreon: www.patreon.com/musiccrushmondaypodcastFacebook: www.facebook.com/musiccrushmondaypodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcmpod/Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/mcmpodIntro and Outro music: “The Breakdown” by At The Wayside*** WARNING! ****** WARNING! ****** SPOILER ALERT! ****** SPOILER ALERT! ****** Disclaimer: We at the Music Crush Monday Podcast would like for our listeners to listen to the bands blind with us but we also want you to check out the band further if they were interesting to you. Please review the links below to find more on today’s featured band. ***Band: Set Your GoalsSocials:https://twitter.com/setyourgoalshttps://www.facebook.com/setyourgoals/Songs Played:The Few That Remain off the album This Will Be The Death of UsMutiny! off the album MutinySpotify: www.tinyurl.com/mcmep114

4-21-20 Tonight at 9PM ET we're talking with Kevin Meintsma, a prolific and talented meadmaker who is quite humble about his very well made meads. Kevin has been making mead since 1995, his first one being with a very dark honey that he later learned was eastern buckwheat (it had also been sitting in the workshop for 12 years!). It also had cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice and used champagne yeast. And no temp control or nutrients. That turned out, not surprisingly, poorly, lol. Kevin then opted to avoid mead until 2017 after that. He's been a homebrewer since the early 80's, and did stovetop extract brewing (as that was all there was at that point), using a scavanged pot. He did that for a few years, then stepped away to focus on life, work and family until 2010. Then, after coming back from a work assignment in England for 7 months, he got serious again about homebrewing and began making brews and entering competitions. He stewarded and judged at the Minnesota Mashout that year, and a few years later got his BJCP certification. He went on to get his Mead Judge endorsement as well. Since then, Kevin has taken multiple Best of Show awards for beer, cider and mead, including a beer Pro-AM with Minneapolis based Town Hall Brewing that sent him to the GABF Pro-AM competition. He notes this was one of the highlights of his brewing hobby. Fast forward to 2017, Kevin had brewed around 85% of the 2015 beer style guidelines, and 90% of the cider guidelines, he decided to come back to mead for a new challenge. His 3rd mead was a pyment which took first place at the Minnesota State Fair (to his surprise). His 4th mead was a cyser made in the fall from local apples he got via the Primary Fermenters club. During the Minnesota Homebrewer's Association annual holiday party in December, Matt Weide tasted the cyser and declared it better than his! So Kevin entered it in the AHA 2018 Nationals where it got a gold in the first round, and a 2nd in the final round, totally shocking Kevin. So, in 2019, he found the Mazer Cup. He attended and was shocked to take two medals and a should out from Josh Mahoney, one is his local mead heroes. He also got involved with a local group of mead makers and then went on to help found the Valkyries Horn Mead Competition, which was held for the first time in September 2019. Kevin has focused on process and technique, more than ingredients or yeast. Nearly all his medals and best of shows he's gotten have used 'generic' ingredients and prosaic yeast choices, which he did deliberately, due to a tight budget. He wanted a good grasp of technique so he can do justice to the many honey varietals that are available now. Come on in and have a listen! Join us on the live chat and don't be afraid to call in if you want to! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback. Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Coming up: April 28 - Matt Weide Show links and notes Have ideas or questions on making hydromels, send Kevin an email! The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm Apple varietals and where they grow - http://orangepippen.com National Honey Board Mead Crafter Compeitition Upcoming Events July 22-25 Mazer Cup International, Broomfield, CO September 26-28 AMMA MeadCon, Broomfield, CO Due to the pandemic, most meaderies cannot have events or open their taproom...

#132 INSTRUMENT FIXED WING BEFORE HELICOPTER | Does it save $ ??? Alright, welcome to day 132 Coffee with Kenny! Got another great question from our friend in South Africa today, so cool we have members from all over the world. So Kevin asks if it is a good idea to get instrument fixed wing first before helicopter instrument. If you're going for a helicopter career, I say just for the helicopter ratings and stay specific there. Then when you go for a job, you have your helicopter time and education. It really just depends on if you're doing it for fun or career, and you're going to be spending the money at some point for both anyway. Dual ratings are really cool as well though. Thanks for your support! Let us know your thoughts and experiences and questions below! #coffeewithkenny

Today, we try to get away from talking about event cancellations or other depressing plague news. So Kevin answers a bunch of questions from listeners about content in our new […]

Today, we try to get away from talking about event cancellations or other depressing plague news. So Kevin answers a bunch of questions from listeners about content in our new reality, including what esports opportunities there are right now, how gambling will affect competitive integrity, and whether online league play ensures a true competitive game or not.

So Kevin wasn't allowed in the building today because of the building's coronavirus policy so join Hoody and Erick as we try to piece together the nerdy new you need to know! What other movies have been delayed because of the coronavirus outbreak? Will GameStop ever recover from months of bad press? Plus what games and movies is Erick trying to pass down to his son? All that and more in today; show!New Episodes of Crisis on Infinite Podcasts come out every Thursday! Make sure to rate us and subscribe to us on your platform of choice and send us a secret message and we'll read it out loud on next week's show!!

Today’s episode is largely about fire. Specifically, the growing problem of wildfires in California, and how good design, combined with improved data analysis tools might help reduce the dangers they pose. The guest I’m speaking with is Kevin Farnham, who might be more familiar as the founder of Method, an integrated design agency that broke a lot of ground, creating design systems for companies like Autodesk and Quicken, then expanding into a global consultancy with clients like Hitachi, Kenwood, McDonald’s and The Economist. So Kevin and I talk a little about Method, and also about Mirra, his more recent venture that seeks to productize the creation of 3D environments.But the bulk of the conversation is about his current project, to create a set of data tools that make it easier to fight wildfires, and to manage forests so those fires aren’t so destructive. It’s a great example of how design principles from the business world can actually have a big impact on society-level problems—and it points out some of the unique challenges you face when dealing with such a diverse group of stakeholders.For designers, it’s an inspiring discussion, that really reinforces the idea that good design can solve real problems and have a large scale positive impact. And for anyone who lives in California—or Australia, or anywhere else dealing with a climate-change induced wildfire crisis—it’s a reason for hope, and a call to action too.

Kevin grew up in a very rural area of North Carolina and so he seems like an unlikely candidate to have started a mission organization that focuses on the country of India. He has flown over 1 million miles to over 27 countries and traveled to India over 50 times and taken over 1,000 people from the US on short-term mission trips to India. Before starting his nonprofit he had worked at various churches and built a business management company that helped 62 clients and had 10 employees. So Kevin knows a lot about starting something and building it out.Global Hope India also helps local partners in India by providing training and resources for business development. They've started things like: Coffee Shops and Bakeries Goat Farms Pig Farms Grocery Shops Beautician Salons Coffee Plantations Apple Orchards Transportation Business Many of them are started with as little as $1,500"Greed stinks and generosity is beautiful. Whether it's in business, the church, or a nonprofit." - Kevin WhiteKevin shared one of the core values he learned early on that he believes is a key contributing factor to his success, rock-solid accounting. People value transparency and appreciate authenticity. Kevin shared about an initiative that is a DBA of Global Hope India called Carry the Water NC. Although Global Hope India is a faith-based organization their efforts to bring clean water through India are facilitated by Carry the Water and every dollar that is given only goes to support their clean water efforts. Kevin has found a way to channel his entrepreneurial spirit to start new initiatives to support his main passion which is Global Hope India and believes that to be a big part of why it has been a long term success."As I've really looked over success in business, the church, and in the nonprofit world, I see that the businesses that succeed put people first."- Kevin WhiteI asked Kevin to share about the differences and similarities between for-profit and nonprofit businesses and organizations. He shared that the principles are very similar but the product can be very different.  A good business leader may not be a good nonprofit leader, but a good nonprofit leader can be a great business leader. In business, you can have a product or a service while in the nonprofit setting you have a cause.Also mentioned on this podcast: The Living the Dream Podcast - One of Kevin's podcasts for church leaders Missions Changed my Life Podcast - Another podcast from Global Hope India interviewing people who have been on mission trips Brody Smith's podcast and website

This week we keep rolling with Star Trek, watching the second in the movie franchise The Wrath of Khan. What else needs to be said other then we recorded this episode before we rewatched The Motion Picture. So Kevin sounds more negative towards the first one. Enjoy!

How to Raise Capital and How Not To (LA 1106) Transcript: Steve Butala:                      Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the LandAcademy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill Dewitt:                           And Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steve Butala:                      Today Jill and I talk about how to raise capital and how not to. It seems like a simple topic, doesn't it? Jill Dewitt:                           It does, but this is something that hangs people up. Steve Butala:                      Yeah, sure. Jill Dewitt:                           They're really worried about this. Steve Butala:                      It ties into yesterday's show about- Jill Dewitt:                           It kind of does. Like, I've got these deals. What do I do? Or I'm afraid to even send it out cause I don't have the money. What do I do? Steve Butala:                      It's a hard thing to get over. It was a hard thing for me to get over a long time ago. Jill Dewitt:                           We can help. Steve Butala:                      Yeah. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill Dewitt:                           [Aristio 00:02:35] asks, "Howdy, folks? I have a signed purchase agreement in East Texas on a 4.25 acre piece of property with good dirt road access. It's off a major highway. I have to verify the exact location of the parcel given." Oh, interesting. Title Pro 24/7 and parcel factor showing different parcel locations. I can tell you why in a second. Steve Butala:                      This is very common. Jill Dewitt:                           Yeah, I'll tell you what it is. "I think this parcel would make a great mobile home lot, et cetera for someone or perhaps even establishing a small farm. The gentleman is elderly, an elderly man has been paying taxes on his deceased grandmother's lot for years. The other family members, uncles, aunts, et cetera, never wanted to contribute or pay for the taxes. We've tried to asking this gentleman for any other possible heirs, however, he states they've all passed away. I'm considering doing quite a title on this property if I can at least double my offer price. That needs to sell. So $11,465, indeed, I've been told I priced this [inaudible 00:01:47] high, was the after cost. Most folks will leave this parcel alone. I think there's a lot of opportunity for those with those patience to tackle these. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you." And then "PS, the seller also states he has two other properties in New Mexico he's needing to sell. My hope is I can tackle those as well. Incidentally, the property is zoned commercial, vacant. Not sure if it makes it difficult to build on." Steve Butala:                      Make it easier. Jill Dewitt:                           Yeah. "There are farms in the area so I'd be surprised that there is an issue. I have another signed offer with the same zoning closer to town, but densely covered in trees." Okay, we're going to jump in real quick here and I'll answer. I'll put what Kevin put first and then we'll add our comments. Steve Butala:                      Sounds good. Kevin, our moderator. Jill Dewitt:                           Yep. So Kevin already wrote in and said "Aristio, I assume that the property's not in the seller's name. So quiet title will cost about two to $3,000 and take about three months. In three months, you could have done at least six more deals. I would only consider this if the comp value was $50,000 or more. Go for low hanging fruit. Work smarter, not harder." And I really love that. Steve Butala:                      When has Kevin ever given bad advice? Jill Dewitt:                           I know. Steve Butala:                      Not once that I can think of. Jill Dewitt:                           Exactly.

