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"I don't know what to do." I've heard this countless times in working with people stuck in careers they hate. I've been hearing it, even more, the past couple of weeks when it comes to anti-racism work. This thought is simply your fear. Fear of doing something wrong. Fear of upsetting other people. Fear of "wasting" your time. That's it. You've convinced yourself that other people have it figured out and, if you could just find the "right" steps, then you, too, would take them. I want to let you in on a little secret. NO ONE HAS IT FIGURED OUT. Over the past two weeks, I've had a lot of people ask me what I plan on doing with my platform since I've started speaking out about the criminal justice system. I realize that their question assumes that I have a "plan". That I've carefully thought of every step and I'm moving forward with some grand roadmap rather than I saw a need and jumped in to fill it. Just so we're clear: I have zero plan. These past 2 weeks, I've been overrun with anxiety and fear. I have barely slept. And these are some of the thoughts that have been running on a loop in my head: ​ - Who am I to talk about this? - What will people say? - What if I sound like an idiot? - What if I get it wrong? The only difference is that I've spent the past couple of years learning how to manage my mind. I know that those thoughts are just my fear trying to keep me safe (read: stuck). I feel that fear and I do what I want to do anyway. I take the first step without knowing if it is "right". I learn. I pivot. and I keep going. ​ That's it. That's the whole plan. ​​  

Melissa and Kevin Lee played an important role in what we know now as NightScout and the DIY movement.  Their interest was initially sparked because they wanted to have children. Melissa lives with type 1 and Kevin has an engineering background. They jumped in with many other "hackers" to create what we know now as Nightscout and other DIY systems. By the way, the Lee's children are now ten and eight! Check out Stacey's new book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! In Tell Me Something Good, wedding bells for a T1D couple – which spark some fun stories from others in the community.. and an update on a change my son made after our last episode. Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Sign up for our newsletter here Listen to our "Steel Magnolias" episode about pregnancy, type 1 diabetes and community featuring Melissa Lee, Kerri Sparling & Kyrra Richards here. Find all of the "We Are Not Waiting" episodes of the podcast here #Wearenotwaiting ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android Episode Transcription: Stacey Simms  0:00 Diabetes Connections is brought to you by One Drop created for people with diabetes by people who have diabetes. By Real Good Foods, real food you feel good about eating and by Dexcom take control of your diabetes and live life to the fullest with Dexcom.   Announcer  0:19 This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  0:25 This week, Melissa and Kevin Lee played an important role in what we now know is Nightscout and the DIY movement. It's kind of hard to remember but those early days very different. Melissa remembers what it was like the first time Kevin for husband followed her numbers and acknowledged what a hard day she'd had.   Melissa Lee  0:45 And I didn't realize I just looked at him and he said, this is how every day is, isn't it? And like I still get chills thinking about it. They say it was the first time that anybody outside of me or another person with diabetes looked at I said I see you. This is hard.   Stacey Simms  1:02 Melissa and Kevin were interested initially in the DIY movement because they wanted to have children. Their kids are now 10 and eight. We have a lot to talk about. And tell me something good wedding bells for a couple who live with type one. And that sparked some fun stories from others in the community. plus an update on a change my son made after our last episode. This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Welcome to another week of Diabetes Connections. I'm so glad to have you here. I'm your host Stacey Simms we educate and inspire about type 1 diabetes by sharing stories of connection. And this is a story of connection. Melissa and Kevin have so many wonderful anecdotes to share about finding the DIY community about those early exciting days about the projects they worked on. And we talked about what it's like as a married couple to go from not sharing any information. about diabetes to being some of the first people to be able to see CGM information, you know, how does that change your relationship? How do you talk about it? And we'll get to that in just a couple of minutes. It was great to talk to them. I wanted to bring you up to speed first, though, on something that I mentioned. Well, Benny mentioned it when I spoke to him last week. So Benny is my son, if you're new, he was diagnosed right before he turned two. He is now 15 and a half. And we talked last week about changing a bit of our routine, he has been taking a long acting insulin called Tresiba for almost two years along with using an insulin pump. It's a method called untethered, I'm not going to rehash the whole thing. I've talked about it many times. But if you