In today's episode of The Speakers Life I talk with Kevin Cottam, speaker on the nomadic lifestyle. What speakers can learn from Harley Davidson branding Non-verbal communication Speaking in the round Understanding your performance space Expanding and contracting Entertainer vs Performer Fredrik Haren Signposts Finding your inner theme Writing 'The Nomadic Mindset' book Finding the stories What does being nomadic mean? The movement of the mind The power of the circle Freedom and flexibility Starving the body The Berber's of Morrocco Three cups of tea From service to hospitality Simplicity and agility Nomadic, builder, settler Seeing the opportunities The gig economy Cognitive flexibility https://www.thenomadicmindset.com Artificial Intelligence Generated Transcript Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors. Hey, there is James Taylor. I'm delighted today to have on the Speakers Life, Kevin Cottam. Kevin is a speaker, and author who writes and things and talks all about the idea of the nomadic mindset. We learn a lot more about that today and how that relates to us as speakers. But he didn't start out as a speaker, he actually started out as a figure skater in his native Canada. And we're going to learn about that how you go from being a figure skater into the world of professional speaking. But today, what he's able to do is he travels all around the world, talking and talking to different types of nomads. And it's my real pleasure to have him on our show today. So welcome, Kevin. It's always a great time to spend with James. Thank you very much. So share with us what's going on in your life just now. Well, what's going on in my life right now is is the book the nomadic mindset never settle for too long is having its live launch in Singapore tomorrow, which I'm very excited about in the in the group thing about it is a fun place. In actual fact, it's going to be a partnership between the wise which is a relocation company, and Chapman CG, which is that executive search company for, for HR professionals only. And it's going to be held at the Harley Davidson show. Wow, that's a classic brand. I mean, amazing. I mean, and I even added I did some research, you know, who rides Harley's? Why do they ride Harley's What is it, and it's really, they are truly nomadic, the ones that go out there. And I was very interested to see some of the qualities and understanding about the freedom and the carefree ness, the community, the ability to just travel and also but most of all, just, you know, the freedom of which is the end the independence, which I think is extremely important. And I think, for all of us as speakers, this is one thing that we may sometimes forget about is this Nomad ism, which is within us, and that we need to constantly bring that forth for our creativity. And I know that you do that an awful lot through all of the work you do. And you've got your tentacles in so many different places. And, and I love that about you because there's like there's no borders with you. And I think that that's it's such a refreshing space to be in. And that's where we speak is without borders, maybe that needs to be a new nonprofit that we started to go. So take us way back. Wait, where did I think I mentioned that you're from Canada, originally. And you started out in the world of figure skating? So how does a figure skater become a professional speaker Tell us about that journey? Well, I mean, I was involved in Figure Skating at a very high level. And I used to choreograph basically with them, and I would coach them along the way to become better performers. Right. And that was really the important thing. And it was also about extracting, you know, like fighter does extract to their inner theme is that I was trying to extract this creativity within figure skaters to make them the best look that they could be at that time. And I think that, so going into speaking was a more of a natural transition, because I went from speaking to filmmaker as a, as a filmmaker, a short dance filmmaker, I was also a dancer. So there was all a variety of different aspects of entertainment. And, but it was all nonverbal, most of my life. So now it was like, Oh, my God, I got to use my voice. And I got to speak in a different way instead of just my physicality, which I think is a very, very different piece. So that's how I sort of transitioned and I, I knew that there was more to life than simply figure skating and I left figure skating and around 2003 however, I did my last show for holiday a nice in 2008, eight. So I think of of a skating rink, you know, that's a big canvas to be working on. You know, you love space, in terms of in terms of speakers, you know, we speak in different sizes of rooms, sometimes it's really small and intimate. The time is a huge arena, that's an arena the other day in Istanbul, and you have to use your your physical energy has to change in the room the way you project. And so what was what were some of the things that you learned from that kind of nonverbal side of being able to communicate on a, in a pretty big space, when you're talking about often thousands of people. I mean, first of all, you have to recognize that if you're in a big space, like a stadium, that generally it is it circling around, just like in the old historical days of the Coliseum, everything is in the circle in the round. And when you are in the circle in the round, there is obviously a different audience all the time. And so you need to be able to pinpoint where certain people are, where the judges are, where the TV cameras are, you need to have this real focus. So you're actually looking at a pretty low level a lot of the time, and instead of actually looking up and, and when you do end up looking up a lot of the time and expanding outwards, it becomes a real challenge for a lot of the skaters. And so it's about, it's about really understanding space. And I think that's one of the things that is very difficult for speakers is they don't understand space, they don't know how to fill the body, the body fills the space. And how do I do that on a proscenium stage, which is most of the time, what speakers are on. And I think that that is you narrowing your focus, instead of expanding and narrowing expanding and expanding and narrowing. And I think that that is one of the things that I also learned from nomadic cultures, is this whole concept of being very expensive, but being able to narrow in and make decisions. And I think that this is also relates back to your space that you're in, because no man is live a lot of the time in these very wide expansive places. So that, again, is something for us as speakers to relate to as to how to how to minimize and also to maximize, in very, very fast way. And I think that that's what also entertainers are having to do on an ongoing basis is, you know, the play stadiums. And, and I, we've talked a lot, and you've talked a lot about presence in the past, and there's a difference between an entertainer and a performer. Right. And I think that this is extremely important is that there are certain entertainers, like I would say that, for example, Tina Turner is a performer. And, and Madonna is an entertainer. And a lot of the entertainers, they need a lot of backup, they need a lot of other stuff around them to make the whole thing and entertainment. Whereas for if you ever experienced Tina Turner, is her presence is so powerful if you can sitting in a 60,000 seat to perform a stadium, and she can come on stage and you're like blown away, and but you may be sitting in the back. And that's that powerful energy. And that, as you have talked about also comes from that authenticity. Yeah, if I came from that real inner self, and as you talk about, I'm reminded of a concert I saw many years ago with with Tony Bennett, in the Royal Albert Hall in London, and came out on stage, you know, right before I came on was probably five and a half thousand 6000 people there. You know, and it's, you know, the come over the beginning, there's an energy, but then one point. So that's the kind of expanding part. And then some point in the set. It all went like this. And it was just him and the mic and the piano player. And it felt like you in a really small little jazz club. And it was just you and him. And he was he was speaking to you, I thought was an incredible skill as a performer to be able to create a connection and communicate in that type of way. So you can be big when you need to be. But then you can also bring people in and you can contract in that way. I love I love. I love the idea of that idea about the entertainer performer. Because I've seen I've seen Tony Bennett's Raiders technical writer and it's not very complex. bottles of water I think some towels and the pianos I think it's actually very simple. So I think he's in that probably that performer camp, you're talking here? Because I think you know, like today, I mean, a lot of the time, you know, we're all asked to be okay, let's if you gotta entertain. And you know, I feel sometimes when I say that, when I hear that it's like, Okay, I'm a stand up comedian or something like that, or I'm a monkey or, you know, you're asking the entertainer, I would prefer to move towards the idea of a performer. And I think that that I think we as speakers. That's a hard transition. And I'm not really sure how it happens, because it really comes from the inside. Yeah. And I think that that is really one of the most challenging things. So for example, I mean, when you see people like Dame Maggie Smith, or you see the great, you know, some of the old great stars, you know, and you just think how do they do that? And the people that can play a game what we're talking about here, people that can can move from theater to camera, so it's like why to very narrow right is how do you do that? It's a very different skill. Absolutely. say they're able to do this based so you talk about this idea of nomadic mindset. So first of all, let's Where did this idea of of being interested in nomads and nomadic lifestyle nomadic mindset, where did this originate from? Tell us that that that inception of the journey is great. I love telling this part because you know, Frederick Heron very well. And, you know, so I think a lot of it is about signposts. And so what I share with you is this is about signposts. And it's about looking at signposts and finding when they come into your life or appear in your life. And you think, you know, maybe that's useful at some point, and maybe it's not. However, what's happened was, and I guess, 2017, I realized when I went home to Canada at one point, and winter, it was go back to Adam, November 28. And I know December 28. And it was cold this one year. And I thought, I live in Singapore part time and I thought, why am I coming back here at this time of year? There was no reason before there was a reason because of my mother. But she passed away for two years, but I can continue to do the same old same old bread. Anyway, I decided I'm a global nomads, so I don't need to do this anymore. And that's when I started to think about this is a brand. So then I had I got a mentorship with with Frederick. And when I go back to Singapore, Frederick said to me, and I had my first session with Frederick case, which was do the inner theme, right is to extract that anything from it. And he got curious, what is a global Nomad? And so he asked me a lot of questions. You know, what is it? How does it feel? What would you do if you're a global Nomad, etc. And then he would do his entomology and, you know, to look at many ways about what is the word? What is no man? What does it mean? And through the conversation, and he said, Well, you know, you need to write a book if you're going to be credible. And you need to if you're going to be a great speaker, a successful speaker that you need to have a platform. So is it what's the platform? It's around the Nomad. Isn't it? Nice. And yeah, it is. It's called the nomadic mindset. And he went, Wow, that's a great idea. I said, I've never heard of that. I've never really thought about it. I've never heard anybody speak. And he said, that's your platform. That's your theme. So I thought, Okay, so what's that theme? And so then he said, Okay, now you need to research to write the book. Oh. And he said, Yeah, you need to talk to at least 100 executives and different sized companies. And then you need to spend time with at least three nomadic cultures around the world. And I went, oh. So now this has become a real problem in my mind into my heart, like, Oh, no, what about how I gonna do this? And so anyway, I said, Can I just do the Nomad stuff by just anthropologically going to the, you know, the online and just checking out? He said, No, no. You have to go and live with them, you have to go and eat with them, you have to go in and listen to them, you have to go and observe them, you have to spend time with them on their daily, you just have to be that why because this is the experience. And these are stories that will enrich not only the findings that you have when you combine executive, and also the qualities of nominates, but now you will have a body of work. So that's how it came about. So I set off the journey went off and practice one for what he does that a number of speakers he's done in a theme, helping them pretty car and finding those themes. And the reason I've heard him talk a number of the speakers as well about why you should go and do what you've just done, which is going to interview all those people go and live that way really go you know, go deep, go deep. And and he said, if you don't do that the danger is you become which is like talking about music, you become like a cover band. Yeah, you're covering other people's songs, your UK, many other people stories, instead of being an original last second, David Barry, or, you know, someone else telling these stories. I'm you know, I sat there one night with this tribe in Mongolia. And I asked him What does being romantic mean to you? And and then you tell that story or working with that co what is what does that mean to you? These are your stories. Now other people are going to now come and use your stories, and they're going to repeat your stories. Originally, I think I think that's when you know, you've you've kind of arrived when you hear third party, your story is getting repeated. You know, okay, that's why it says like, you know, they're doing your cover story, right? So, I give the nomadic mindset. And, you know, you what, how does that relate to speakers, though? this audience? You know, speakers up here that we have to do we travel, obviously, as speakers. But is there a deeper sense of this, this link between magic and being a professional speaker? Well, first of all, I think that we have to look at what does nomadic mean. And I think that most people think that nomadic means to move from place to place to find new pastures. That's a physical geographical movement. So here comes the stories, right, so I'm sitting in Mongolia lounge, and there's a woman who Frederick is also there with me. And he says, You need to ask her a couple of questions. And so I asked her, What is the meaning of Nomad, and she is the head of the branding Council of Mongolia. And she said, Well, as I said, most people think of it as moving from place to place to find new pastures. And she said, no, no. She paused. And she looked, she said, No, it means the movement of the mind, the movement of the mind, the movement of the mind. And so if this is the movement of the mind, then what it how does that? How What's that got to do with speakers, speakers, as speakers, we have to keep our mind moving. We have to keep our ideas moving, we cannot stick with one story and just beat it to death. And change just a few words. And whichever we need to find new stories, as we've all talked about, but that's being nomadic. And that's been moving the mind around moving, how can I contextualize this in a different way? How can I see it from the audience's point of view in a very different way? Who am I truly talking to? And how can I be one with them. And it's about if you are a nomadic, in this feeling you are about community, community is very strong for nomads, and it's about getting yourself into the community. And it's also about embracing the circle. So like you said, about this circle here, on the painting, it's nomads, as you know, will sit in circles, that is called in certain parts of the world, that's called a modulus. And they sit in a circle on the ground, there's nothing in between you, there's no tables, there's nothing. And this goes back historically, because that's the power of the circle, the energy that goes around it. And that as a speaker, we need to see even if we're on the proscenium is that we need to see this as a complete circle in front of us. So when we're part of that embrace of the circle, it's like people putting the arms around you, that's what everybody's doing, and you're in it. So this is part of the nomadic thinking, as we come back to, as you said, about skating is about that circle in the room. It's an embrace of the circle. So that's a piece that I think that we can relate to, as it's what we need for speakers for actual performance. And, but it's there's no madness, of being able to be flexible, the freedom to speak on different platforms to be freedom to speak in different with different people in subjects. And also, it is this adaptability and flexibility to be able to move. For example, within a speech, you know how sometimes we get lost. And we have to go, that's a signpost for us to go there. It's not like, but it's a signpost is it? Ah, let's go around that and see what we can discover. And I actually sometimes I even make a point. If I feel I'm getting a little bit too complacent in speeches, I will actually put send myself down dark alleys on purpose. In order to just raised heart rate a little bit closer, I'm getting out of this, I have no idea. Because it feels it feels it feels more live, then the audience It feels like for them, it's always going to feel Wow, this, you know, we didn't we didn't expect that. I didn't expect that as a speaker. So you're creating that, that sense of community, I guess, as well. And there's a there's an interplay there. So when we think about nomads, the thing I think about a lot of nomads is obviously a sense of freedom, freedom of the mind, you talk about this idea of agility, and I think it's especially interesting just now, where you having a lot of millennials, who are deciding not to buy traditional houses, and they buy things like tiny houses, living, you know, living in a different way. I think this we're starting to see this as a trend that's going on. But there is that thing, whether you know, I know from my family background into more than that Gypsy side of things, Roman ships he's in you have the boat caravans of Gypsy, so there's something that travels around, or whether you have you Mongolia, imagine it'd be the 10th, or the Middle East, you're gonna have to tense. So we do need a certain amount of things, which provide a holiness, a sense that will no matter where we're traveling, there has that when it comes to speakers of using anything in terms of speakers that what is that tent that they're carrying around for either physically or mentally those things which allow them to have some sense of comfort, and familiarity, even though everything else is very, very different. I think that you know, I don't know about yourself, but I often will take things that are familiar with me in my kit, or bag and like you have done, and so that I know, those are familiar pieces for me. But I also like to think I like to be able to explore and to take things which are not. So I love to be able to explore a hotel room, or a hotel and complete and define what, what is what is new, what is something that I can maybe put into my speech, if I'm in this hotel, what can I then think about as a new piece. Because you know what's important, and with any entertainer or any performer is that you have to find something new in every performance so that it doesn't become stagnant. So it's about working on something new, it's about maybe a new story, it's maybe a new twist a new word, or whichever, but it's about finding something new. So that feels fresh all the time. So I think that there's things that you carry with you. And you don't want a lot. So yes, the nomads carry things with them. Big, but they don't carry a lot simply because they know they have to move. They don't want a lot of possessions, they only want things that are useful and used. They don't want to things instead of pretty things or whichever, you know, they don't necessarily have that or if there is something which is a spiritual placing, for example, they are in most of the yurts, they because they're Buddhist in Mongolia, they will have a section which is like their spiritual prayers and their their trinkets and there are everything that goes along with that. What they do, they're able to pack up in 20 minutes, tear everything down in 20 minutes and build in 20 minutes. So there's a lightness that come there's a light. And with that lightness, if we carry too many things with us, like a you know, like the our equipment and things like that that's carrying heavy stuff. It's carrying things, we need to be light as speakers like to be ready physically, mentally and spiritually, to be on stage as a complete lightness. If that is doing yoga is doing vocal, it's doing exercises eating like it what is what is it, it's about keeping that body like, for example, when I was a dancer, is that I had a hard time digesting meat. Now, I don't know how this has got to do with speaking but it's about the lightness that you want to have when you're performing is it there's no point in having a heavy meal before you go on. If I knew that I had a hard time digesting meat. And so I became a vegetarian. And through that I was able to then digest very quickly. And I believe that in fact, you want to as a body, you want to starve it a bit before you get on stage. Drink water, but starve your body. And I say starve it because you are then opening up to lightness and you're opening up to more freedom. And you're opening up to possibilities. And that's very nomadic. Yes. Think, I think, what do you do? Yeah, I'm exactly the same, I don't eat before, before I speak. I usually am drinking quite a lot of water in advance of it. Because I know it also not so much in terms of inside the man's bed in terms of the body and the body. I know it takes about two hours for that water to be fully you go into the cells and everything. So I'm drinking quite a lot of water. The only thing I'll occasionally have before I go on stage is maybe a banana or something very, very late. But when I come offstage, you know, yeah, you because I think you're you've been using all the energy on stage. And you might not have eaten, and you come offstage. And I think there is. And so actually, I've seen a number of conference organizers recently that really understood speakers. And I did one recently, where as soon as we came offstage, it was actually in, in Bogota, Colombia, coming off stage, and they actually had some massage therapists there as well. And that I mean, because you obviously you're using your body, I find most people will hold tension somewhere in their body. Anyone speaking. So that could be in your hands, it could be your neck in the back and neck, legs, wherever it is. That is great. I love absolutely love that to be able to have something like that. And then I've seen another friend of mine was speaker. He worked with a client recently. And they said, they asked him in advance, but we can advance. What do you love? What's your kind of food you really love? And we're going to make sure that when you come off stage after you've done meeting people, we're going to have that there for nothing. That's awesome. That's really nice. That's that's going from service to hospitality. This is it, which is I know is a big thing in a lot of nomadic cultures, this idea of hospitality, as well. So what can we be doing as speakers to be taking some of that idea of hospitality being welcoming and and how we work that with our clients and our audiences? is a great question. And I think that it's really leads very strongly into the the understanding of what the manga what the Berbers do in Morocco, is that you've all heard of mint tea, right? And the tea Sam and Moroccan tea seminar where they do this dance up and down to pour it into this little shot glass. But do people don't know that there's a real history behind that and the meaning. And it really is, you have to have three cups of tea. And the whole idea of three cups of tea there's a sir horror and proverb which says the first cup is as bitter as death. The second is as mild as life. And the third is as light as loud as a beautiful proverb. And that can be anything in our lives. However, the first cup of tea is very important. And you start the conversations and you start to and it's all about extracting information, sharing information. And then you go through the second cup of tea, and then you go through the third cup of tea, but you want to prolong the tea as much as possible, because you're gaining for them. It's about gaining safety for the road is gaining, who are your alliances? Who are what is the information that you're gathering and sharing? And why are you here, and you do it completely in the round without tables so that you are there is nothing between you. And I think that the important thing about this is that it's understandable when you move around from different in the in the Sahara to different homes, and to different places, which you might be a tent, or it might be concrete, one room, whatever it might be, is that their tradition is they must welcome you. And they don't know who you are, but they must welcome you. And this whole thing of the three cups of tea is an extremely important and never is the same as British right is having their tea ceremony. It's about the social aspect of habit, we are too much into the speed of transactional information, get that tea over with coffee over that drink over, you know, get on with the next part of business. No, this is about getting this is about developing relationships. This is all about relationship. And there is there is different in terms of the cultures as well. And going on there I met the first when I first moved to America, to the US. And obviously things are much more transactional there is Get to the point. And and I know that they say in Asia, that that it's not like that as much. But I think that's not true. I think there's parts of Asia, which are very quite transactional. And other parts which are a little bit little bit slower, as well. And for me, that was always a case of like just trying to figure out which Who am I am I interacting with here? Am I interacting with a very North American more transactional style of culture, clash in the UK is quite a lot like that now as well. Yeah, my working with him, for example, in Middle East or Japan will have long periods of just conversation warming, things up seeing building that trust before you even get into and I think we can fall foul of sometimes of not recognizing it. If you're a nomad, moving into a new place and you field with a new culture you haven't interact with not recognizing that difference and trying to figure out, you know, where do we where do we go with this? Yeah, I think that, you know, your original question was really how do we deal with that with the, you know, clients or even I, you can actually look at it as an audience. And so when you're performing in actual fact is, what are the three cups of tea that I'm having with my audience? And how am I not necessarily gaming or gathering information, but you are in a very sort of energetic way you're gathering information as you feel the room? Because you're that you have these pulsations. Right. And I think that from not only that, but how you are sharing the information, how is it that you're giving it to them, and I think that it's and that's what's going to hold the for the 45 minutes or the tour 30 minutes or 20 minutes, whatever you're doing is remembering these common little nomadic traits is about we are sharing, we are gathering information we are serving, and we are there as one, not just as many people but as one. And how to translate the topic that you're now known for this nomadic mindset into what we call a fundable speech or a fundable keynote, where a corporate client will say, actually, this is right, have you have you had to tweak the messaging and and think about how they relate to that CEO who has a billion dollar company and has all these stresses and the shareholders are giving them hassle and MMOs new product launch? How do you relate the nomadic mindset to that type of audience? Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I not sure that I've hit it just yet. However, I suspect that because this is relatively new in the last year. So I'm playing around tweaking with it, I have so much content, and so many different directions that I can go with a nomadic mindset, that it's about, you know, being simple like nomads, instead of putting way too much into it. And I would say that, you know, I'm playing still with what works and what doesn't work. I'm mixing a variety of story and metaphor of the nomadic journeys, and with also with what is in the real world, and what needs to be done. So there's a very practical piece in one of my speeches, because in the book, I actually don't just talk about the nomadic mindset. But I talked about three mindsets that live within all of us, and one is nomadic one is builder, and when a settler. And I think that these are extremely important for executives to understand that in one way, we have all those winners, we have a dominance of one more than another, remembering that we have a variety of different individuals within our company, but they have different mindsets. And they have, and they may have the same men similar skills, but the mindset is what puts it into action, those skills. And so you need to have people in the right places at the right time for the right evolution of your organization. And then you can also look at mindset, these mindsets from a trend of evolutionary, of an organization where they in a mind nomadic women, they build their women, the settler, and they become dinosaur, because they did not transition back to becoming nomadic in their thinking pattern, and their strategies and visions. So I'm playing around with a lot of the different story. And so for example, tomorrow on Thursday, I'm starting to use start off with the desert. And, and I think that what is also very important here is is that I talked about the desert, and then I saw I transition from there into isn't a beautiful place that I taught really, it can be people can see it from different forms. And this is about mindset. And then I talked about this fellow, say exactly, and I say exactly says that nomads see everything is an opportunity. So consequently, then I say okay, everything is an opportunity, even the desert is an opportunity to them. And then I move it back to well, you know, it was an opportunity for you to come today but accept the invitation come to Harley, the Harley and try out a Harley. But also to learn something new. This is a this is about finding that nomadic ness in what is an opportunity. So I twist, I'm trying to twist things around. And I think I think the topic you speak on as well. There also is a lot of I can see a lot of correlations there around where we're going in terms of few your work with agility. simplicity, you mentioned there as well, the use of tools. And we're having a whole bunch of different types of tools. Now artificial intelligence, all these kind of different tools are still fundamentally there, their tools to allow us to do different things, obviously, we're seeing a huge rise in the gig economy. teams. So all these things as you talk about some of these things in in this nomadic mindset, I actually there's a lot of, there's a lot of interesting commonalities of what's going on just now in the in the broader world, what we can, we can apply. So you've got the book coming out. It's already out actually great. It's, it's online, it says, and it's out in the bookstores in Singapore now, which is great. And tomorrow will be the live launch, I just want to talk a little bit, just go back to what you were just saying about the Giga home and the change in the data, you know, digital transformation, etc. In this particular form. And we talked about digital nomads today. And I think that there's a very important factor that one of the people that I interviewed it is Carolyn Hendricks from sabbatical in, in Estonia. And she says, you know, we have to get rid of the old agreements that are created politically, and also, institutionally within organizations, there's a lot of old agreements of how we see things, how we do things, how we say, No, this is in this channel, this is in this box, this is in this box. And that is what today is about. Because we're moving fast. And we're using the digital, we're moving out of those old agreements. And we need to think that as speakers as well as we need to move out of the old agreements we have made with ourselves, and also how we see speaking, is it's I think that we need to start looking at it from a much more broader perspective. And because you know, how we get channeled into, this is the way things are. And, you know, when we look at the younger speakers of today, they didn't have those borders, and we need to get rid of the borders. And I don't end the mental borders as well as the physical borders, which of course everybody hates, but then you know, you as a gypsy coming back from that. Gypsies hate borders, everybody, you know, so if there is none. So I think that you know, what you're talking about there as extremely valuable as today is this nomadic mindset, we need to we can look at it from a perspective of what's happening in the gig economy, digital economy, everything, as you're talking about. And but the other thing that I think that we need to think about James and and that is, I think those are long for speakers, but also, what I've been talking with digital transformation is and that is that is this concept of interconnectivity is that we talk an awful lot about Ave any connection, we need connection, yeah, we need connection with the people in whichever. But this is, this is only of small piece, when you see and spend time with nomads, and if you think back actually in your in, in your inner cellular DNA of your Gypsy knows is that there's an interconnectedness with not only yourself, but others animals and universe, spirit, you name, it is all interconnected. And when you watch nomads in the world, in their own land, it's just complete walking of interconnectivity, they know everything that's going on, they can tap into it. Now, as I talked to people in the engineers, and whichever and digital transformation is that they're not interconnected enough, it's still siloed. And this is going to be a danger. And this is a danger. I believe, for all of us. When we move into these. It's like, I see an app. Okay, but why isn't that app completely? Why is it just this app? And why is it not interconnected with another, another and another of another? And so we need to have these interconnections? I think that's where we need to go is thinking that way. And I think that's that's maybe a wandering around that that optimism, Holly Davison's perfect example. Where in terms of the values, values I would imagine of Harley Davidson is around freedom. That is gonna be around freedom. But at the same time, they have very strong community. And they I mean, they have their badges and, and even the partners of the Harley Davidson riders, they have their own language festivals. So I think that the idea of freedom, it doesn't have to be an ego individualistic thing. And I think that's really one of the things you have the nomadic side and how the game is, and actually, you can get an increasing level of freedom when you are actually part of a community. So is it isn't is, what was that expression as the phrase that, you know, the ability to hold two contrasting ideas in the mind the same time. And I think a lot of time we're talking about freedom is to have as an individualistic type of thing any of the can be that's that's one way of looking at it. But I think in a lot of those kind of communities is the balancing those two different things. Yeah. And I think that's what comes into today the skill of what's called cognitive flexibility. And I think that that's extremely important there. I could go on about a test study that was done with the him bu in Namibia, and also Westerners. And which was very interesting to study and to study kind of goes like this, that they were given equally the same questions. And what came out first of all, was the Himba were much more cognitively flexible than the Westerner. And so then they went back and they said, okay, but, you know, the the Westerners, you're able to take sidesteps, you're allowed to look around your life to expand your thinking pattern here. So only when they were told that they were allowed to do that, then they came up, pretty much equal. So what is that saying? You know, it saying a lot about our educational system is the way we think that we're thinking, Okay, linear. Know, this is the wrong way, as far as I'm concerned, that is that circle is we need to think circular. Absolutely. So the book is now where's the best place people to go to learn more about the book? And also that you you're speaking to what you're doing just now? Yeah, I mean, the best place is at my website, which is www dot the nomadic mindset.com. And then as close as you know, there's the hash tag, the nomadic mindset. And then it most of the stuff is there online and on the website at this point in time, and it's growing as we go along. And I think that, you know, just following me on LinkedIn, and or Facebook, I have a fake nomadic mindset, facebook, facebook page, as well. And I think that, you know, just following in that particular, and I'm really open to chat chatting with people in as much as possible about this, because I have to say that I believe this is a movement. And this is the movement that I want to share. Because I think that is I think the world and we have speakers and a lot of people have become very narrow in our thinking, even though think we think we're very expansive. But I think we need to be able to much more expensive. And so we need to have that flow back and forth. And so that's why I want to create this as a movement of expansion. Well, it's been a joy seeing obviously, your speakers you member as well as the joy seeing how your career starting to flourish with the book. And you've really you found your, your thing, your founder, amazing. And so now it's just a case of like building now you can be on stage, I'm sure. All over the world traveling all over the world sharing this message is a great message. So Kevin, thank you so much for coming on today. For all the links here on the show notes. If we will go and check out Kevin, check out the book, get a copy of the book as well. I wish you all the best wherever you are in the world. Hopefully we'll get a chance to share stage together at some point in the future. I want to share a stage with you so we can talk about Nomadism. And thank you very much, James, this has been a brilliant time. I mean, you're a great host, and you're a great guy. So I mean, thank you very much for your wisdom because you really have you have helped me in a considerable amount. And I think that you know, it's going to happen in the future that I can learn a lot more from you. And so I like that trade in the new year. Thank you very much. How would you like to get paid to travel the world to share your message and expertise? How did it feel to get paid 5000 10,000 $25,000 to travel first class and stay in five star hotels in exotic locations. What I've just described is the lifestyle of international keynote speakers. And you can join me and over 100 of the world's best keynote speakers, and speaker trainers as they reveal their secrets to becoming a better speaker and getting booked to travel the world as a professional keynote speaker and Bestival. As it's an online summit You don't even have to leave home plus it's not going to cost you a single dollar euro pound ruble peso or yen. If you sign up for the free pass at International Speakers Summit calm you're going to receive access to never seen before video interviews over 40 of the world's best keynote speakers. In addition to this, you'll get access to archived interviews from some of last year's summit guests. So in total, you'll be able to watch in depth interviews with over 100 incredible speakers and speaker trainers. You'll have to find a theme for your keynote presentation how to craft your talk how to get booked as a speaker, how much to charge and ways to get paid to speak on stages all over the world. So what are you waiting for? Head over to internationalspeakerssummit.com now

Do you enjoy comics? Do you enjoy the off-stage opinions of comics? Well we have show friend Kevin Gootee (@KevinGootee) back talking about his Amazon Prime series, now in its 7th season, Comics Watching Comics. Featuring all new comics, all new critique, but even more funny. So Kevin hangs out with the Somethings and we talk […]

NOT A MEMBER OF THE "HYPER CONSCIOUS NATION" YET? Visit www.thehyperconsciouspodcast.com to get access to our behind the scenes content, courses, training programs, articles and build your dream team!!! This week's episode is a little different! So Kevin has been talking to a lot of the listeners on the phone, and learning a lot about you! The one thing that is consistent is that we all have difficulties going on in our lives. So for this episode, Alan interviewed Kevin about his past and who he is today. From Kevin "I never felt like I could chase my dreams... I thought only certain people did that. I just didn't have the confidence and that's something I don't want other people to feel. It's so amazing learning about our awesome listeners, but the one thing that a lot of them tell me is that they're not very confident and afraid to face their fears. I totally understand that, that was me for 27 years. My goal in this episode is for you to realize IF I CAN DO IT, ANYONE CAN!" Start facing small fears, start dealing with small insecurities, but just start... even if its small.

In today’s episode, we review the marketing audit of Kevin's business and we have a live coaching call with him to discuss what his biggest marketing opportunities are, and you get to be a fly on the wall. Kevin Burgin is the host of CJOB Radio’s show, The Main Ingredient. He is also responsible for the Winnipeg Beer Festival and Manitoba Pizza Week. Kevin’s entrepreneurialism, enthusiasm, and drive, is making a big impact on the local food and beverage scene. If you enjoyed the Master Modern Marketing podcast, please subscribe, rate and review the show. You can also keep in contact with the show sponsor, Farmers Marketing, at www.FarmersMarketing.ca, or www.facebook.com/farmersmktng. See below for some of Kevin's main takeaways and action items from our call.  Main takeaways from the audit and coaching call: 1) Improve technical issues, such as: - adding Google Analytics and the Facebook Pixel  - Reduce image size by using a tool like TinyPNG.com - Determine if moving his sites to a new host will improve speed or not.  2) Ongoing Marketing:  - Work with vendors to produce guest blog posts throughout the year.  - Tighten the analytics components to better capture the true value of the festivals. This will help attract more vendors but more importantly, demonstrate to all parties the sheer value these events create.  New Tools: 1) Linktr.ee/ to add multiple links to an Instagram bio. See live example here: www.instagram.com/farmersmktng. Look at our bio.  2) Headliner.app to make enticing video thumbnails for audio files since you can share strickly audio files on social media. See the video thumbnail for this post as an example.  3) Use Funnelytics to map our your digital marketing campaigns. Its mapping tool is free and total transformational for marketers. See this real-world example of Funnelytics at work below.  Summarizing the audit: Kevin's content, social media, and engagement with his audience and vendors are stellar. As mentioned in the podcast, his business is in an enviable position. The hard things like content and engagement are already in place and the technical changes are easy to knock out. Well done, Kevin!   To be a guest on the Master Modern Marketing podcast, and get a FREE marketing audit and LIVE coaching call, please apply HERE! Read the full transcript: Kevin  0:00  I've already checked it out. I'm on the page right now. That's three things I'm stealing from you immediately. Lionel Johnston  0:06  I folks, this is Lionel Johnson with a master Modern Marketing podcast and that was Kevin Bergen. from Kevin Bergen. com Kevin is a host of CJOB Radio's show The Main Ingredient. He is also responsible for the Winnipeg Beer Festival and Manitoba pizza week Kevin's entrepreneurialism enthusiasm and drive are making a big impact on the local food and beverage scene here in Winnipeg. In today's episode, we review a marketing audit of his business. And we also have a live coaching call to discuss what his biggest marketing opportunities are. And you as the listener today get to be a fly on the wall. As you heard in a short clip, he found a number of great ideas implement in his business immediately. So, I encourage you to stick with us right to the end. As I'm confident if you do, you will find the exact same thing for your business. So, let's cue the intro and dive right in. Announcer  0:53  We really love marketing, telling stories and sharing ideas with others to help them achieve their goals. If you enjoy growing businesses through digital marketing or would link to learn how to take your knowledge and skills to the next level. You're in the right place. Welcome to the master Modern Marketing Podcast. Michael Johnson. Lionel Johnston  1:15  Hey, Kevin. Welcome to the master Modern Marketing Podcast. How are you doing today? Kevin  1:19  I'm pretty good. How are you? Thanks for having me. Lionel Johnston  1:22  Yeah. Hey, my pleasure. I appreciate you coming on the show here when this podcast was in development. And just in its infancy, you are one of the first people that I thought of that would be an excellent guest to be able to have on the podcast. And I know we've talked about this in the past a number of times. But just to give you a quick overview. Generally, the process with the master Modern Marketing podcast is that will meet with small business owners like yourself, and really dive into their business and try and find some opportunities that we can help these people to help their own business. So, we're going to dive into some things on your own business and see what's great, and what are some opportunities for improvement. And then at the end of the podcast, will basically do a summary and pick one or two priorities and send you on your way. So, you can tackle those things on your own or have someone help you out with that is that sounds like a good process for you today. Kevin, Kevin  2:18  that sounds great. I appreciate you taking the time. Lionel Johnston  2:21  All right. My pleasure. So, we are I should mention, we are in the circle of trust here. And all of us have worked or it's on our businesses. So, it's not to point out anything that someone's doing bad to make them look bad or make fun of them. Again, it's really a learning opportunity for all of us to be able to get better businesses, and then share this with our listeners. And they can apply the same principles to their businesses. So how about Kevin, why don't we just jump right in here. And if I could have you actually introduce yourself, if I could have you say your name other than just Kevin and the company and companies that you represent. And if you have an interesting adding anecdote that you'd like to share with us, please feel free. Kevin  2:58  My name is Kevin Bergen. And one of the organizers of the Winnipeg Beer Festival and the organizer of Manitoba pizza week, I also have a food show on which is all about food is called the main ingredient. And a lot of those events probably came about because of my hosting the show, there's a lot of different small businesses out there that I felt were a lot of mom and pop shops that didn't really have the opportunity to market themselves properly. So, these events give smaller businesses and smaller breweries the opportunity to do that, you know, Lionel Johnston  3:35  that that's great. And you're definitely filling a need in the market. And I've been to too many of your events and festivals over the last couple of years. And, you know, I really am very impressed with the business model that you have created, you know, a couple things I find that is quite interesting one is you have your radio show, which, you know, helps, really helps you build your personal and helps in terms of your network and being able to connect with people and gives you a platform to be able to meet, you know, reach the masses, and then through the festivals, you know, you're also producing value for the business owners as you're mentioning, but also for consumers. So, it's, it's interesting how many people that you're able to provide value for a place to connect in a place for these businesses to grow. So, so definitely, kudos to you for being able to see an opportunity. And more importantly, I'm really impressed with you just taking action and getting things done, you know, and actually, some of the boat Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. Kevin  4:36  No, no, it's all You go ahead. Lionel Johnston  4:38  Oh, I know, I was just going to mention one of the challenges that business owners can get in when we're living in the world of the internet is there's so much information and often, we get stuck, where we want things to be perfect. And then we'll take action. And, you know, there's a lot of great things in your business. But really a lot of respect to you, Kevin, for, for taking action and figuring out things as you've been building your business and helping people out. So, I just wanted to start here, just to be able to say that, that it's been, you know, have a lot of respect for you. And it's been impressive watching from afar, you building what you're building over there? Kevin  5:12  No, no, you know, what we've known each other, obviously, for we've known each other for a while, you know, personally, but kind of professionally in the last couple of years, and what you said about things not being perfect, or they don't have to be perfect is exactly that sometimes I found I was probably the kind of person that wanted everything to be perfect before I actually launch anything instead of just, you know, doing your research, starting a business or creating an opportunity and tweaking and learning as you go, because, again, there is a lot of information out there, but there are a lot of people such as yourself, that can help you help guide you through it, once you have things going to kind of tweak the machine and make it as perfect as it can be as you're running your business. Lionel Johnston  5:54  Yeah, that's a great point Kevin and actually have on one of my pages on the farmers website, then, you know, unless you speak with a fancy marketing agency is likely that you don't need one a, you know, and what I found from a lot of business owners and people like yourself is, yeah, it's just that little bit of tweaking or pointing something out that should change or could get better and then you can set them you know, on their way and they can take action. So Kevin  6:19  as I say, you and I go back and forth even from text messages and messenger on little pieces of software that make your life easier all the time. Like you have a like this deep bag of tricks that you always flog everything that you find him you know, he may want to try that you're trying to do this you know you may want to use that so that all that stuff really helps Lionel Johnston  6:40  for sure for sure. So, let Kevin let's dive right into the first section here which is the audit review and how about just before we do that in the spirit of you know, your beer festival. I ended up getting a couple local beers. So, I've got some barn hammer for trader in front of me and great you know, the one great city brewing monkey trailer Pale Ale and what we're going to have here while we enjoy our time together in podcast is a Trans-Canada Brewing the Blue-Beary Beer I've had at one time before it was it was pretty awesome. So, I'm going to be enjoying that while we talked the other night. You're saying you've got a local beer on your end as well as that right? Kevin  7:17  Yeah, I got my boys from Torque got the woody Belgian. But now that you've rambled on and said, how many beers you haven't your place. I'm kind of mad that we didn't do this in person now. Lionel Johnston  7:25  Wow, we should have but plans change sometimes. Right? So... Alright. Well, how about I'm going to open this beer here and get it going. This may not be typical on the podcast. But we're all ready to go and how we do a quick Cheers. And we'll jump into the audit review. Ready? 321. Kevin  7:41  Cheers. Lionel Johnston  7:42  Cheers. All right. And someone will be figuring out trying to figure out how we got the cheers noise when we're in different places. But you know, in our bag of tricks. Okay, so Kevin, let's dive right into this audit review. And actually, in the podcast notes, I'll be able to paste us some of the information from the audit. So, you know, future podcast, guests can get a bit of an idea of what the types of things are, that we're looking at. And I won't get into tons of detail. And I know you've had a few moments to review this as well. But, you know, since you have a number of different websites, I focus specifically on the one has a beer festival website for, for, for the purposes of this podcast, at least. Okay. But really, I looked at, first of all, the speed of the website and then the technical aspects, you know, which those are very closely related, and then the content and then your social media aspect as well. I didn't get into just to, you know, what I made it to too long, but I didn't dive into you know, really deep into SEO and backlinks and those sorts of things that are a little more technical than that, what we need to talk about today, but generally, that's, that's what I was looking at here. And, you know, what, have basically an A or C or, or an F grade. And between the two different areas, you know, if you look at speed, and technical and content and social are two different categories. Really, the as you see here, the biggest area to improve is on this the speed and technical side, and you've got lots of great imagery and some videos on your website. And those sometimes, depending on how things are uploaded. Can you know, slow down a website, I've also found that your host really makes one of the biggest differences in how fast your website can get. I know with farmers website, we got it up and running and but still hit a wall until we switched, you know, our host, and we were able to get a bump and speed there. But if we look at some different results here, Kevin. So, you have you know, like a see with your speed score and mobile a 19 out of 100 and desktops a little bit better. Is there anything there that surprises you at all? Or is that similar to either what you were expecting? Or you already knew that? Kevin  9:52  Yeah, I knew I definitely wasn't it wasn't premium, because I know there are things that can be changed in the back end that I want to change. I just haven't had time to change it. I'm surprised about a couple of the apps I know the page sizes are kind of big because some of the pictures need to be slim down the rather large and you and I talked about that before using good tools when I'm uploading pictures, not putting in ones that are rather large. So, I have another time to clean that up. So, it's surprising but not shocking, I would Lionel Johnston  10:22  say Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the image size. That was one thing when I first got into working on websites, you know, I didn't realize that you can upload a six-megabyte picture, you know, but using something like tiny p amp G, you know, really shrink that quite a bit and praising. Yeah, and Kevin, I know, you know a lot about this, but also, when you're doing site speed scores, you know, just taking one moment in time really isn't fair to a business or a website, because if there's a number of factors that can impact a website score, right, you know, total traffic, you know, and that that area and a whole bunch of things, right, you really going to Kevin  10:59  win. I know, in general, this one is probably you know, of course, it may be different on different days. But in general, I know that the things that it's failing or giving me different grades on are pretty accurate. Yeah, I know that you don't mean Yeah, Lionel Johnston  11:11  perfect. Well, and I'd say one thing that's important as you look at your business as well, especially with the, you know, the pizza fest and beer Fest, that those that at least at this point are more seasonal, where you have one big event. So, it's a little bit different than being in the e-commerce world where every millisecond really is making a big difference, right. So, you do have a bit of an advantage there where it's somewhat a captive audience, that people will find you anyway. But still, there's a lot of competition on the website. And for sure, speed matters, you know, and again, I know, I'm not telling anything that you don't know, in terms of the other improvements, you know, I want to ask you about, we're really the big things that we're most striking with some of the different tags and codes that I didn't find at least, and maybe they're there on there. But it didn't appear that you had Google Analytics on the at least this one site, and I know you aren't running Google AdWords. So that code wouldn't be there, of course, and then the big one is that, you know, the Facebook pixel as well. So, are those tools that you've looked at, at adding or, you know, have you made a conscious effort just not to have them on your, your website? Kevin  12:19  No, those are tools that I again, want to add. But time is an issue for with, with, with multiple events and multiple things, it's either, you know, I pay someone to do it, or I buckle down and add them myself. And, you know, for sure to improve the performance of the site and get more people to the site, Lionel Johnston  12:36  for sure. Now, you do an excellent job on the social side. And content side, I'll get to that just next Are you do run any Facebook ads, or Instagram ads currently, Kevin  12:47  right? When the events are coming, I do for sure, I don't do an all year round. And, the beer festival is going to be in year three. So, year three is, it's a lot easier, it's not the first time out of the gate. So, you kind of has a capital audience that gets larger and larger every year you do it. So probably a month or two before the event is when we really start ramping up with Facebook ads, and different kind of advertising and stuff like that. Lionel Johnston  13:14  Okay, well, great. And, you know, obviously, want to look at all of those areas. But the ones that really would stand out the most for me would definitely be getting that Google Analytics code on there. And then that the Facebook pixel, because once they're there, then you don't need to think about them anymore, right. And, but then you're able to go back and utilize them to help with your business. And I'll actually come back to the Google Analytics code when we talk about the vendors you work with. And in a few moments, anyway, those are some of the main improvements on the technical side. And then again, moving on to the content and social media side, you know, you have mostly always there and really been doing a super job is quite impressed with just the sheer volume of content that you're able to come up with. And the quality of the imagery, even then, you know, how some of the social posts are written the other, they're very, you know, cleverly written, and, you know, and getting a lot of attention. So, congratulations on, that definitely is a great thing that you're doing for your business. Kevin  14:15  Thanks. I appreciate that. That part of it as well, because of the job I do that part of it isn't a lot of work to me, you know what I mean? It just that's kind of the nature of the business. So, um, yeah, I appreciate that. It's, it's good to know them doing something properly. Lionel Johnston  14:29  Yeah, you know, I think that, you know, the content is great, but also what it was even more impressive, you know, looking at it, from my perspective, is the consistency, you know, and that's common, where someone can have a whole flurry of activity, but then, you know, it dwindles over time, but you're, you know, constantly engaging with people and trying to connect with businesses and connect with those consumers. So, so great, great work on that, actually. Kevin  14:52  And that industry is not really hard, right? People like beer, exactly like to socialize, I like beer, and I like to socialize. So, it's a, it's a no brainer Lionel Johnston  14:59  for. So, when one note I made, Kevin is that you're really in what I would consider an enviable position when I look at the audit. And what I mean, there is, if you had a website that was super-fast, and you had your Facebook pixel, you had your Google Analytics, all the things that we've pointed out that we could, you know, quickly fix if you had all of those things, but you weren't doing the content and the engagement and the networking with people online, you know, you wouldn't be in the position that you are right now. And it's much easier to be able to add some code to your website and change host to a faster host than it is to come up with hundreds and hundreds of really, you know, high quality and engaging photos and great videos and connections with people. So, that's, I mean, by your enviable position, that these are all really simple fixes, and just keep doing more of what you're doing. That's great. And fix a couple simple things and you'll be in at, you know, I feel a much better position, you know, moving forward, that makes sense. Kevin  16:00  Oh, hundred percent, for sure. Yep. No, that isn't. That is great news. Lionel Johnston  16:03  Super Well, I want to move on to our next section, we can move off from the audit review here and really look at some of the challenges, you know, for a small business owner, you know, I've been at these events as a participant, and I've seen the number of vendors there, and, you know, the people cooking food and serving a beer and, you know, checking people in and selling tickets, there's a lot of moving parts, or I have to imagine it's got to be, you know, quite a challenge to be able to keep all of these people organize and meet your timelines, is that the case or, or, you know, is it a pretty streamline processes problem free Kevin  16:44  it? Well, obviously, there's, there's never an event or festival that goes problem free, but because of the place where it takes place like it takes place at for Gibraltar, which is it's geared towards catering already like they do hundreds of weddings a year. So, when it comes to getting licenses, or an or a kitchen or certain things, it's, it's all turkeys, you know, I mean, so that eliminates a huge portion of organization right there. Plus, all of the beer vendors are used to doing festivals already, like all these guys go to flatlands Beer Festival and other festivals during the year. So, they all know the routine, you don't have to sit there and micromanage them. And they all usually have their own booths with their own logos and everything. So literally, all you have to do is tell them when you know what time to show up, you know, and where their spot is, what time are closing, and, you know, you just kind of giddy-up. So, okay, as far as festivals go, it's probably the easiest festival to run them. The main reason we did this festivals because I found that, of course, during my show, when I'm interviewing guys, all of them are doing their seven, you know, separate marketing doing their own separate thing, you know, I'm saying so this vessel was just an opportunity for them to use their separate marketing strategies, put them all together and get all the strength and power as a group and have a festival where they're not going to lose money. They can make a few bucks, but they can pour as many peers are wanting, they weren't going to lose any money. You know, we can all raise money for charity while we're at it. So, it just seemed like a like a win-win. Right? Lionel Johnston  18:18  Ya I know, that song sounds great. Well, thanks for sharing some background on that. And actually, I'm glad you mentioned the one part about the marketing and that was one thing I was curious about, you know, for, for these businesses that they're, you know, really in the early stages, you know, it's a couple people with a passion to brew beer or, you know, where the launch a pizza-related business, you know, what's, you know, how savvy would most of them be in terms of, of actual Modern Marketing, you know, do some, they really have a dialled in, or some it's completely foreign to them outside of these types of events.  