are new, that will link up more information in the show notes and you can go back to listen to last week or previous episodes with Benny about why we did that. bottom line he was using so much insulin because of puberty and maybe some other issues genetics who knows that it was very, very helpful to add an additional basal source that took the pressure off the pump inset, but Over the last month, his insulin use has gone way down. And that is because of three factors. He's probably coming out of puberty, he has lost a lot of weight. And we are using the control IQ system, which we noticed right away meant we were doing far fewer big corrections and we just used it so much less insulin on it. So during the show that the last endocrinology appointment, Dr. V, had said it was fine to go off the Tresiba, no problem, do it when you want if you want, and Benny said that he did want to do that. So as I'm taping this, it's probably about eight days since we made this switch. It takes about two to three days everybody's a little different to get Tresiba out of your system. It works a little differently than some other long acting so it takes longer to get out of your system. We did have a rocky three days but we were used to that we knew that was coming and just as I had hoped control IQ the software system with the tandem pump and the Dexcom just has worked even better than it did before and I don't talk about specific numbers with my son. That's not how we Roll, but just to give you some perspective has been about 70% in range, you know, it goes up, it goes down very happy with that number. He has been 80% in range, I think 82% in range for the last seven days as an average and two days where he was like 98% in range. It's crazy. So I don't think that'll continue because that's how diabetes works. Right? Don't you find sometimes it like lulls you, when you make a switch, it always starts out great, and like a week or two later floor like the rug just pulled out from under you. So we'll see. I want to get to Melissa and Kevin. But at the end of the show, I'm going to talk a little bit more about some changes we've made recently, in addition to Tresiba, we have changed how we use sleep mode. So stay tuned at the very end. I'm going to talk about that. But I know not everybody uses control IQ. So standby Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Real Good Foods. It's really easy to compare and see what we love about Real Good Foods. If you put them side by side to other products, I mean their breakfast sandwiches, six grams of carbs, 18 grams of protein compared to like, you know 2636 grams of carbs in other products and a lot less protein and a lot more junk. If you look at their cauliflower crust pizza, you It's amazing. Not every cauliflower crust pizza is actually low in carbs, you know this you got to read the labels. So Real Good Foods, nine grams of carbs in there cauliflower crust pizza. Some of the other ones have 3540 grams of carbs. I know everybody eats low carb, but you know, you want to know what you're getting. You want to really be able to see, well if I'm eating a cauliflower crust pizza, you might as well eat you know, a bread crust if you want 40 carbs per serving. Real Good Foods is just that they are made with real ingredients, you know stuff you can pronounce. It's so easy to find. They have that locator on their website, it's in our grocery store. It's in our Walmart, and you can order everything online, find out more, go to Diabetes, Connections comm and click on the Real Good Foods logo.   My guests this week are part of the history of the diabetes DIY movement. longtime listeners know that I am fascinated by the we are not Waiting crowd. And I can't say enough about what they have done for our community. In fact, I'm actually trying to put together an oral history. And we've talked to a lot of people since 2015. When I started the show about this movement. The big problem is a lot of these wonderful engineering and tech types are a little spotlight adverse. You know who you are, but I'll get there. I did reach out to Kevin and Melissa, because, you know, I've talked to Melissa a few times about pregnancy and type one and other issues. I think that the show we did as a panel with other guests about pregnancy in type one and Steel Magnolias is frankly, one of the top 10 episodes, not because of me, but the guests are so amazing. And that night gets so much praise on that episode, people, you know, women pass it around. I'll link that up in the show notes. But you know, I hadn't heard Melissa and Kevin's story, and their names always come up when we hear about the early days of the DIY builders. So our talk today is about much more than the technology it's also about marriage and kids and diabetes and sharing data. You know how that affects your life. Quick note, Kevin now works for Big Foot biomedical and Melissa works for tide pool. If those names don't mean anything to you, if you don't know what those are, or you know what they do, might be a little bit of a confusing interview. There's some presumed knowledge here, I will put some links in the show notes, you may want to go back and listen to previous episodes about the we're not waiting movement or just check out the links. Also, it is really hard to get people to acknowledge the difference they've made. These are all very modest people. God loves them, but I do try. So here's my interview with Kevin and Melissa Lee, Melissa and Kevin, I am so excited to talk to you two together. Thanks for making time to do this. I know how busy you both are.   