Kevin  18:54  Well, if we're talking to beer guys, a lot of the beer guys, I'd say its half and half. Some are super dialled in John from Torque. He owned a marketing company for 20 years before he opened up a brewery. So, he, he knows what he's doing. Like, you know, he's, he's very, he knows a lot about marketing. Plus, he's open to learning new things about marketing, you know what I mean? Like, he's, he's just going to be a student of the game the whole time when it comes to industry. Like, if we're, if we're talking about pizza, you know, a lot of the pizza companies for the pizza Fest, that it's old mom and pop shops, you know, they've, they've, they've been making their pizza the pizza has, has gained a following or sold itself for the last 1520 years. But now, as you know, it's a new world we're in. So, either they don't know how to do it, they don't want to do it, even though they have a great product, or they don't know who to turn to, to actually get things done. So again, when it comes to festivals, that particular festival kind of gives everybody a market to collectively market as one, you know what I mean? So, all the while the people that don't really aren't, don't know a lot about marketing can kind of learn from others, or just kind of ride the wave for that weekend and find opportunities to, you know, find opportunities and learn from other people who are doing it properly. Lionel Johnston  20:12  or interesting. Yeah, I wouldn't have expected the difference between the beer folks and the pizza folks in terms of their marketing know-how, and says, That's quite interesting. Kevin  20:21  Yeah, the beer, the beer guys, usually younger guys, right? It's about I'm not going to say young, but it's usually younger guys who are, you know, you got to be quite ambitious to open up a brewery, no matter where you are. It's not, you know, $10,000 investment. These guys are getting investors and investing millions of dollars to open these places. Whereas a lot of the lot of the pizza places I've been around for years, and it may have been open, you know, on a shoestring budget, because they had it, you know, it's not like, it's really expensive to make pizza, at least that, you know, way back in the day. And this was a different kind of mentality in a different crowd that are running two different businesses, even though beer and pizza go hand in hand, right? Of Lionel Johnston  21:00  course, very interesting, you know, regardless of how savvy they are, with marketing, either way, when you're creating a market for them to be able to meet with customers and, and share their story and share their food and beverages. Definitely a lot of value for the vendors, you know, to be gained there. Right, Kevin  21:18  right. And that's the best part especially for me, too, because a lot of times I'm dealing with the actual vendor themselves, not the customers. So, the beer festival kind of gives you a chance to talk to the people and the and the breweries. Of course, that's the number one thing to actually see their customers and hear what they have to say. And the customers really like that, you know, like back in the day with the big macro breweries, right, you would drink their beer you'd never get to see meet the brewer You know, that's unheard of. You never Of course, if you ever stepped foot in the brewery, it's not going to happen. No. Meanwhile you in Winnipeg can go to a taproom, you can hear their story of the different kinds of beers they come up with, you can even suggest something and go and see something back in a week later, they could be making this something that you thought was a great idea, maybe should try this. Or you know what I mean. And these guys are super open to everything. It's kind of, it's kind of fun. Plus, the guy, it could be your neighbour that owns this place. They're super down to earth. And there's no formality there. You know, because you're talking to some guy and you're having a couple beers, and everybody kind of loosens up your loose-lipped and you kind of just hang out so it's a great opportunity for Brewer to meet customer and just kind of get involved in the community right they're smaller and usually a lot of them are in places where there are reachable their touchable you can you can you can learn how to make beer and plus they're very good with each other. A lot of ones that have come up didn't have their own brewery, so you play select torque and embracing Hall all these guys are letting other brewers brew their beer in their facility like does that you know what I mean? Like, it's not like Burger King is going to go and make burgers and McDonald's because they're one of their places broke down, right? These guys have no problem with that, you know, they give advice to home brewers who are brewing beer in their home on you know, the guys will bring it in, they'll taste the beer and go yet, you know, what you should have done this kind of give them advice is just kind of a way of information sharing that I don't find in other kinds of businesses. It's way less cutthroat. Lionel Johnston  23:17  Yeah. Oh, I wasn't aware that. And that, that's great to hear about. And really, it's fostering the development of a community right for these foods. Kevin  23:25  So that's great. I'm fully right. Yes, billion dollar a year business, there's tons of business go around, Lionel Johnston  23:31  they have very interesting and I know from my experience being at a number of these events, like the vibe there has been really great. And I could see, you know, now that you're talking about the collaboration between the vendors, I, you know, looking back, I could see that, yeah, everyone was really friendly, and eager to help out and good to see Kevin  23:48  it's nice for people to say that actually follow through. Lionel Johnston  23:51  So, Kevin, let's move into the next section here. What I wanted to take a couple minutes to talk about now is just some ideas, looking at both opportunities to use, say, promotion with consumers and, you know, opportunities with vendors and have, you know, your business is way better than then I know them of course, I don't pretend to have, you know, all the answer. But I wanted to bring up a couple ideas and, and questions and, and see where they go. The first one I want to talk about was really on the content side. And, you know, I know we've talked a lot about, you know, the content that you produce, and I produce some of my own content, not to the same level that you do, but I know it takes a lot of work and a lot of coordination to be able to get, you know, people in the right place and the gear and so on. So, one thing I've, I've trained other, you know, small business owners on when they're creating content, as I've suggested, that they, you know, document things more so than trying to come up with an idea of what can they teach someone or what can they show, but one of my, my thoughts I had in terms of helping develop more content is looking at guest blog posts, you know, through the, the pizza and the beer industry, have you looked at that where, you know, you have, say, the annual event, but you're able to work with all of those vendors where they're producing unique content specifically for your website, you know, and then you're able to have, say, a theme every month or have a featured vendor of the month, but they're the ones that are producing the content not in a salesy way, but they're promoting your there, they're doing a video highlighting how to make a certain pizza, or how a certain type of beers produced, have you looked at, you know, having that type of content on an ongoing basis? Kevin  25:31  No, I haven't. But that actually is a really good idea, depending on who, you know, depending on the vendor, so that if we're talking to the beer festival, yes, that would that is something I would definitely consider, because a lot of their social media content is like, spot on, and it's usable. And, you know, you wouldn't have to teach them how to do how to create the content, whereas there's probably a handful of the pizza festival customers that are savvy enough to in order to do that. Does that make sense? Like, as I understand the whole point, it's kind of like, yeah, you're, you're marketing your event without really having to get your hands dirty? Like they're creating the content, you're both you're broke, you're both kind of winning? Where I think with the pizza festival, it would be it be more of the same. Okay, does that make sense? Lionel Johnston  26:22  Yeah, I would imagine you would probably find, it sounds like this is exactly what you're describing, people would be at a different level of sophistication. So, there could be somewhere they produce everything. And, and you don't have to touch it, you just upload it to your site. And there are maybe others that need hand-holding, or they want you to come out and take some photos or, or maybe something needs video needs to be produced. And then everywhere in between there, Kevin  26:44  right. And, and, and if I was creating something like that, I wouldn't want to slight the people who aren't, who aren't a savvy as the person that is, because in the person that is, is getting all this, you know, all this promotion and content. Meanwhile, the person who isn't is left in the dust, and I just wouldn't want to leave that person who ended up in the dust. So yeah, I will use that idea. Because it's, I think it's awesome. But then I'd have to keep in mind that whoever needs a hand, I have to make sure that that they're covered to Lionel Johnston  27:08  Yeah, one way I've seen this work, Kevin, in the past actually is an organization like yours would actually publish an editorial calendar to say, all of the vendors and say, Hey, we want to focus, you know, February is, you know, we're focusing on, you know, gluten-free or, and, you know, summertime, we want to talk about, you know, beer, this made with certain types of fruit, those sorts of things, and basically able to share that out. And then and then that, you know, people see what things fit their business really well. And then it's more now hand to hand to try and get the gaps filled in the calendar.  Kevin  27:43  Oh, I like that. I like that I do Lionel Johnston  27:45  well, and for people that are listening right now that maybe don't know the background of why we do this a big benefit why you'd want to have other people produce content for you. One is, it's obviously easier for you, your job is to produce the market and to the eyes and ears, right. And that's creating value for these people. But more importantly, Google and Facebook highly reward companies that are producing unique and consistent content. So that's one of the big reasons you know, to have that, and all of those companies, you know, produce that content, you're going to get links between your website so, so that would help out them and that would help you as well. Right. Okay. Kevin sauce. So, let's talk a little bit about the promotion to consumers here. And I wanted to ask you, you know, what are some promotions that you've run in the past that you've found have resonated with the consumer so far, you know, if it was an early bird offer or contest anything like that, you know, Kevin  28:39  it's Winnipeg, so usually, if you're giving away free things, people love it, right, like the contest for, for free pizza, or for the beer festival we have? Well, for the charity part of it, too. We give out gift certificates to them too, to the tasting rooms for the beer guys, we had a thing where you could win a beer for and along with the beer fridge came a keg from every participating Brewer for the summer. So, if you're not if you're a guy that likes the entertain, you had a beer fridge that came as a cake fridge, and you didn't even have to, if there were 12 vendors at the beer festival, well, you got 12 kegs delivered when whatever cake ran out. And, you know, for you to entertain your friends. So, a free beer fridge and 12 kegs that went along with it. You know, I think it's a no brainer, very hard sell. Ya know. So that raised a lot of money for charity with the pizza fest it was just giving out free pizza, right. So, a different pizza from different pizza vendors every day for like, two to three weeks before the festival even started, right. So that those ones really go over really well. Because like I said if sometimes it's nice to just be able to taste the actual product. And usually, you know, no one's just going to order one pizza. I don't know, anybody just orders one pizza. So, it's kind of a no brainer for the pizza vendor also prefer the person if they're going to order one. Sure, you get something free. If you're going to order to will, I get two for the price of one it was a lot less and the actually get the taste of the good product and the beer at the pizza vendors making some money too, right? Lionel Johnston  30:24  Yeah, for sure. So, for some of them, or some or most or all of the promotions and contest would people be entering the contest through your website, or they are entering it directly with the vendors. Kevin  30:38  They enter through my website. Lionel Johnston  30:41  Okay. All right. So, then you're Yeah, you're the portal there where they come in and Enter. And then you're capturing their emails and, and building relationships over time then, Kevin  30:50  right. So, you build the relationships over time. It's not 12 different small databases. It's one large database. And then when the pizza festival is over, you can market to everybody, you know, that one large database that you already have a captive audience for everybody who collectively participated. So you give them the pizza vendors as the year you know, as the year goes on, until the next event, the opportunity to market to all the people that were interested in the pizza festival, whether they having a special for, you know, gluten-free pizza that week, or they're giving out free pizza, or they, you know, whenever they have an event coming up, it's their first anniversary, 10th anniversary, whatever they want to market, we market collectively, they just send it to the they send it to the Winnipeg pizza festival group. And we do the marketing for them, you know, so its kind of helps us build the event, build that large database and help the people who really don't know how to market at all. They may be great at social media and maybe they don't know how to do email marketing, what are they going to do is say, you know, what, their what they want to market, they can either email it to us and we'll send it out or, or if they need help creating it will just take them the information on what they're doing. Create something, show them they say yes, we send it out. Oh, I see. Lionel Johnston  32:07  Okay, I'm actually going to come back to that in a moment when we talked about working directly with vendors. But no, that's great. Two different topics that I wanted to cover or two different items under this one topic here around promotions that I wanted to share is, you know, one of the things I've run with a number of clients recently, or some viral contests, and I know you've had a chance to enter them, and we won't take too much time talking about them. But basically, for those listening to that may not be aware of a viral contest, that's where someone can enter a contest. But they actually get rewarded for taking a number of different actions, you know, where they can share it on Facebook, or they can come back every day and win more entries. And for the clients have run this with we fed they've generated anywhere from about 250 leads so that every lead is a new email all the way up to almost 10,000 emails from the contest. So that's pretty cool. A way to be able to capture that engagement, build your brand awareness and get those email addresses. And then yeah, and then another similar opportunity, Kevin, our lead quizzes, and I'm not sure if you've done any of these in the past with any of your businesses, but basically, they're, they're really fun and engaging simple quizzes. And people love quizzes, especially on Facebook, you know, that's, that's one of the highest, you know, click rates and completions, you know, out of all the content on Facebook or quizzes, you know, anyway, so with these lead quizzes, basic and ask all these simple questions. So if you think about in the pizza and beer space, you know, you could ask about what type of food someone likes or and, you know, say they're answering questions, they get to a point where they answer that they're, they're vegan, you know, then you're able to have some sort of, say, pizza profile at the end. And then it could actually say, Hey, here's a couple vendors that would fit you ideally, right? Or here are some recipes to other make these types of pizzas at home, or, you know, on your side, you know, do you like fruity beer, stronger, stronger beer, you know, they're answering all these fun questions. And then they're able to find out what their profile is at the end. And then ultimately be directed to some recipes and vendors. But ultimately, you're, again, improving your brand awareness, capturing emails and getting a lot of engagement as well, Kevin  34:21  right. But then, but the customer is getting a lot of value out of that to instead of doing their own research or are actually going to be your vendors or pizza places individually and trying to find out something that works for them. Your, your information is captured every kind of thing to point them in the right direction from the start. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it's great. I think it's awesome. Right Lionel Johnston  34:42  now, we spoke a little while ago about different tools. And I know we have lots of we've had lots of discussions talking about different tools in that again, the challenge is, we can have that I believe it's called the shiny ball syndrome, right? Or like, Oh, look at that tool. Look at that tool. And then you have a real mess because you're trying to, you know, coordinate all these different tools. So, we want to be careful that we don't try too many. But there are a couple Actually, I've come across recently that I again, know, you know, thought of you right away here. And the first one that I have is LinkTree. Have you ever heard of LinkTree before? Kevin  35:13  It's called what? Linktr.ee?  Lionel Johnston  35:14  Yeah, links tree. So, if you actually check out on Instagram, and believe you're still on your computer there. But if say you go to farmers marketing on Instagram, one of the challenges on Instagram, and it's a great platform and growing like gangbusters, and you've done a really, really good job on Instagram. It's great seeing the content you have there. But the one challenge is, you've only been able to have one item in your bio,  Kevin  35:41  right, Lionel Johnston  35:42  right. So what link tree is, is it's a website that you basically go to as, sort of like a bitly link or, you know, link shortener. But basically, you go to this website, and you're able to put in their other links. So, for farmers marketing, for example, what I haven't in there, as you there are, there are four different links, so someone can click on that link. And it opens up, you know, one, or two, or three or four or more different options. So, for, again, for farmers marketing, someone could click on getting a live audit, or they could subscribe to the podcast, or go to our website. So why I was thinking of you, of course, is, you know, you have a lot of different things that you would want to promote in your business, right. So, it could be, you know, checking out another social profile, or could be for a contest, but it can also be buying tickets. So, you can have that all just in that one link.  Kevin  36:31  Oh, so you have the one link on your page. And I just click your link and it shows me four different links, get free marketing on and live where the coaching call, subscribe to the master, that gives you four different options, instead of just having gone to the one that the link is actually pointing to. I like that. I'm using that. Lionel Johnston  36:47  Yeah, especially because you have so many different aspects of your business. Yeah, so I thought that would be a good tip for you. So, I'm glad you like that You sound like you, you enjoy that one. Kevin  36:56  Oh, I'm stealing that right away. Lionel Johnston  36:57  right on to others that I came across us just recently. One is Headliner.app. And the other one is Wavve.co with two V's and dot CEO. And I'll put this actually in the show notes. And that these two are similar. Kevin one actually is paid, and one is free. I just recently found out but especially with the show that you have, you know, The Main Ingredient, and, you know, all of the other, you know, videos that you have going on. One of the great things with this tool is you actually can't upload an audio file to Facebook or Instagram and, and Instagram, you're limited to only 62nd videos. So, what you can actually do is take a static image, or you can use a video, of course, but you can take a static image, and you're basically turning it into a video. So, you can upload your static image, you upload your mp3 files, your audio file, it actually transcribes it for you. It also adds the little lines going up and down. So, it's showing that there's some audio being spoken. And then you export it. And you can upload this your 62nd video or less on Instagram, and Facebook and LinkedIn. But it really, I think, adds a lot more impact than just a static image saying, Hey, you know, this new podcast is out, you know, come listen to Episode Six, that sort of thing. Kevin  38:15  All right. Well, I get it. Yeah, Lionel Johnston  38:16  hundred percent. Yeah. And then. So, the last tool that I know we've talked about is funnel lyrics. And one of the big challenges that I had when I was really in the early days, and marketing and getting into marketing automation was being able to visualize the campaign and being able to see where's the traffic coming from, where's the goal where we try to send people to. And so that's that visual mapping software. And actually, you can get that for free as well. There is a paid version where you get the analytics, but you can do tons of work just on their free tool. So that's something you could check out for you for your businesses if you'd like as well.  Kevin  38:51  already checked it on. I'm on the page right now. Um, that's three things I'm stealing from you immediately. Lionel Johnston  38:57  Alright, well, there we go. So, if nothing and Elsa at least you got some cool tools that will directly relate to the type of business that you run. So, so I wanted to share your bag Kevin  39:07  of tricks is deep. That's why I like talking. You always have all these little tools. And yes, you can get caught up in having too many, but usually, nine times out of 10 the stuff that means you go through us are almost immediately usable.  Lionel Johnston  39:19  You're right. And really the things that we talk about our Hey, I'm doing something. And I think you actually mentioned this a few moments ago, but you know, Kevin, I'm doing something right now, how can I do it more efficiently. It's not like, Hey, I can do a video thumbnail for a podcast will I'm going to launch a podcast now like that it doesn't work that way, right? It's just Hey, producing a podcast or doing videos, it takes a lot of time, where can we shave time? Where can we pump with this content faster and more professionally, and you know, it feels all those tools help out with that. So, let's just move into again, the next topic and then we can summarize things and see what the top priority should be, I did want to take some time to talk about the relationship that you have with the vendors and the promotion to them. And you know, I really see I'm sure you do this quite a bit but I rarely see when I first saw your business model that there's a huge opportunity for you to really be that funnel of, of leads and customers for the business for these businesses, right and they have their own marketing going but really what you're doing is you're again building that marketplace and real estate where they're able to sell their products correct.  Kevin  40:33  Right. And it's funny that you said that because that the pizza festival actually came about from that that wasn't my idea thinking I'm going to have a Manitoba p2p You know, there's a lot of specialty weeks burger we can all kind of stuff. And I wasn't my idea to say, hey, let's, I'm going to have a pizza week that came from interviewing restaurants that sold pizza. And week after week, I would hear someone going, someone should have a pizza week so much and have a pizza week till two or three people would email me saying, why don't you organize a pizza week, that's how that came about. So, it's just kind of the relationship with different with different customers that kind of lead in that direction, right? Lionel Johnston  41:08  I totally agree. So I want to give you an example. Now, these companies are at a much larger scale. But if you look at Google, you know, Facebook, YouTube, you know, LinkedIn, those are all huge websites, of course, but they aren't the ones that are producing and owning the content, they're there do you know, other people are doing that right there really creating that platform, and that, you know, building a following of eyes and ears that those other companies can sell to, and that's really what you're doing as well. So that's why as I mentioned, when I first saw your business model is really impressed with that, and being able to see the value you can offer to people when we look at lead generation, you know, specifically for the vendors and the pizza and beer fest are you right now generating identifiable leads for those individual or collective vendors, like, how does a flow have a potential customer goes through, you know, your website, or the vendors website? Kevin  42:05  Well, usually goes through our website. So, a lot of times, different vendors will have a marketing idea that they actually want to post they want to market to the distribution list that the event created. So, we'll do it that way. It makes it easier, but it makes it easier because the vendor doesn't technically have to do any work, all they have to do is create the promotion and the event will promote their promotion. But in turn, we get a larger distribution list that we can market to. And the pizza, any pizza vendor that participates in the event can market to 12 months a year if they want to. Right, Lionel Johnston  42:38  I see. Okay. And would each vendor typically have their own standard offer, Kevin  42:45  right? When we're not going to tell them we know what they want to offer? Like, right, they can make up their own offer, we're just going to promote their offer or whatever event they have coming up. Okay. Lionel Johnston  42:57  All right. Thanks for sharing that. And where I'm getting at, or what I'm trying to get at Kevin is, you know, is there a way to be able to clearly show the pipeline rate and the funnel of people coming in and how many leads are being generated? And then how many are being distributed to the vendors? And then are we also able to capture, you know, the financial aspect of how much was generated from those leads? And I realized that would probably be the most difficult part and that this question as part of the reason why I am suggesting final lyrics, because you're able to see the flow of people, you know, through the entire process. And if I could give one example, you know, to demonstrate what I'm trying to get at is a friend of mine, actually, I know, he runs a really successful digital marketing agency, a local agency here, and they have on their website, and the last in the last quarter, they've generated something like 85,000 leads, and over $5 million in additional revenue, or 50, I don't think tech numbers, but I thought it's pretty neat that they're able to say this, how many leads we created in this is the value of them, I was just wondering, on a smaller scale, is there is there an opportunity for you to do that with these fests and does that help you then, you know, promote that to the vendors to attract more in the future, Kevin  44:16  for sure. Hundred percent, that's probably an area that I need to work on a lot more, because there are a lot of a lot of opportunities there that can be done better? 100%   Lionel Johnston  44:29  Well, that's great. Well, how about Kevin, let's just start wrapping things up here. And I just wanted to ask you one question. And then we can talk about it for a couple moments as necessary here. But you know, from the different discussion that we had, we touched on some, you know, technical improvements, your website and how well you're doing in the content and social side. And we talked a little bit about, you know, the, you know, direct engagement with consumers and vendors, are there any things that we've talked about here so far, that really stood out to you the most that you know what, when you when we discuss it, you're like, man, I really they need to tackle that right away.  Kevin  45:03  Yeah, tweaking the websites, like as far as the things that you and I have talked about before, as far as, you know, the background portion of it. So, we're talking the speed of a lowering of the page that the mobile portion got an F, so anything that's red and got an F are things some of them, I knew. Hey, I can't believe I got an F, or I knew that was going to get an F. So, make sure I correct those things right away technically, because, again, the hard portion of the work is done the networking and content creating is stuff that you just can't create overnight, that takes time and effort. And it's huge. So, if it's just tweaking the technical portion of it, something I can literally do in a day or two, you know, that portion of it has run out to me that, you know, it's an easy tweak. So, make sure you get your infrastructure running properly, and then the rest you can continue to work on Lionel Johnston  46:02  these items. I know that, yeah, all very easy fixes, especially, I know, you're very tech savvy. So, it'll be very easy for you to knock those things out. And, you know, and I hope you found a lot of value, you know, to our discussion, and I know, you know, for my own business, you know, I often asked other people to build a look at things as much as I may think, I, I know things having those additional eyes are different eyes on your business can really uncover a lot of things. And I remember working with someone one time and, you know, my team had worked on this project for many, many hours, and, you know, 100 different times you looked at it, and then, you know, my leader looked at it immediately and said, well, there's no logo on it. And, you know, we'd looked at this thing for hours. And none of us said, had caught that, you know, but it definitely is valuable to build to get those outside opinions on the businesses that we're running. So, hope you agree with that as well.  Kevin  46:57  Okay, Lionel Johnston  46:58  right on. Well, thanks a lot to Kevin. And for everyone that's listening right now, for all the other small and medium-sized businesses out there like Kevin Bergen, if you'd like to have a similar discussion like Kevin and I have just had, where you have a marketing audit and a live coaching call you all in an effort to be able to take your business to the next level, please check out our website at farmer's marketing.ca where you can start your application and submit your information. And we'll have a couple of discussions and see if you're a good fit for the podcast. And the podcast is a good fit for you. And Kevin, thanks again for you know, being able to put your businesses under the microscope but I am sure that potentially created a little bit of unease. But to be clear, I really am very impressed with everything that you're operating and running on your side. You've really built a pretty neat business for yourself. And it's great to see how all of these different components are tying together and it sounds like there are even bigger and better things, you know, in the future for you and these events moving forward. Hey, hope so, thanks, man. Thanks for joining the master and Modern Marketing Podcast. Kevin, and for everyone else, listening. Until next time, onward and upward, Announcer  48:10  the master Modern Marketing podcast with your host Lionel Johnston, lovers of marketing and growing small businesses you enjoyed today's podcast, please rate and review. We'll catch you next time on the master Modern Marketing Podcast.