Melissa Lee  7:43 Thank you for having us on. This is a fun thing to get to do.   Stacey Simms  7:47 I don't know if Kevin's gonna think it's that fun. We'll see. And I say that because in the small way that I know you you don't seem like you're quite as conversational and chatty is as we Melissa, well, we'll see how it goes. Kevin, thanks for joining us and putting up with me already.   Melissa Lee  8:04 Well, you know, he actually is until you stick a microphone in front of his face. Oh, okay. You know, beyond that, yeah.   Stacey Simms  8:12 Well, let's start when when you guys started, and Melissa, I will ask you first How did you meet?   Melissa Lee  8:17 Oh, this is a story I love to tell. And Kevin's gonna already be like, why did I agree to do this? So this was like 2006 and I spent a couple of years doing internet dating. And you know, I'm very extroverted and and like a go getter. And I had just been on, like, 40 bad days, basically, on the internet. Basically, I was broke from spending money on lots of different dating sites, and I found a free one. But during that one, it turns out that this guy was on it because one, it was free. And two, he liked their matching algorithm that tells you a little bit about why you needed so we met online and then What a year and a half later, we were married. Wow. So yeah, we were married in late 2007. At the time, I was a music teacher. And Kevin, how would you describe what you did in the world? Kevin: I was working at Burlington, Northern Santa Fe, just deploying web applications as a contractor to IBM. And then in our early years, you worked for capital, one bank doing infrastructure architecture, and then later for American Airlines doing their instructor architecture. So we like to say, you know, we've been in finance he's been in travel is been in transport. He's been in lots of different fields doing that same thing that I just said infrastructure architecture, which I will not explain.   Stacey Simms  9:44 So, Kevin, when did you go from checking out the algorithm of the dating app, to noticing that perhaps the diabetes technology that your girlfriend and fiancé and wife was using, when did you notice that it really could be done better. And then you could do it   Kevin Lee  10:02 became a little bit later. And it first I kind of just let her her do her own thing. She managed it. She managed it well. And then as we started to progress, and we both wanted kids,   Melissa Lee  10:16 yes, we got back from the honeymoon and I had babies on the brain and two of my bridesmaids were pregnant. And then I have this whole, you know, in our pregnancy podcasts that we did together, I had babies on the brain, but I had this diabetes hanging over me. And I think that that was a huge motivator for both of us. So like mid 2008, my insulin pump was out of warranty. Kevin Lee And so that's that's whenever I really started to encourage her and I started getting involved and saying, hey, let's let's go experiment. Let's find what's what's right. Let's look at what else what other options exist and didn't find too many other options but no, we I did switch I switched insulin pump brands and we started talking about this new thing that was going to be coming to market called the CGM. Melissa Lee So I got my first CGM within the next year. And Kevin immediately started trying to figure out how it works. So this was the freestyle navigator. And this was like 2009. I think I was maybe already pregnant or about to be pregnant. And Kevin was trying to hack this device.   Stacey Simms  11:25 So what does that mean? When you said you started to figure it out? What did you do?   Kevin Lee  11:29 Well, it bugged me that the acceptable solution was the we had this little device that had a range of measured in the 10s of feet. That was it. And I had a commute. At the time, I was working at American Airlines and my commute was 45 miles one day daily, and she was pregnant, and I just wanted some sort of assurance that she was safe and there was no way to get that and I just wanted to be able to You know, it was obvious that this center was sending the data that I wanted on the available through an internet connection. How do I get that? Ultimately, that effort was unsuccessful. And that's when we started going to friends for life. And there, that's where we saw I guess Ed Damiano’s connected solution where there's remote monitoring, and we saw the Dexcom. And that's whenever I thought, hey, if that's an option, and so we started looking into the Dexcom and switched over.   Stacey Simms  12:39 I'm gonna jump in because I'm a little confused. When you said you said Damiano’s connected set up, I thought that he was showing off what is now called the iLet and the new the bio hormonal insulin pump. What was the Dexcom component to that that you hadn't seen before?   