Are You Linked Professionally? Linked Professionally is a new networking phenomenon. Kevin Appleby, co-host of The Next 100 Days podcast has launched a new service called Linked Professionally. Go to www.LinkedProfessionally.com In Episode 114 we talked to Ian Denny. He talked about making posts travel so they reach a larger audience. Building on Ian's advice, since then, we have been promoting the podcast. Since April 2018, we have DOUBLED the number of downloads. Before then, we used Twitter, but their change in banning repeat tweets we focused on LinkedIN. LinkedIn Groups Kevin researched two groups. Ian Denny has a LinkedIn networking group, called Online40, which Kevin used to start. He also used another LinkedIn group. he analysed what each was doing. The two groups were doing similar things. Everyone was working together to promote each others posts, the rules the two groups had were quite different. Neither of them fitted in with what we needed to promote the show. So Kevin took the best of both and created our own group. Linked Professionally was created It has taken a little while to get a core group of people together. in the group at the moment are: people we know people who have been guests on the show early adopters out of The Next 100 Days Podcast Facebook group The group is quite active. With pilot members. How it works Linked Professionally works by all members agreeing that they want to post on LinkedIn. Everyone wants to get our own posts in front of as many people as is possible. Members undertake to make a post on LinkedIn at least once a week. Everybody else undertakes to support those posts by LIKING the post and COMMENTING on the post. It's more than that The group has emerged as a very strong networking group too. We are getting to know each other better. Co-ordination of the posts happens through WHATS APP. The group is allowing others to understand more about the businesses of other group members. It is similar to turning up to physical networking groups like BNI etc. Where you give your spiel, and get to know others. It is about the others PROMOTING YOU. What happens? As you like and comment, your post starts to be shown to lots of other people. It gets shown to a lot of your first degree contacts. But, it also starts to be shown to second degree contacts. As you like and comment, this is seen by some of the comment provider's connections. It really works. The Podcast has benefitted Once Twitter decide recurring posts were no longer permissible on their platform, we turned to LinkedIn. We had loads of content that was circulated, time after time at different times. The repetition was all about  gaming Twitter to get the tweets to more people at different times. To attract people to the show. With 100 plus episodes, there was a lot of content to share. However, we were not getting new listeners. Following the move to LinkedIn, we have doubled downloads in 6 months. Our downloads in October 2018 was the best month we have ever had on the show. And by a significant percentage too! Growth Also Overlapped with Adoption of Zoom We have taken advantage of using VIDEO CLIPS in publicity posts on LinkedIn. A 30 second video clip works really well on LinkedIn. Like this one... http://thenext100days.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Nobel-Prize-for-Kevin-and-Graham.mp4 Here's Adam Taub enthusing about Graham and Kevin's scientific skills! We also discussed the 30-second video clip with Maureen Kane on the podcast too. So which is it? LinkedIn or the effect of Zoom? Short answer is both. We have the video to publicise the show with. But the LinkedIn Group makes our publicity posts travel way further! We are creating better content and it is being seen by more people. Anecdotally, people say they have SEEN the show. The show is, of course, AUDIO. People don't want to be sold to on LinkedIn

Today with us is Kevin Kaufman. Kevin along with Fred Weaver are the leaders of the 46:10 Real Estate Network. Kevin shares his story of his journey in real estate and success in operating as an expansion team in multiple markets. He also talks about why he came to the decision to move from Keller Williams to EXP and how the EXP system has helped his business grow. He also touches on how other systems are now moving in to EXP alike systems and why they are still set back while EXP is already big. Kevin also gives advice to those who are thinking to make the move.   Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.   In this episode Expansion Bussiness EXP Validation How EXP is a win compared to franchise systems EXP tools for agents EXP is already where other systems want to be Equal opportunities for everybody Revenue Share Income streams Kevin’s those thinking to make the move to EXP   Take Away "EXP's virtual platform gives us the opportunity to explore the environment that helps us be the most conducive environment to us being productive.."   Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Tom to inquire or ask questions. Contact Kevin: Email: realestate@group4610.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KevinKauffman0 Facebook Group Next Level Agents https://www.facebook.com/groups/nextlevelagents/ Links: www.EXPCloud.com   Transcription Kevin : I am host Kevin Cottrell joining me today is Kevin Kaufmann. He is the leader along with Fred Weaver at the group 46:10 Real Estate Network. Previously with Keller Williams. Kevin's gonna share a story today not only of his journey in real estate and success in operating as an expansion team in multiple markets but why he came to the decision after looking very carefully about moving from Keller Williams over to EXP Realty. I'm sure you want to listen to this episode Kevin's got some great insight. Whether you're a team leader for a team, a solo practitioner or in actually another expansion team I think you'll find Kevin's insight into why he ultimately decided to move to EXP very very interesting. Welcome to the show. Kevin. Kaufmann: Hey thanks a lot I appreciate it. Kevin : Well I've been looking forward to this conversation. I know not only when you announced and we'll get into that a little bit you changing brokerages but I see all over social media but for anyone listening to this podcast episode that doesn't know what a rock star organization you run why don't you give a little of your background and information about your network as well as your business. Kaufmann: Yeah no problem so I'm based in Phoenix Arizona in Tempe actually as is where our office is and we.. I say "we" because I've got a business partner Fred Weaver him and I started working together in February of 2008. So I've been licensed for about six months at that time with him and I had done a few things some short sales actually because he had introduced me to them and we'd kind of teamed up on those early out of my career like literally a third transaction I ever did was a short sale listing of Fred's because he was leaving the country and going on his honeymoon. And so I sort of took over and handled a short sale is my first short sale and we ended up closing a couple you know probably good thousand or so 800 to 1000 short sales over the next few years and you know we started building our business around that and it was obviously like anything else very slow at first but in Phoenix short sales was it. So I can remember getting into the business and there being almost 60 thousand homes for sale at that time and put that in perspective here we are in late 2013 is about fifteen sixteen thousand homes on the market. So quite a bit more inventory right. Prices were dropping every day but that and we started building a team and we started taking some mentorship and learning as much as we could and built this real estate team. We ended up naming group 46:10 quite frankly because we didn't want our personal names on the team which didn't wanna have our names on the sign or our phone numbers on the signs and so we started working together and really out of just trying to help each other and it just became this thing we built this team named a group 46:10 and kind of evolved and shifted through the years and definitely have had our kind of that reincarnation where we had to shift from you know going from a short sale or distressed market to a more normal market shift in our models where we went you know kind of like a millionaire real estate agent model if you've ever read that book which I know you have and running that business model too. We actually had salaried buyers agents on our team for for about a year and a half and then to a newer model where we you know just blew it all up again and really started growing and then eventually started selling real estate more than one market more than one city and more than one state. And here we are 2018 and it's deftly been quite a ride. Kevin : Yeah you're in the parlance of that large franchise system before you made the broker change which we'll talk about over to EXP or an expansion business in multiple markets in multiple states were you not. Kaufmann: Yeah yeah. And we still are Phoenix like I said his home base we still operate in Denver Colorado which was our first expansion location and next expansion location was Nashville Tennessee where we still are to this day we also still sell real estate in San Luis Obispo California kind of central coast that we started there in the middle of 2017 started work in there and we still sell it in other parts and Arizona a little bit in Yuma and Tucson Arizona which is obviously outside of Phoenix and not quite the reach that we used to have. We've certainly had our growing pain lessons of opening up stuff too fast and too quick and then having to shut it down and things like that. But you know we still cover four different states and how about six or seven different markets. Kevin : Fantastic well gives everybody a good background and obviously you know I've seen your stats right you guys are a big producing operation you're in the top 250 way way up in the list. And so when you decide to do something with your business this mission critical like change brokerages it's a big deal right it's not an inconsequential decision and for people listening right because with what's going on we'll talk about virtual brokerage or expansion operations in the industry because there's a lot of news that's come out and I want to get your take on it but for you personally and your partner you and Fred sat down you said you know what we're going to consider EXP. What drove that. In other words you certainly couldn't miss it. Right. We've been on fire for I call with two friends. My business partner for the last thirty nine months since he's been here it's like the news started accelerating last October when was it that you said you know what we need to dig into this and figure it out. Kaufmann: Yeah. You know it's funny it's not what it's who. And that who is Curtis Johnson so I'm sure you know Curtis he's a dear friend of mine and has been for 10 plus years. And you know it's funny because you look at Curtis Carson always got a suit and tie on and I'm always in shorts and flip flops and can't even find a shirt with a collar. And so we're kind of the Odd Couple and yet at the same time you know I absolutely adore Curtis and look up to him and a lot of ways. But you know Curtis moved he came to Fred and I in December of last year so he had been strongly considering the EXP and at that point he was pretty sure he was going to make the moves. Curtis came to us because we'd had conversations in the past about trying to find a way to work together. I mean we've tossed around all sorts of ideas. We talked about merging our businesses. We talked about starting a title company together we just were always looking for a way to get into business together and couldn't quite find that thing. And so he comes to us in December he says hey I think I'm a go to EXP I want you guys to come. Truthfully we kinda laughed at him and said Man you know go for it. You know wish you well but that's not my gig. But I obviously want to root for your man. I love you. Come back and let us know what you think after you've been there for four or five months. And so he did. And thank God Curtis you know never gave up on us. And he came back and we had lunch like we do every few months. In May of this year and I'll never forget it was the first week of May and sat down for lunch with Curtis and he started telling us about his experience so far at EXP and it just literally blew my mind and I guess what's worth noting Kevin is that at that point Fred and I had been looking for a new opportunity we'd been looking to leave Callaway homes for quite a while and we'd been doing quite a bit of due diligence on a lot of other companies that actually hadn't done any on the EXP. You know Curtis he runs a massive business. You know they sell 300 plus transactions a year and have for 15 20 years now in the Phoenix area. And so it's not like him moving also. It wasn't inconsequential. We realized it was a big deal and he's someone who is close to us. We went OK what's going on over there. Like what are you seeing. And so he told us what he saw. He shared his experience with us and quite frankly it really grabbed our attention and we said we got to consider this and it wasn't even a six weeks later that we were moved and quite frankly we had a move center if we could but we couldn't. We had our number one guy the guy who runs our Colorado operations and has for four years now from day one. He happened to be out of the country for four weeks during that timeframe. And so we literally couldn't move any sooner. So we saw the opportunity we saw how great of a system it is how awesome expertise platform is that what it could do for our business and our sales business and we saw it as an opportunity to grow and something that could actually be sort of the model and system that we had been seeking out yet hadn't found anywhere yet. Kevin : It's interesting because for listeners what Kevin has shared is the most common response is mostly for something that has a significant business that Hey I'm gonna watch what you're going to do I'm interested. I love you you're a great person I'm going to mastermind with you etc.. It could be anything from an informal relationship to anything like that but it's pretty incredible in other words you listen to the interview with Jay Kinder in his line is what's been seen can't be unseen and that's the message that I think Kevin you would agree with me is there is so much misinformation out there there's so much noise it's getting less because it's getting invalidated right. It used to be. Well you know there on the pink sheet there over the counter then on May 21st we went up listed on the Nasdaq sets. You know and the financials I've been out there for forever and a day so you know the franchise systems try and put that fear out there that it's not going to happen and this is just a silly operation especially with the announcement that the number one franchise system is going to do their own state wide virtual brokerage in all the states. Right. You know that is something that will jump in to in a second but I love your message which is "don't give up on me" right? You know Curtis did a great job of having that conversation and you have to share his story and you're fairly new to the system. But I want to get your take coming out of that large franchise system from expansion right. There's lots of people right now is mostly what we can talk about in a minute with the announcement about the virtual brokerage operations they've got to figure out what they're going to do right. The industry is clearly changing my prediction and what you heard Jean and I talk about is we get 5, 7 years from now in bricks and mortar are going to be either the minority or all but virtually gone for brokerages. It's going to be hard to compete when so much of the industry goes to I don't have bricks and mortar on every corner. We're all over the place. So what would your advice be based on what you've learned from Curtis and what you know about the system now that you're in it for somebody that's maybe got a expansion plan they want to a multi market or they've already started another trying to figure out hey before I go roll this out and really complicate my life you know what would Kevin's advice be if we locked you know five or 10 of these people in a room and you say hey this is where my perspective is. Kaufmann: Yeah. You know my perspective is number one don't go that fast. And that's probably the advice that I got that I just didn't listen to quite frankly as I think like most of us out a victim of my own success right? We hit it out of the park in Denver and while Nashville at first was certainly not a glaring victory it over time it's really become a big one for us. And you start developing these systems you start to believe you can just kind of go everywhere. I'm just gonna say within the constraints of working in a Keller Williams which is a franchise system and KW is not right or wrong good or bad in my opinion. But you know what it is for sure that we can't say is the franchise system. And there is a lot of constraints for real estate because of the way real estate works the way things work with the Department of real estate advertising laws you name it. Like there are so many things that have to be factored in. What we found is we're putting these little bandaids over all these little things that we had to keep working and eventually we just got so big and we're paying so much money to be there that it just we couldn't avoid it. And the minute having the minute we looked at the EXP. We went oh my gosh this is what we've been asking for and what was we've been looking for for so long. In fact the thing I don't mind sharing with you is we were challenged early on in our search for a new home by a gentleman very good guy who was extremely intelligent. He's now the CEO of NRT. Ryan Gorman very smart guy. He said you know why I didn't know what perfect is for you. So that forced us to really think about perfect and there was two things that Fred and I were very clear on from that day forward we were never going to make a move. Number one it had to be one brokerage per state. And a lot of people don't realize how big of a benefit that is. But once you operate in more than one city and more than one MLS and more than one brokerage within the same state you quickly realize what a blessing that is. And then number two is it had to be a financial win for the folks on it in our business who are really on the ground for making things happen working with buyers and sellers. Those two things have to happen. And obviously when you know the EXP model you realize those two things are like that. It's kind of again no doubt. That's just part of it's built in right. That's baked into that because blindside too you know that's the thing I got when I talked to Glenn first time I talked to Glenn I realized oh my gosh this guy he's solving or solved all the same problems I've been trying to solve. That was my biggest takeaway within about five minutes of being on the phone with him the first time. And so when we look at EXP That's amazing. And the truth of the matter is I love Keller Williams. I'm extremely. Let me rephrase that I loved. I'm extremely grateful for what I got there and for my time there and for what I learned in the relationships and that just isn't possible inside of a franchise system. Kevin : And that's great wisdom. I come out of the same system right. I was a team leader there. I was with Andy Allan and Aaron Lancaster you go pull out your original first edition of MRA book. Those guys are in the mastermind groups right. You know Glenn was there too. So if you look at it and you listen to the interview with Brian Culhane he talks about Glenn's expansion teams and Brian helped run those right so that the predecessor to EXP even being formed was essentially expansion business in multiple states. So it's kind of an interesting history. And now here we are even though you know people like Gary Keller he's a visionary. I mean I sat in meetings with him and Dave Jenks and Andy and Aaron where he's like here's how we're gonna get you to go multi market. That was in like 2003. So he was way ahead of the time you know flash forward the complexity you describe in the franchise system and I want to get your take on it right the big announcement at maybe camp was statewide brokerage operations right virtual operations as an overlay on top of franchises. Now you know for people listen to this here's what happened. I'm not gonna make any judgment to this comment. I'll let people read between the lines. A franchise system makes the franchisee review and sign and an underlying review in sign the FTD it's a federal disclosure every year. Right it's a part of being a franchise operation. Do you think that most of the LPs actually read that thing. Kaufmann: Well listen man I was a regional director for KW for like 30 seconds. I couldn't get past the like the first four pages and a couple of hundred pages or whatever. Kevin : So I'm not gonna make judgments of this. We were approached by some of our good friends and like you I have lots and lots of contacts and love for Keller Williams. There's great people there. Well here's what happened. I was sent as it was Gene and a number of other people the FTD and specifically a page reference well somebody read it. They were able to do what they're doing and this is why a lot of the LPs are scratching their heads. Now they're like well wait a minute I got a franchise awarded and I had a territory. Where's the bad news for you go read your FTD. They took the Territory restriction out last September in the edition they put out last year. So most people don't even know that in and maybe that for a lot of people and the listeners for this podcast this is the first time you're going to realize if you're an LP at Keller Williams you probably want to go pull out your FTD if your scratching your head has to wait a minute. How do they do this. Well that was something was put in there and they did this the first time ever they did it. So this big announcement and all the noise and you know I like Adam I've known Adam a long time and he's talking you know he did his Facebook Live I'm sure you watched it too. Our was sent to you and you watched it and the message is they're very aware that this is going to be disruptive we're already disrupting it EXP right. So now you've got the franchise system doing it and you know God bless him. It's complete validation of the EXP right. They've been saying this doesn't make sense does make sense. It's not going to work but we're the number one franchise system on you know transactions et cetera et cetera et cetera age account and then they come out and make him they go statewide virtual operations you know. So what is your take on it right. You know you described something about operating in multiple markets let's just take it within one state right. You know you go into a big market let's say you were going to expand to Dallas. You know there's multiple owners and multiple offices. Each one's going to have a different ownership group or you know potentially overlapping and you're going to have to deal with that. And like you said in an EXP world that doesn't exist right it's state by state there's a brokerage operation that covers the entire state and multiple MLS is. So what is your take on it. Based on the virtual brokerage operation let's pretend hypothetically you were still at Keller Williams and now you can join the you know you qualify right because they've certainly made it clear you have to be at an elite level you qualify and you're going to be able to expand. It's going to be a win for expansion operations it simplifies your growth. Correct? Kaufmann: That's assuming that they can actually pull it off. So I think what's really important Kevin as we look at the fact the plan's not there yet. If you go back and listen to the CEO speech they'll have the details. The actual setting up of let's call it 50 brokerages because there's 50 states maybe they don't need 50 I don't know. But let's just call it 50 for sake of an argument setting up 50 brokerages higher shitty brokers doing all that stuff like first of all there's some logistical nightmares there that have to happen like you know EXP didn't get to thirteen thousand agents overnight it was launched in 2009. Here we are it's 2018 and it feels like they just burst on the scene over the last couple of years. But you and I both know it's been going on for you know since 2009 and it's not to say that this is going to Keller Williams nine years to get going. However there are quite a few things that have to happen. What I'm more concerned about is changing the FTD is one thing but in a franchise system you've got five and 10 year contracts for your franchise. And so changing terms and conditions on like page one hundred and thirty seven at four hundred and two in the third paragraph second sentence there can be some legal ramifications there. And so they've obviously got to be really careful in how they roll this out. My opinion is that was a statement to say hey please bear with us we're working on this we're trying to we're trying to fix it we realize it's a problem now they've known it's a problem for years it's been at least over two years since since they've been aware of this issue and it just now decided to come public with it which definitely was funny. Interesting timing but the reality is is it's going to be still really hard to execute and then when they do execute. My guess is there's probably going to be consequences from legal ramifications from the franchise owners. That's my guess and unfortunate that'll probably end up in court. And you have to choose you are Keller Williams international or any other franchise. Are you going to choose the group of agents that are running these and this expansion business or are you going to choose the people that you have a franchise agreement with. Kevin : Absolutely. I agree with you. I mean I think that it was definitely something that when you look at it it's definitely doesn't have the detail at this point but what was interesting that came out in Adam's video was they were already fielding calls of 40 or 50 LPs at a time and having people I would expect being concerned. So my take on it is the bigger concern I have. I mean Jean and I and you and others have a passion for agents. That's the culture and foundation of EXP Realty. And I worry about creating an environment of sort of the elite expansion businesses having preferential terms and the average agent in the market center right let's say that I don't ever want to be Kevin and Fred and have a gigantic multi market business. But now I'm competing with the let's say it let's us hypothetically flash forward and I figure out some of the details and they don't end up with a mess and they're able to execute let's say even if they take a state like Arizona and they roll this out. Now there is a dichotomy in the market right there's the haves and the have nots right? If I'm an expansion business and I'm able to do this I continually cut a deal in the way that they framed it out in the preferential terms in terms of how I do this. And now I'm an agent in the market center and unless I graduate to the elite level and qualify I don't get even on the playing field and I don't like how that feels from an agent standpoint right. Because there are great agents in the KW systems with a lot of them. You and I are friends with lots and not everybody wants to be the gigantic multistate operation to qualify for that elite level and I don't want your take on it is I heard from a lot of people. "I don't like how this feels. I don't want to have that business." "That's not me. I've got a great business. I've got a small team here but I'm really concerned that I'm going to be competing on a level field". Kaufmann: Not only that the other piece you got to look at here Kevin. And let's just say that the LPs overall are our quote unquote OK with it. So if you go look at these top expansion teams and I'm not going to name names there most of them are my friends and people are highly respect and in some cases really love So we're talking about they're gonna get to go to this extra brokerage this new brokerage this virtual brokerage and and those agents on their team will now get this you know call it a half cap if you will and special treatment. But the problem is is those teams are comprised of other capping KW agents. And so what's going to happen is. So if I am one of these you know mega team X expansion teams when I grow color wins doesn't grow like it stays the same because I'm just they're just recruiting other KW agents to their team. A lot of cases they're recruiting another Keller Williams team to their team and it's what I call their acquiring teams they're not even recruiting agents they're acquiring other teams. And I don't see how that win. So if I'm on the local market center owner and I've got no. 6 or 7 capping agents in my company. And now they've been recruited to these six or seven different mega expansion teams and now they're going to leave my brokerage. I can't go to the other brokerage. Not only are they going to pay a lot less money in company dollar but then that's going to get shared back. But I like am I going to get all of that back? and I get even if I got all of it it's still not even half of what I was getting. And so again you run into legal ramifications that I think clearly haven't been thought through and that's why it's not rolled out and why it won't be rolled out for some time because they will have problems like that. Kevin : I couldn't agree with you more. My personal story which we talked about before we started recording is the fact that you know even in a market center right let's forget about the statewide brokerage operation for a minute and you're highly successful right. I moved into a marketplace from out of state. I didn't know anybody and I went in less than three years from zero to 240 transactions a year. This was before the online stuff was dominated by real track common Zillow in most markets. We set up a real geek's Web site was one of the first ones we rolled out in a massive way. And I knew Jeff Manson pretty well and so I roll out this Web site. I hire a whole content team and we knock it out of the park. We're ranking for a gazillion things. We're starting to get everybody's leads right. We're doing what expansion teams do as well from the lead generation standpoint right. They start to dominate the markets right. You know the really big ones come in like you said they roll in teams and otherwise and they turn on massive Legion. So I run into a problem right. I'm brought in in the open and the team that are like you are causing so much chaos in our markets center. We've had 15 or twenty five agents complain about it that this person and that person are working with your buyer agent. This is going on and that's going on and we can't have that. And you know the bad news is the way they resolve that in a franchise is I was asked to leave and I was told I mean I have 57 active listings 30 paintings and I was brought in an hour before and a I'll see meeting and told you've got till Friday you move. I didn't right. I negotiated a more orderly transition out. But if we look at that now flash forward to statewide brokerage operations there is going to be no remedy for the agent market center because they're open to too are going to say well I don't know what to tell you. That's a state brokerage issue and we have nothing to do with them. If you're a franchise agent and you're worried about this just I can tell you from personal experience you know you've reach out to me if you want to have an offline conversation. But the net net on it was I wasn't given an option. I even talked with the regional director and his answer to me was I do not know what to tell you this is a franchise issue they can resolve things how they see fit. We have nothing to do with it. And the region can't help you. Well that's kind of going to be the dialogue with somebody complaining about a giant expansion business. It's going to be you know sorry. They're in a different brokerage and be like you complaining about a different franchise and that's my biggest concern. When I talk about the unlevel playing field is I've seen how this is resolved. And so my word of warning for people is you know Kevin's very very astute on this. It's potentially not going to be rolled out for a while but if you're looking at your business long term just realize that this is an issue you're going to have to cross and it may or may not be an issue for you but just know that you know potentially an unlevel playing field is being created and it doesn't feel good to me right. Because I know how they resolve the issues and the ability to get it resolved is going to be messy. Number one you know as far as execution but you know the good news is there is an environment in EXP where you know we've always allowed you know the rainmaker to come in on a team and they've got you know one cap nationwide and they can go build as they see fit. We don't have the complexity in the issues we've done the hard fight of opening offices you know in terms of a state brokerage operation in each state for 49 states. And that takes a while. Right. We've learned lots of lessons. You know when you see Glen message about this it's like Oh my God we've learned so much since we started in 2009 to do this and the reason we didn't open all 50 states immediately was that it would be virtually impossible to tackle all the complexities that are different in every state. So I share your view Kevin that this is not happening anytime soon. So if somebody were listening to this and obviously they're trying to get the you know two or three main drivers let's talk about a couple of different audiences. You are you know running a Facebook group and I will get all your information out here in a minute before we get done recording so people can find you on Facebook and you know some of the stuff you sharing your masterminds and some of the stuff you do. But if you were advising let's just talk about a couple of the different constituents out there right. Somebody in the franchise system there a capper and they're looking at this potential for a future unlevel playing field. What would be the two or three things you'd tell about what you know about EXP for why they would want to probably strongly at least take a good look at it. Kaufmann: The reality is EXP is an awesome company in what you look at it. You start to see that. So I'll speak for where I was like I just didn't look at it I didn't give it a fair shake and I just decided you know my brand better than your brand. Blah blah blah. And I fell in for that whole thing. Which is just dumb right. I mean when I look at like what all everything I have inside of enterprise which is the backend system everything from the marketing support to tech like Sky slope the ability to have the different Web sites through the technology agreement. There is a lot. Therefore it. Agent who quite frankly especially looking at the marketing platform you can build a bigger business for less money because of the tools that are already included. So this is not EXP talking about we're gonna have it one day. It's actually already here today it's been here for a while. Then you take a look at the fact that it's virtual which is awesome. And if you want to have a physical space you can do that. I'm a physical guy like I literally like to show up to the office every day. I bought an office building about a year ago long before I ever thought I'd be at EXP because I want to own commercial real estate and it's flexible. And so you can go to an office if you want. There's obviously the Regus agreement but there's also the opportunity to go buy your own building or go rent somewhere else and rent your own space whatever it is. The thing is is we're not all the same as real estate agents. We all want something a little bit different. We might be doing the same thing because we're told we're supposed to but we haven't really explored that and EXPs virtual platform gives us the opportunity to explore the environment that helps us be the most conducive environment to us being productive. One of the things I always loved about KW Was the ability to mastermind to share things with other agents and I just have never seen anything more collaborative than what happens here at the EXP and that is supported obviously because of things like the financial incentives to do so when you introduce somebody to the company whether that's through the stock plan or through the revenue share plan etc. This is like truly open book. Let's share let's help each other let's grow in a big way way beyond anything I've ever experienced my life and I've been in every circle there is to be an inside of the other company and it was great. Don't get me wrong but I like this a little bit better a lot better in fact and so I think no matter what your thing is whether that's the ability to create other income streams besides buying or listing another house or building another team or a bigger team or buy more leads etc. or the ability to leverage the technology that already exists that isn't just coming one day maybe. Or the ability to do business across multiple states and have the level playing field like just the simple fact that the split is the split no matter what state you're at. No matter how big of a producer whether you've sold 500 houses last year or five I think that's amazing. And I think that's great. And I think that it shows that there is an equal opportunity here for everybody. It's truly equal opportunity that everyone's here to take advantage of it the same way you look at those things and I just want you know I truly believe that this platform gives not just me but any agent who wants to be honest about it and really look at it and give it a fair shake it gives us the ability to grow a bigger business than we ever knew was possible. And it gives us the ability to create other income streams besides just selling more real estate and growing a bigger team. And it's kind of hard to not like that. Kevin : Absolutely. You know you and I have been in a franchise environment in growing teams and when we are on point we recruit talent. Right? And so that dynamic that you talked about that i'll just touch on for a minute is guest after guest on the podcast talks about the fact that in the previous franchise system or in their office some of them were in the same market center and they're like we never collaborated on one single thing right. We were number one and number two in this market center in the Dallas area and now we collaborate. Now we mastermind how we talk and so that sharing which is not necessarily very transparent outside is something that I love hearing you say because it is nothing short of incredible and the retention strategies around building wealth for the talent that we recruit. Even if they decide to go off on their own we're in a lot of the franchise systems that's something that creates strife sometimes people leave and they unfortunately go to other brokerages. I'm not seeing this develop at all at EXP. I mean you know there's these "let me help you grow and then if you decide you don't want to be in my operation my team anymore" you know because of the other streams of income the fact that we're all shareholders it's basically encouraged and you know I haven't found anybody that doesn't just get blown away with what they see once they're in the system. Kaufmann: It's pretty remarkable what it is when you actually look at it. Kevin : And I agree with you. And so your advice of digging in is absolutely spot on right. In other words you can't go by what's posted in the you know thousand comment streams in the large Facebook groups right where somebody says What about this versus this and I called the brokerage bashing that goes on in the comments or you know if you cut them off after a thousand comments you know some agents some poor agent reading that would have no idea. And it's so far from accurate because what you said which is everybody's got their version of their business and it's going to mean different things to different people. So my advice always is what yours is which is you owe it to yourself to dig in and at least look at it right even if you decide to stay at your brokerage wherever it is you can be an independent. You can be a killer Williams You could be at Remax no matter where you are. I think the biggest mistake somebody would make and only get your take on it. It would be to be close minded and look up and go. I'm not even looking at it. This is not for me because I've seen people come back around. I've had people basically start out with a "I'm not interested. Not going to work for me" and we're starting to see them stop doing that. And then when they do look at it they join. I mean one of the guests I have coming up on the podcast is John Sterling you know. And he was a big deal within KW right. He supported numerous team leaders. He had relationships with hundreds and hundreds of OPs and team leaders and agents across the country. And once he dug into it he's like Oh my God I can't believe that I didn't dig into this before. And you know he recently and when I interview and you'll see and you know this you saw his post on Facebook that you know he's joined in. You know he's you know Jean and I are supporting him and he's going to come in and you know he sees the value as well so I was glad to hear you say that. Let's talk a little about your social media stuff your masterminds because I want agents to be able to get plugged in. It doesn't matter what the flag they fly. Brokerage wise. Right? You know you give back to the community you create a lot of value. You got a large Facebook group. You do masterminds you do in person stuff. So wouldn't you detail a little bit that out so that people if they want to get plugged into your world can. Kaufmann: You know the truth is is that I'm a big fan of people and relationships and those always trump company to me. And so while I do love EXP I did love Keller Williams didn't love either one more than I care about my relationships with people and one of those relationships is obviously my business partner Fred but also our good buddy Kody Gibson who runs a large large team over at Keller Williams and almost two years ago we just decided to start a Facebook group. We just want to start a mastermind online you know brand agnostic for people to come and share ideas best practices do webinars things like that. So we started a group it's now called the Next Level Agents about twenty 23000 maybe 24000 members in there and we just do our best to bring really good content to the real estate community regardless of brand. We try to keep it very brand agnostic and try not to get these two entities brokerage wars conversations that break out unfortunately you can't stop some people from saying my team is better than your team but that's another subject. But for the most part it's high level conversations right. We started putting together some live events like we did one in May this past Las Vegas called NLA Live. You go to NLALive.com you can kind of see the promo from last year or the highlights from last year as well as the information for next year's event where we just brought in speakers from all different companies different subjects and just said hey let's get back to the community today. And that's really what that's the essence of the brand of that group is let's get back and let's share best practices and help each other. Check us out on Facebook if you haven't already it's Next Level Agents. You can go to Facebook.com/groups/NextLevelAgents I believe it's how you can find it easy or just search it. Yeah. That's just kind of a project. You know we've got a mastermind event coming up this October in Portland which we're really excited about. We're looking to do one or two live events a year and so this will be obviously a little bit smaller than the Vegas event where we had a couple hundred people show up and next year we're expecting more like four to five hundred people in person plus the all of the live streams. So we'll just see it as an education platform and a platform to be able to communicate with the real estate community because that matters. This is a relationship business at the end of the day no matter what. And quite frankly if I'm representing a buyer or seller I could care less what brand has the listing or the other side of the transaction. I've got to make sure that a good relationship with the other party and we can get this deal done together in a win win scenario. Kevin : Fantastic. Obviously I have every guest give their contact information so that if somebody listen to this and they want to basically get in touch with you and talk about it. This is another thing that's not very transparent from the outside of you. We're all shareholders. We all want to provide best information. So Kevin give your contact information and basically you can reach out. Does it matter who introduced you to the EXP. We're all here as a resource. This man is me Jean. Kevin does it matter who it is John Sterling we're all here to get you the best available information so you can make a good decision. Kevin. How would they reach you. What's the best way. Kaufmann: Yeah. Best way is by email realestate@group4610.com just comes right to me and my business partner Fred another really good way is Facebook. You know Facebook Messenger is always a great way. Easiest way to find me. I'm sure there's more than one Kevin Kaufmann on Facebook. So if you got our Next Level Agents it be pretty easy to see who the admins of that group is connect with me that way. Facebook Messenger is always a really good way too and by all means reach out. We love referrals too. So Phoenix San Luis Obispo Denver Tucson Yuma Nashville. We definitely love real estate referrals. We sell a lot of real estate. We want to sell a lot more. Kevin : Fantastic. I appreciate you coming on the show any final thoughts before we drop off today. Kevin : Now you know I'm just I'm so excited to meet this company and be in business with my partners like Curtis Johnson and Walker and so many of the other that we are in business with here and looking forward to a very very bright future. All right great. Thanks for coming on the show.