Kevin Lee  12:54 So it was just a simple remote monitoring, you know, he needed to be able to as part His research to be able to remotely monitor the patients that were well,   Melissa Lee  13:05 specifically, he had an early version of the bionic pancreas had a Dexcom that was cabled to a phone. Oh, and so if you look back at like, 2012 And so like he I remember Kevin holding the setup in his hand and looking at it and being like, you know, this is fascinating. Like, I have an idea.   Stacey Simms  13:30 Because at the time and I'll find a picture of it, but it was cable to a phone. And there were at least two insects from the pump. So you had to have the the CGM inset and then you had to have two pumping sets and then the phone cable for the bionic pancreas at that time. Am I thinking of the right picture?   Kevin Lee  13:45 No, I really should   see all of that.   Melissa Lee  13:49 You know, like we're so old at this point.   Like, like eight years ago now I wasn't realizing because how have my children are but this You know, I want to say that this was even before we'd have to go back and back with them.   Kevin Lee  14:05 Yeah. And that was just the moment that hey, okay, this is another alternative. And we were, we were actually looking to switch at the time because I think that's when the note and I switched.   Melissa Lee  14:17 Okay, we had to switch because navigator went off the market in 2011. So this is right around the time, we just switch to that.   Unknown Speaker  14:24 So what did you do with the Dexcom ,   Kevin Lee  14:26 whenever we noticed that there was a little port that was also used for, for charging and for data, I connected to it and started reverse engineering it sending data and seeing what we got back and trying to get that data off. It was first connected to my little Mac MacBook Pro. And I just had a goal over Thanksgiving to be able to get that data out of the CGM. And it took three or four days and I was able to get basic data out of the system. In premiere, it was just as simple as uploading it, and then visualizing it.   Stacey Simms  15:06 So for perspective, and I want to be careful here because I know there were a lot of people working on a lot of different things. I'll be honest with you. I'm not looking for who was first or when did that happen? Exactly. But just for perspective, is this basically the same thing that we then saw, like john Costik, put up on Twitter when he said he got it like on the laptop? Or, like, what would we have seen if we had been sitting in your house that day?   Right back to Kevin and Melissa, but first, you know, it is so nice to find a diabetes product that not only does what you need, but also fits in perfectly with your life. One drop is just that it is the sleekest looking and most modern meter I family's ever used. And it's not just about their modern meter setup. You can also send your readings to the mobile app automatically and review your data anytime. Instantly share blood glucose reports with your healthcare team. It also works With your Dexcom Fitbit or your Apple Watch, and not to mention, they have that awesome test strip subscription plan, pick as many test strips as you need, and they'll deliver them to your door. One drop diabetes care delivered, learn more, go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the one drop logo. Now back to Kevin answering my question about what does it look like when he figured out how to reverse engineering the free the Dexcom data.   Kevin Lee  16:30 Absolutely that we would you would have seen a little text flying by saying this is the the glucose number. Yeah, on the on the computer. It wouldn't have been very exciting to most. And from there, Melissa tweeted out saying hey, we have the data available from our Mac and I guess that's where Joyce Lee picked up on it and wanted some more information.   Stacey Simms  16:55 All right. So Melissa, take it from there.   Melissa Lee  16:56 Yeah, you know, Joyce has been a real champion as those early days. Why date and so I remember her reaching out to me and saying this is this is really interesting. I want to know more. And in this was the same year that Dana and Scott were bringing their thing to life with what was then DIY APS. This is around the same time, same era in history that, that john Costik was doing his great stuff and with Lane Desborough and the early days of Nightscout, so all of these things were happening in these little pockets, and we were just another little pocket at the time. One of the things that concerned us was whether we were doing something that was going to be shut down really quickly, like there's something that you find knowingly or unknowingly, it's kind of like when you agree to the terms on iTunes. So when you use these devices, there's something called an EULA and End User License Agreement. And these eu la say, you're not going to reverse engineer this product. And so we were a little cautious about what we wanted to diseminate in terms of like your take this and run with it, but that culture was still developing. And so at the end of that year was the big d-data event at the diabetes mine summit, where there were a few really key DIY influencers sort of in the room. This is where Lane first coined the we are not waiting and, and the next day I was at that summit, and I was hearing Howard Look speak about what had happened at the d-data summit the day before. And I was like, Oh, my God, Kevin has to plug into this. So we want to help this initiative. Like we want to be a part of this. We have so much to offer we this whole remote monitoring setup that he had built for me. And at the time, like by then I think one of the biggest things we have done is Kevin has developed do you want to talk about glass.   Kevin Lee  18:51 Yeah, it was just a another way to visualize the data. So Google Glass, I don't know if you remember that. It was a kind of a connection eyeglass. Yeah, in some ways, it was ahead of its time in other ways. It was just a really interesting idea. I got a pair, and I was able to have it alert me when she crossed the simple threshold. And I was able to see historically three hours or 12 hours or whatever it was without having to pull up a web page. It was just kind of always there and on available for me if and when I needed it. So it was just kind of an ambient thing in the background that I didn't feel like a I had to worry about.   Stacey Simms  19:38 Interesting. Kevin, I'm curious in those early days, so if I could just jump in. You know, you you don't have type one. You care very much about someone with type one and you're doing this because you care about her and want to make sure she's safe. When you started meeting other people who were doing the same thing. What was that like for you? I know it's chancy to ask an engineer about how they feel but it had to have been nice to get kinship with these other people who basically spoke your language and also understood the importance behind what was going on.   Kevin Lee  20:07 Yeah, so that was actually really kind of interesting whenever we first started sharing that we wanted to share it just with a small group of people. And I think it was Manny Hernandez that introduced me directly to Wayne and Howard and a few other Brian Maslisch.   Melissa Lee  20:28 yeah, so I like to tell the story that I chased Howard Look down in the hallway after that, and was like, you have to connect with my husband. And then that didn't seem to work. So that's when Manny was like Manny Hernandez, who was the founder of Diabetes Hands Foundation. He is a good friend of ours and he was like, No, I have to connect you to these guys.   Kevin Lee  21:15 And so there's this pivotal email thread from January of 2014, where we started exchanging The well, here's the project that I've done and Lane says, Well, here's a project that that we've been working on and we call it Nightscout. And so we, we kind of exchange notes. And then it was a little bit later that Lane, well, maybe not lane. Exactly. But that's when the the whole CGM in the cloud and the Nightscout. Early foundations started to show up on on Facebook. I think that's whenever another engineer had published the code on GitHub, and started to set appears. Here's how you set it up. Well, there weren't many in my situation, you know, one of the engineers was a parent. And I think we actually made a really great mix. And I think that that's part of what made the successful so one of the engineers working on the project was A father of a type one I represented the spouse and some of the other engineers were personally affected by by type one, and definitely added a different level increase the camaraderie between us. Those are early days we were were on the phone almost nightly. As soon as I get off my my day job, I'd go home and work on the evening job of trying to get the next set of features out or to fix some new fixes. I love to describe this day because throughout 2014 he would walk in the door and he was already on the phone with the other devs from night out. And if I walked in the room where he was working on the computer, I would be like, Hey, Kevin, and then I'd be like, hey, Ross Hey Jason, because I assumed that they were on the phone. Hey, Ben.   Melissa Lee  22:56 Like it was staying up all night long. They didn't sleep. They did this all day long. Kevin talk a little bit about the pieces you brought in tonight that from our system that we created, and then we like I, I have two producing diabetes data. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna claim a lot of that. But I was just plugged into it. If people are familiar today with Nightscout, which many listeners may be like, what piece did they hold in their hands? That was yours.   Kevin Lee  23:26 So the the piece that I was so connected with was the what we refer to as the uploader. It was just a piece of extracted the data from the CGM and then uploaded it to the Nightscout website. The early days. I don't know if you remember it was the little 3d printed case with a phone that you got that happened to have a data plan and a wire connected to the the CGM. Right whenever Nightscout first came out, I was I was hesitant to start I mean, this was like the first few months I was hesitant to contribute. I wanted to see What I could do, but as it started to pick up be there, it was obvious that the pace of development that I was doing on my own was not going to equal what the rest of the community could be doing. But then he and I had these other features, which I'll go into in a moment here that I felt the community could benefit from. So we started having early conversations with Ben and others. How do we fold in functionality that I had into the current uploader, that functionality was essentially the early ability to follow on a native phone app, it was decreasing the size of the packet and uploading more so using less data. It was an Android watch, being able to get the latest data on an Android watch. It was used in camping mode. I don't know if you're familiar with that. But the early days of knights count we had the pebbles that We're kind of Bluetooth connected smartwatch, that use the little EEG displays. Those required you to be connected to the internet. And one of the devs Jason Calabrese had said, I'm going camping next week. And I'm not going to have internet connectivity. And I sure wish that that I could. So I thought about it for a minute. And were able to quickly reconfigure it the existing code to be able to get that data on the watch without an internet connection. So   Stacey Simms  25:32 camping mode literally came from a camping trip. Yes.   