So Kevin wasn't his Sledge like self, and blew off a schedualed record. That happened a week before Grand Rapids Comic Con, so there wasn't a chance to record a back up episode. So Kevin had to scramble to find some un released content... which he found... sort of... Please enjoy: Grilled Cheese Theater  The music for this episode was recorded by SliT for Reverse Centaur and was used with permission. Check out SliT on Soundcloud

An interview with Kevin Walker on Brand Strategy and its role in keeping employees happy. Kevin Walker (Boardwalk) speaks with Geoff Johansing about the importance of a brand and how managing your brand effectively will be as attractive to your best employee as it is to your best customer. A good brand strategy will be pointing to a healthy corporate culture, meaningful work, high-quality co-workers; and attract the very best candidates, and keep them happy. Everybody wants to work for a good brand. If a company differentiates its brand assets in a meaningful way they will find their true competitive advantage, tell their story, and grow their business. For more "Happy Employees" insights, join our LinkedIn Group! About Kevin Walker Principal and Senior Brand Strategist Boardwalk Los Angeles, CA, Paris, France Website: Boardwalk FULL TRANSCRIPTION: GEOFF JOHANSING: Hello everyone. I'm Geoff Johansing. I run the Pasadena office of Insurance Office of America. I am a property and casualty insurance agent working on companies in the middle market arena from a hundred plus employees with ten million plus in revenue and my focus is to have all of my clients have happy employees. I'm here today with Kevin Walker, who runs Boardwalks Branding, and he's in the Los Angeles area. Welcome, Kevin. KEVIN WALKER: Thank you. GJ: You want to tell us a little bit about your company? KW: Ah, sure. Boardwalk is brand strategy consultancy. We are here in Los Angeles, and have been in business since 1990. We work in all different industries; technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer products, sports, entertainment, municipalities, nonprofits, pretty much everything... and what we do with our clients is we help them differentiate their brand assets and in a meaningful way, find their true competitive advantage, tell their story and grow their business. GJ: Wonderful. So Kevin, my first question; how does having a strong brand create happy employees? KW: Well studies show that the top concern of middle market companies is talent. How does an organization attract the best, most capable and most productive employees and then keep the competition from poaching them? In the past, they've only had to worry themselves about two different things; base pay salary structure and benefits package. GJ: Right. KW: But now, every job offer has that. And top talent, in fact, will expect offers at the high end of that scale. So if every job offer is, if there's parody in all the job offers, how does a candidate make a decision? And they look at four different things; they look at the purpose and the mission at the prospective company; they look at the meaningfulness of the work there; they look at the quality of the co-workers; and they look at the corporate culture. And if you notice, all those things are branding issues. And in fact, 50% of job candidates who turn down a job offer... do it because they don't like the offering company's brand. GJ: Okay. KW: But if you've been managing your brand effectively it will already be as attractive to your best employee as it is to your best customer. A good brand strategy will be pointing to healthy corporate culture, meaningful work, high-quality co-workers; and you'll be in good shape to attract the very best candidates, and keep them happy. Everybody wants to work for a good brand. GJ: Right. KW: And a strong brand. GJ: And I know you and I have spoken before on this issue, and you brought up also that there's a fair amount of people that are leaving because maybe they took the job because nothing else was available and... KW: It's true. I read one study that said 51% of people who are in a job, are actively looking for a better situation. Now, how active they are? I'm not sure. I mean, it could be some of these very actively looking for another job and has his resume going out everywhere or somebody's just keeping a weathe...

Happy Monday Wonderlings, Angela Bowen here, the host of Looking Back on My Wonder Years A Wonder Years Podcast. Welcome to another podcast episode of The Wonder Years: Flashback Edition S3E11: Don’t You Know Anything About Women? Air Date: January 16, 1990 In this episode Kevin wants to ask Susan Fisher to the next school dance, but can't find the courage. Wanting to help him out, his lab partner Linda offers to go with him, 'as friends.' Kevin finds himself torn between two girls Linda his lab partner and Susan his fantasy dream girl. He wants to ask Susan to the dance even though she’s still hung up on Donald her maybe ex. So Kevin’s ok with being a rebound guy if that means he gets one dance with her. Meanwhile Linda’s harboring a crush on Kevin but he just sees her as a buddy or lab partner. And Paul feels like Carla’s got him on a leash and spends most of the episode complaining about breaking up with her, till he finally cuts her loose at the dance to sew his wild oats with other girls but ends up sitting alone. Poor Paul. Join me tomorrow for S4E3: The Journey, which aired on October 3, 1990. In this episode Hearing that some 10th-Grade girls are having a slumber party, Kevin, Paul and the guys travel across town in the dark of night to try and get in on the action. Have a great Monday!

My guest today is Kevin Leyton-Brown, he is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. Kevin's work involves not only computer science topics such as artificial intelligence, but also game theory, and the intersection between the two. Our topic for today is an app that Kevin co-founded called Kudu, which uses double auctions to help Ugandan farmers trade more effectively. Kevin was interested in using his skills to help people in the developing world, so during a sabbatical seven years ago, he resolved to go to a country in sub-Saharan Africa to do just that. He settled on Uganda and, after living there for a time, noticed something peculiar about the market for agricultural goods there. In the city, you would sometimes find vendors selling goods at very high prices, and even running out. Meanwhile, in the countryside, vendors would have so much stock they would be selling at extremely low prices, even rotting before they could be sold. Kevin, along with his partners John Quinn and Richard Ssekibuule, set out to help the locals seize these apparent arbitrage opportunities by constructing a platform to allow buyers and sellers in these markets to trade with one another at competitive prices. Most Ugandans have cell phones. Not fancy smartphones (as I wrongly guessed) but basic flip phones. So Kevin and his partners decided to set up a platform by which people could make bids and asks using a basic text-message system, and that system turned into Kudu. The platform has facilitated $1.5 million USD worth of confirmed trades, and it has made the prices of agricultural goods much more transparent for everyone trading in these markets. Related links: Myerson–Satterthwaite theorem Vickrey–Clarke–Groves mechanism  

I’ve talked before about the importance for founders to be the company’s first sales reps. It gives you an in-depth understanding of your sales cycle, your customers, your unique value proposition, and your place in the market. These are all things you need to figure out before you hire your first salesperson. And that’s what my co-founder, Kevin, and I did for the first two years of Proposify. But as the company grew, other aspects of the business required more of our attention. We also realized that since we don’t sell high-priced enterprise plans, we needed to be hyper cognizant of acquisition cost — will the customers we acquire be worth the cost of a sales reps? So we concentrated on inbound marketing - SEO, blogging, podcasting, social, and other inbound channels. While not a quick win, this approach worked well for us (and still does!), driving lots of leads. More leads than Kevin and I could ever talk to on our own. Two factors motivated us to think seriously about hiring a sales team: In 2016 we launched our “enterprise” plan called “Trenta” to appeal to companies with larger sales teams. Our support staff were regularly asked by new trial signups for one-on-one demos. We encouraged many of them to watch our videos or webinars, but still the requests came in and they facilitated as many as they could So Kevin and I decided to experiment with hiring inbound sales reps to see if they could follow up on our leads, qualify those who might be a fit for the larger plans, and close those deals. Article: https://www.proposify.biz/blog/how-to-hire-inbound-sales-reps Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2clJVNarvY8