Kevin Lee  25:37 Jason Calibrese’s  says camping trip.   Melissa Lee  25:40 So well, and then the code that became xdrip which like thousands of people use today.   Kevin Lee  25:46 So that's, that's a great thing about open source community, whatever ideas reverberating off of each other and become more pronounced and it essentially becomes the sum is greater than the whole.   Unknown Speaker  25:59 Let me ask about xdrip, though, was it originally called Dexdrip? was that one of the first times Dexcom got involved and said No thank you, or did I miss remember that,   Melissa Lee  26:10 that was all part of Emma Black’s history. Emma took the code that Kevin and created and, and created built on top of that to create Dexdrip. And Dexcom did say you can't use our name and became accept yeah that you're remembering correctly. It was a very friendly discussion. And so it was renamed to xdrip. But you bring up an important point about how industry was reacting to all of us in late 2014. The team at Medtronic actually invited many of the community members who were working on that into sort of the belly of the beast, and to come in and talk to them about the why and the challenges and the what could industry do and and What are we not hearing and just sort of like a meeting of the minds. But what was so cool about this is this is the first time that many of us had met one another in person. So here, people have been working on this for a year or two. And now suddenly, it's a table with Dana Lewis and Scott Lybrand with john Costik with Ben west with me with Kevin, with Jason Calabrese, like we're sitting around a table for the first time and talking with industry as this United Community. So it felt a little less, to me, at least as someone who's been really involved in fostering community, right? It felt to me like there's the start of something here. And that was a really exciting meeting. We like to joke that nothing came of it. I was gonna ask about that. But to me like that was exciting. It was this energy of like, we all came to the table and said like, these are the needs of the community. This is why we need remote monitoring. And this is what we're gonna do next. And you can either help us or understand we'll do it anyway. And so that was that we are not waiting spirit.   Stacey Simms  28:08 Well, and that was a very pivotal time. And, Melissa, let me just continue with that thought if I could, it was such a pivotal time, because you all could have said, we are not going to continue without you. Right? We need this. But it seemed to me and again, it's hard to for me, you know, it's funny that it's so long ago now. But it's only four. It's like, it's only five or six years ago, really? The seeds of that community. And you can see it just in the Facebook group with CGM in the cloud and everything else. There's 10s of thousands of people now who are part of this community. You know, did you saw the seeds if it Then did you ever imagine it was gonna get as big as it is now?   Unknown Speaker  28:48 Is it crazy to say yeah?   Kevin Lee  28:54 to directly answer the question. Yes. And that's where we were actually Faced with a another really tough decision of how do we continue to solve these problems? And we started to see the scalability problem that what we viewed as a scalability problem within the community. How do we continue to support it? And how do we deliver this safely to masses? It was a choice that we had to make of if we're doing the industry and we, we try to do it this way. I don't know there, there isn't really one right or wrong way to do it, but it was just a another way. And we believe that by joining the industry that we could deliver something simple, easy, and we could make it scalable and supportable for the masses.   Melissa Lee  29:44 I think those things like those meetings with Medtronic or, or Dexcom, early on. I mean, I remember sitting in Kevin Sayers office at Dexcom and I was there for a completely other reason. I was there on behalf of Diabetes Hands Foundation said and I just like went off about night prayer. But those conversations gave us a really like I want to recognize my privilege in that to be able to be in a position to go sit with leadership at these big diabetes device companies. But let us see that there was a way to bring the change we were doing outside. I don't want to use the word infiltrate because that sounds   to infuse what industry was trying to do with community perspective and patient perspective and and the change that we knew was possible. And that resulted in both of us for huge career changes.   