Stephen is the CEO of Predictive ROI and the host of the Onward Nation podcast. He is the author of two bestselling books, speaker, trainer, and his digital marketing insights have been featured in SUCCESS, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and other media. Good Morning Onward Nation…I’m Stephen Woessner and welcome to this week’s solocast…Episode 435. Where we are going deep — deep — deep — behind the scenes of one of today’s top reality TV shows. In fact, the Emmy-award winning SHARK TANK on ABC has become the most successful business reality TV show of all time. And it because of our incredible guest, Kevin Harrington, that we received a backstage pass – including Kevin’s lessons learned – and how – if we apply what he shared during Episode 410 – you too can be a shark. He is exceptional, Onward Nation. So during today’s solocast — I am going to distil down all we learned from directly Kevin into five lessons that you can immediately put into practice within your business. No matter if you want to increase revenue by 10 percent this year – or – you are the path to building a $100 million company as Kevin has twenty times with his companies – there is something here for you in this solocast. I am going to start us off with a sharing some of the highlights from Kevin’s career as an entrepreneur, and then we will dive into the six lessons. Kevin has been a successful entrepreneur over the last 40 years – he is the exact opposite of an overnight success – he started working when he was just 11 years old. I will come back to that story in a minute. As I mentioned earlier – Kevin is an original shark from Shark Tank. He is also the inventor of the infomercial and “As Seen On TV” pioneer – and the story behind the brilliance of that invention — tie into lesson two this morning. Kevin is also a co-founder of the Entrepreneur’s Organization and has launched over 20 businesses that have grown to over a hundred million dollars in sales each — and has been involved in more than a dozen public companies — launched over 500 products, generated more than $5 billion dollars in sales worldwide with iconic brands such as Jack Lalanne, Tony Little, George Foreman, and the new I-Grow Hair Restoration product on QVC. And it is because of this track record – Mark Burnett handpicked Kevin to become Shark where he filmed over 175 segments. As I prepared for my time with Kevin – I found one of his quotes that seemed to really speak to who I knew Kevin to be and his path to success. Kevin once said, “If it doesn’t challenge you – it won’t change you.” In looking back on what I learned from Kevin during our time together – I can confidently say that these words have served like a creed guiding his life…and it started at a young age for Kevin. So let’s jump in. Kevin started his entrepreneurial journey working as an 11-year old dishwasher inside his father’s restaurant. At 11…Kevin learned lessons of grit, tenacity, and persistence that he still carries with him today. For example… Kevin’s dad had been an entrepreneur his entire life and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps — but Kevin’s mom — wanted him to become a doctor or lawyer because her father had enjoyed a successful career in banking. Kevin’s mom grew up in a household where the corporate life was the norm – the predictability felt comfortable. But, Onward Nation…entrepreneurship requires swimming against the norm — swimming upstream — it requires us to swim against the rapids — against the odds — and to confidently swim toward the white water, and doing so, we need to have great anticipation for the unknown…the challenge of it all. And sharing his personal story is how Kevin taught me the first lesson of what it takes to be a SHARK. Lesson #1: SHARKS seek out the challenge. When someone tells a SHARK that it can’t be done…or that there is an easier, less trampled path…the SHARK sets out to map his or her own course. Kevin, Onward Nation, is quite comfortable in swimming in the deepest of water…finding the blue ocean…and swimming all by himself if he needs to. Kevin doesn’t need the approval of his peer group. He is not looking for validation. He is a SHARK and knows it. A SHARK, like Kevin, never gets confused thinking they are something they are not. They don’t forget their gifts and talents…or…try to become something they are not. They are acutely aware of who they are and they revel in it for all of their competitors to see. And because of Kevin’s self-awareness…he knew at avery early age that entrepreneurship — and the uncertainty — the challenge of it all suited him perfectly. He learned the ups and downs of running a business working alongside his dad. Kevin’s father was his first mentor — someone who gave Kevin the right challenges to conquer at the right time. To push his son — to show him what needed to be learned — what needed to be mastered — and how to be successful so that when it was time for Kevin to swim out into the deep blue ocean to see his own challenges…he was ready. Kevin used the story of his next adventure in life to teach me the second lesson of what it takes to be a SHARK. Lesson #2: SHARKS seek out opportunity. By the time Kevin was ready to own a car, and then later to attend college, there wasn’t enough money to go around. His two older sisters and brother had already gone off to college and the family budget was stretched. Kevin realized that if he was going to have a car and to attend college — he was going to have to pay his own way. So what does a SHARK do, Onward Nation? He searched the waters for opportunity. He needed to find an opportunity that would help him fund the next step in his journey. To buy his car…Kevin started a driveway sealing business. Not easy work…but the grit, the tenacity, the persistence he was learning was becoming part of his DNA…and he accomplished his goal. But…because Kevin grew up in Ohio…his driveway sealing business was seasonal summertime work. So he looked at the market to seek out a new opportunity…something he could do year-round. And that landed him in the heating and air conditioning business because of the steady stream of year-round opportunity. Great catch. So during his freshman year in college, Kevin started an HVAC company and it was a success. As a freshman…he had 25 employees and was generating $1 million dollars a year in revenue. And just for context, Onward Nation — that was back in the 1970s, which would equal $6.2 million in today’s dollars. All the while…Kevin was a college student. Super impressive! After college…it was Kevin’s ability to seek out opportunity that fueled the acceleration of his career to become one of today’s top business owners. When Kevin was in the heating and air conditioning business — he would travel around the country to different trade shows looking to learn and to seek out the next opportunity. He would go to home shows and heating and air conditioning shows — and it was at one of the home shows that the inspiration for his next opportunity hit him. So then Kevin told me the full story behind his invention of the infomercial. He watching one of the exhibitors at a show sell a knife set and was impressed with the demonstration and the entrepreneur’s ability to sell the small audience watching the demo on the benefits of the knife set. But, the entrepreneur was only pitching 10 people at a time…and yes…eight people out of the 10 would want to buy at the end of the demo…but it was still only 8 sales. That compelling demo flashed Kevin back to his recent experience as a brand new cable subscriber. He had asked the cable company to give him all the channels they could – the biggest package available – which was 30 channels back in the early 80s. He got a 24-hour news channel, CNN, a 24-hour movie channel, HBO, 24 hours a day of sports, ESPN. Rock solid awesome. But, when he turned on the TV late one night…for what he thought would be 24-hours of national geographic shows…it wasn’t there…all he saw were color bars. So Kevin called the cable company and said, “Hey, I just got your 30 cable channel package but I’m looking at all the channels, but Discovery is not coming through. Is there a technical problem? What’s happening?” They said, “Oh, Discovery is only an 18-hour a day network. We, as the cable company, deliver the channels that we get. We don’t produce anything. We’re just a delivery vehicle. They give us 18-hours a day. We put up the bars, so you know there’s nothing that supposed to be there. It’s six hours a day of dark time.” That’s when the lightbulb went off for Kevin. He asked the representative at the cable company if he could come down and talk to somebody about putting something on the network during the dark time that they could both make money at. So let’s go back to the home show…Kevin watching the knife demo – cutting through a Coca-Cola can – a powerful visual demonstration. The knife set was called the “Ginsu” and Kevin knew it would be perfect for TV – and could fill the empty inventory that the cable company clearly had. So Kevin…following his own lesson…and wanting to find his next opportunity went up to the entrepreneur doing the demonstration and said, “Hey, let’s turn the camera on. Capture your pitch that you just gave selling those knives. We’re going to put on that downtime on Discovery channel.” Onward Nation…Kevin started locally in Cincinnati, Ohio and bought up the excess programming inventory. And then when they had proof of concept…Kevin went to Discovery Channel at the network level and said, “Hey, I’ll program six hours a day for you”, which turned into a long-term contract and that led to a deal with the Lifetime network. Then boom. Acceleration. Onward Nation, Kevin’s imagination and his pursuit of opportunity gave birth to the infomercial at a time when the market was ripe for disruption. Kevin went on to work with Jack Lalanne, Tony Little, Billy Mays, and even George Foreman with his popular Foreman Grills. And all of this was years before QVC ever started. But a very key piece in this lesson, Onward Nation, is that Kevin realized there were significant opportunities on the front-end and back-end of the infomercial business. For example, he signed contracts with inventors of products and pitchmen to create the right TV presence, the right story, the right direct response marketing to consumers…but…Kevin also realized there was money to be made on the back-end…in the customer service…in the manufacture and distribution of all the goods, too. So when Kevin approached a business owner with an opportunity to join his portfolio of products…he was providing an A to Z solution that was very compelling and provided built-in marketing and distribution. And then it went viral, Onward Nation, before “viral” was even a thing. Kevin shared with me how one opportunity built on and led to the next. They took it viral not only in the US then went to England with Rupert Murdoch…then to Italy…then into Spain…into Germany…to Sweden, Latin America, and Japan. Their distribution went worldwide viral through the TV networks with an 800 number on the back of it. Kevin’s system generated hundreds and millions of dollars over several years. And they were able to do that because Kevin and his team were not just creating content for stations – they also manufactured the products, imported the products, created a phone center to accept orders, set up a fulfillment center to ship the goods, a bank to cash the credit cards, a customer service center to handle the customer service. Kevin capitalized on the opportunity to create a complete front and back end marketing and distribution machine. He was the pioneer behind the catchphrase – “not available in stores.” And that ensure that all of the dollars for their products flowed through their own front and back end system. Direct to consumer. Brilliant. And once the system was built – he achieved scale by recruiting as many products as possible – and because of the results he was creating for his partners – they would often introduce him to the next ones. One of them said to Kevin, “Hey, did you meet Billy Mays? Billy has a product. I’ll introduce you.” Kevin was able to tie up the rights to all of them with all of their ideas, all their products. Kevin and his team created an industry but it started with seeking out an opportunity and then not being afraid of the enormous challenge that it represented. Lessons #1 and #2, Onward Nation. And Kevin still applies this same level of curiosity today by attending 25 to 30 trade shows a year. I interviewed him just days before he left for CES in Las Vegas. He speaks at the events…meets with business owners in his portfolio of companies…and then is always on the lookout to be pitched the next opportunity. Let’s move to Lesson #3, Onward Nation: SHARKS are relentless. SHARKS never stop swimming toward their goal — because if they do — they will suffocate and die.
 And that makes a SHARK relentless. They have a strong will to win. But their will to win isn’t because they just want to survive – no – a SHARK is driven to thrive. Even if that means they will collect battle scars along the way…each scar is just additional experience. A SHARK’s relentless pursuit to thrive is what has made them the undisputed top of the oceanic food chain. A Great White shark will nearly eat anything. And if a competitive feeding frenzy ensues – the SHARK with the strongest, most unrelenting will is the one who gets the most meat. 
It is their relentless nature…their relentless pursuit of an opportunity…that produces incredible success. Onward Nation…don’t you think it is reasonable to think that Kevin Harrington received some naysayers who listened to his idea about pitching products on TV at 2:00 in the morning…who giggled a little bit. I can almost hear the skepticism now. Oh come on, Kevin…who is going to buy something they see on TV? How many people are actually awake that late? If people were actually interested in watching TV that late…don’t you think the networks would already have programming?” And yet…he relentlessly did it anyway. Because that is what SHARKS do, Onward Nation. Time for Lesson #4: SHARKS never stop learning. And because SHARKS never stop learning — they are excellent problem solvers — and they pivot when necessary, and consequently, are on the front-end of the disruption. SHARKS are early adopters to new tech so they can continue their position of market leadership and being at the top of the food chain. But they also help set the new trends and can be excellent teachers if we are willing to watch and learn. For example, when Kevin attends a trade show…it is often in the role of being the keynote speaker. And he is there to share content about the disruptions he is seeing in the marketplace – where is the market headed. He can share those types of insights because he never stops learning – he doesn’t rest on his laurels – his relentless nature of being a SHARK demands that he continue to learn – to continually perfect his craft in order to be the best expert he can be. And his thought leadership is highly sought after because the “As Seen On TV” industry is in the midst of a serious disruption. For example, I learned from Kevin that there are 50 percent fewer viewers on TV today than there were 10-years ago. Let’s take a deeper look. When shows launch today – if it’s good – it will receive 5 to 6 million viewers – and maybe 7 to 8 million viewers if it is really good. And if you go back just 10 years, those same shows would be doing double that. But, today’s audience is gone. They are either on YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, or getting their content on their iPads, iPhones, etc. Kevin described it as “cord cutting” and it is taking place at a very rapid rate right now. And because of that…industry associations are turning to Kevin – who built such incredible success around TV with his empire of products and back-end fulfillment systems – to now teach what is next. And because Kevin saw the trends coming – because of his study and learning – he smartly pivoted. As a result…he is profiting within completely different platforms because he has learned what the consumer wants – and – where they want it. Kevin urges today’s business owners to “Follow the eyeballs. They’re on Facebook. They’re on Pinterest. They’re on Instagram. Which is why 80 percent of Kevin’s business comes from digital channels versus 100 percent coming from his TV presence just 5-years ago. Lesson #5: SHARKS are decisive Onward Nation, when was the last time you watched Shark Week on the Discovery Channel and you saw a shark being indecisive? Did you see it hesitate? Did you see it circling around an opportunity and never taking action to either strike or move on? Living in fear and not knowing if they should move in to investigate and then decide if they should eat it or not doesn’t happen in the wild. No? Why? Because sharks in the wild are decisive. And SHARKS in business share that same trait with their oceanic counterparts. How often have you seen Kevin and his fellow SHARK investors inside the Shark Tank waffle around a deal? Never. It doesn’t happen. Within minutes, they decide if they will — or won’t invest — in someone’s dream. They don’t belabor a point…they are either in or they are out. They are decisive about an opportunity. When they see an opportunity…they move. I have been a fan of SHARK TANK for a long time – so during our pre-interview chat – I asked Kevin if he would be willing to take us behind the scenes of SHARK TANK. I was delighted when he agreed. So here we go, Onward Nation…way…way…way…behind the scenes. It is as if Kevin gave us an all access studio pass. Here are some of the highlights. Shark Tank is filmed on a soundstage on the Sony movie lot in Culver City, California – just outside Los Angeles — where all the original big movies with Clark Gable and today’s biggest Hollywood blockbusters are filmed. Gulp. And during the shooting of the first several episodes, the Shark Tank soundstage was physically right next door to the soundstage where Robert Downey Jr. was filming the first Iron Man movie. So at lunch, Kevin and his fellow SHARKS were at lunch, and the Iron Man cast and crew was also at lunch. There were hundreds of crew and staff there, and the Sharks were like, “Wow, there’s Robert Downey Jr. — Hey, we’re from Shark Tank.” And the reaction from everyone was “Who the heck are you guys?” Onward Nation…nobody knew what Shark Tank was at that point. It was brand new. I am so glad Kevin shared that insight – because – it illustrates so perfectly that even one of the biggest shows on TV – had to start somewhere and that somewhere was at the bottom. And they had to work like crazy to make the show a success. But not without needing to conquer number of intimidating moments along the way. And just like Kevin taught me during this interview – “If it does challenge you – it doesn’t change you.” For example… The ceilings within the soundstage were 60-foot high with 16 cameras and a crew of 150 people bustling about! Now, Kevin came from a television business – he shot many infomercials and being in front of a camera was easy for him. But, a big expensive shoot in Kevin’s world before Shark Tank was five cameras – and now he was on the Sony movie lot inside a soundstage that cost $1 million to build with 16 cameras and a 150 person crew. There’s the challenge Kevin spoke about, Onward Nation. This was Hollywood. This was ABC, Sony, and big time Mark Burnett. He produces the biggest and the best from Survivor and all that. Using Kevin’s words…it was a little bit intimidating. But then Mark Burnett came over to Kevin and asked, “Kevin, tell me how you feel. What’s going through your mind right now?” Kevin said, “Well, it’s a little intimidating, Mark. I’m not going to lie to you. I’m sitting here. I’m looking at 150-person crew, 16 cameras, Sony music movie lot. Mark, I feel really good because I know what is happening here…the entrepreneurs who are coming in…they’re going to be pitching me and this is what I do every day in my business.” Then Mark Burnett said, “Kevin. Just put blinders on. Don’t think about the cameras. Don’t think about the crew. Don’t think about anything. I want you to focus on the entrepreneur coming out, giving you the pitch. What would you do if that was in your office?” Kevin told me… “Stephen, That’s when it all came together.” Because of Mark’s words, Kevin had a peaceful feeling and he could just focused on his expertise and what he did best. But there was also another form of risk to the SHARKS themselves. At that particular time, ABC had not committed to air SHARK TANK. So Mark Burnett still had to negotiate for distribution of the show. So the reality was – that the SHARKS were investing in deals that had no guarantee of distribution on TV. Kevin is one of the original SHARKS who helped forge the show because we went all in – he wrote checks to companies that were coming on SHARK TANK with no guarantee of distribution – no guarantee of getting eyeballs for those investments. So for the SHARKS – it was a very risky proposition. They were investing hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own cash into deals that may never be seen by anybody on TV. The initial episodes were pilots. Fortunately, selling to the networks is a skill for Mark Burnett. He got it sold into ABC, and the show launched in 2009, and the rest is history. But SHARK TANK — as well as Kevin Harrington’s incredible career — are great illustrations of how there is no such thing as an overnight success. Onward Nation…it takes grit, persistence, and tenacity to make your dreams a reality. Don’t give up — keep pushing — don’t ever quit. So with that… I want to thank you for taking the time to be here with me today. It is an honor to have you here — thank you for tuning in — your time is sacred and I am delighted you chose this episode to be what you listen to, study, and take with you on your morning run, or maybe Onward Nation has become part of your daily commute, or in some other way has become part of your morning routine. However our daily podcast fits into your daily routine — I want you to know how much I appreciate you sharing some of your invaluable 86,400 seconds you have in your day with me and the strategies we learn and share each day from today’s top business owners. And please continue to let me know what you think of Onward Nation…good or bad…I always want your feedback. My direct email address is stephen@onwardnation.com — and yes — that is my actual Inbox. No fancy filters or filing system and I read and reply to every single email. So please let me know how you think we are doing. I look forward to hearing from you. We will be back tomorrow with an interview with Cameron Herold, the top-rated lecturer at the EO / MIT’s Entrepreneurial Masters Program. Until then, onward with gusto!

So Kevin went to his periodontist this week, and had his stitches out. This means that he can eat more that liquids, and so Ursula lets him choose what to have based on what he can eat. So there are a LOT of soft foods, like bean pasta, macaroni and cheese, and baked beans. There is also beer, wine, tea drink, packages from our friends, and at least one item that is pink. All that and a whole lot more when We Eat It, So You Don't Have To!

Kevin Bailey, President of VF Action Sports and CEO of Vans (VF Corporation) spoke to a group of business students at the Irvine campus and it was recorded as a podcast for this episode of Brandman Speaks. Joining in the discussion is Joe Cockrell, vice chancellor of Communications for Brandman University. During the podcast, students asked questions about Bailey's role as CEO of Vans, social media, global branding, current issues facing the company and its global mission, and challenges Bailey has faced on the road to becoming an executive. Transcript: Joe Cockrell: [00:00] Welcome to Brandman Speaks. I'm Joe Cockrell, vice chancellor of communications at Brandman University, and this episode is being recorded with a live audience of select students here at the Brandman campus in Irvine. [00:12] It is my pleasure to have special guest Kevin Bailey. Mr. Bailey serves as president and CEO of Vans Americas, owned by the publicly traded VF Corp., which also has such brands as The North Face, Wrangler and Timberline. Back when VF bought Vans for $370 million in 2004, Vans was publicly traded as well. The company expects the 50-year-old brand to do $2.3 billion in sales this year, up from around $2 billion -- a measly 2 billion -- last year, making it the fastest growing part of the VF portfolio. So Kevin thank you so much for joining us today. Kevin Bailey: [00:49] Thanks for having me. Joe Cockrell: [00:50] I have questions here that some of the students have submitted. And let's start with the basics. Can you describe a little bit about how you came into this career and your background? Kevin Bailey: [01:03] Sure. It's kind of a crazy story and I've had a very interesting ride, I guess. I'm from the East Coast originally. Grew up in northern New Jersey just outside of New York City. And I guess my first ... I was a typical high school kid, right, going to school for honors math, honors science all that stuff, probably targeting pre-med at the time, not having any clue what I really wanted to do. But I started working in retail and if I'm honest about it I started in retail as a stock kid at the Gap because I thought I could meet girls. [01:34] I'm just going to be honest about it. [01:36] That was the plan as I school kid and I there were college girls who worked there and I thought that was cool. And the Gap then sold multiple brands. It wasn't just a gap so they sell Levi's and other stuff. But I started my ..really then that sort of got the bug in me for retail. And that's really where I first got bit a little bit by having some good managers that oversaw me gave me a lot of different responsibilities and helped me learn some things that I didn't know about. And then, as well, I found retail to be a real problem-solving environment. Every day you're dealing with consumers, different issues. You're dealing with inventory in and outs; you're dealing with a variety of situations; and you're learning how to sell, which I think is a big valuable skill. I also was an artist. I tried art school after graduating high school because I was confused and thought I was going to go to med school and pre-med and I changed my mind and went to art school. Final act of rebellion from my parents and then went off to University of Vermont. And through all of that though I stayed in retail and I always worked in retail and after school that's ... I got asked to take on an assistant manager job in a retail store -- then it was an American Eagle Outfitters store that I worked in part time while in school. American Eagle then sold other things other than just American Eagle product too then. And I just sort of stepped into that life then and began the business career really by working in retail and grew up in retail. [02:58] I was blessed and got to work with several founder-led companies in the time and sort of s...

Borenzo took over in LeMans, destroying everyone in QP and riding so amazingly smooth like he can. So Kevin is signing himself as Jorge's new PR guy and had more than a few suggestions. We started this one with race recaps including plenty about all the crashes in GP. Then PR Kevin jumps right in. Eventually we talk about the disappointment of Moto2 and why Moto3 is doing better in so many ways. We even manage to slot in some of HRC woes and a couple of listener questions as well. Are you ready for Mugello!

If you are sitting at a bar after recording a podcast, and you are trying to explain to someone what your podcast is about, Television quickly becomes a “who’s on first”. It’s really hard to tell someone what you are doing a podcast about when you say Television and you immediately have to say “the band” Television…which is weird cause nobody EVER says “television” when referencing a television, they say “T.V…" I’m pretty sure in 1977 that folks were also saying T.V. and that makes Television (the band)’s choice to name the band Television both punk-rock and anachronistic (probably what they were aiming for)… Anyway, I wish I smoked weed cause that way I could explain that last paragraph away… So…Kevin last minute had to fly away to some other land, and Ryan and I held it together this time…With the help of Producer Mark we, by the grace of god, did it. Get "Marquee Moon" yonder there Amazon Coming Up Next time on somebody likes it: UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH…bad bad bad nightmare bad…it’s called “Steely Dan”…I can’t even write “somebody likes it” in caps, cause it still hurts me…it…hurts. It…hurts…like the slow spread into your belly after getting kicked in the huevos (that means eggs in espanol, eggs meaning testes)…NEXT STOP: AWFUL TOWN.

Dennis is MIA this week and we are in between back-to-back races. So Kevin and I decided to do a half episode to talk about a few topics that we've previously missed from testing, Qatar, and how it ties into Circuit of the Americas. We finally make time to talk about Suzuki, Aleix & Maverick, and the competitiveness of the top 15. We'll be talking about the races front runners at COTA and Argentina next week in Episode 8, so stay tuned.

This short Oblast is a response to a request to talk about Time.  So Kevin briefly talks about Time Dilation and Special Relativity.