Stacey Simms  30:43 And we will get to that for sure. Because it's fascinating when you mentioned and you know, we're doing a lot of name dropping here. And if you're if you're new to this and you've listened this far, I promise. I will be putting a lot of notes on the episode homepage and you can go back and listen to other episodes, but there's a lot of names that have Gone By. And a lot of names that you mentioned are people who either founded or were instrumental in the founding of newer independent companies that came out of at least as I see it, this DIY wave that happened in the mid 2010, that you all are talking about. And now you both, you know, you work with these companies and for these companies, but I want to continue this the scalability, as you mentioned, because it's remarkable that even as all those companies, I mean, Big Foot tide pool, you know, even as these companies came out of this, you're still servicing all these, and I'll call us lay people. I mean, I, you know, most of the people who were early adopters of Nightscout or things like that seem to have some kind of engineering background or something that helps software makes sense. But then the floodgates opened, and it was just easy for people or easier than it seemed for people to do that. Kevin, was there a point that you kind of remember looking at this and thinking, you don't have to be an engineer.   Kevin Lee  31:59 That's actually part of the reason why I continue to contribute with Nightscout and in the early days, we decided we were going to go ahead and launch on the Play Store. So we set up an account. And you know, instead of having to go out download the source code, compile it, we distributed it is via the channel that users were used to receiving their their app from. Another thing that we introduced was the barcode scanning. So what we found out was set up of the app was a little more complex than it needed to be. And so we introduced the the concept of barcode scanning to set that up,   Melissa Lee  32:42 which now exists in the commercial like every time you start a new transmitter on a Dexcom system today, you scan a barcode on the side of the box. Kevin did that. I remember, I'm not claiming but next time did not develop that on their own. I am just claiming Hey, we.. yes.   Unknown Speaker  32:59 out Yeah.   Stacey Simms  33:02 Yeah, that's wild. I did. Yeah, I was thinking about that. Because now that's, of course, that's how we do it. And Melissa, I know I'm kind of jumping around here, but I have so many questions. I wanted to ask you earlier. What was it like for you? At this time? You said, Well, I just provided the data. I mean, what was it like for you during this time other than, you know, just popping in and saying, Hey, honey, how were the phone calls going? It had just been exciting and a little nerve racking for you. What was it like,   Melissa Lee  33:30 by my count, and again, Not that it matters? I think I was the first spouse to be followed.   Sounds creepy, doesn't it? I was the first CGM stocks 4000. Now, um, but one of the things, it did a few things for me, and I'll never forget one day I was in the kitchen and I've got babies and toddler and lay like it had just been a day right when you're a young mom, and you've got Little ones and it has just been a day and Kevin walks in and he said, and you've had a really hard day and I just looked at him like, Are you an idiot? Yes.   And I was like, What are you talking about? And he was like your numbers. Oh, and I just looked at him and I didn't realize I just looked at him and he said, this is how every day is, isn't it? And like I still get chills thinking about it Stacey I like it was the first time that anybody outside of me or another person with diabetes looked at me and said, I see you this is hard. And I didn't even know like I probably said yes, you idiot I've had a hard day   Unknown Speaker  34:46 I doubt it.   Kevin Lee  34:48 I had worked on some some code to make Nightscout available via personal assistance. Think the Alexa and Google Home and, and other things. And while I was experimenting and testing it, it became very clear that I was not allowed to ask what what those values were.   Melissa Lee  35:14 He was like, it’ll will be so handy. And if you're in the middle of cooking and you've got like, you know, stuff on your hands, you can just ask it. But like, what you don't do is you know, your wife snaps at you. And you say, Alexa, what's her blood sugar right now? Like, that is not what you do. So now the story I was going to tell Oh, Stacey, you're gonna love this one. So this is like early 2015. And I am the Interim Executive of a nonprofit and I'm representing patients at this endocrinologist a meeting, and I'm alone in a hotel, and I had been out with all these endocrinologists and we've had tacos at a bar and I have no idea what my glucose was, but I had calibrated my CGM with probably tacos all over my hands. I go to bed. Well, this poor man, I'm in Nashville. He's in Dallas. This poor man is getting   Kevin Lee  36:09 the blood sugar was reading his 39. Yes, for those who don't know, is the world. The CGM can read anything below that he registered   Melissa Lee  36:19 as low. I have my phone on silent because I've been out with all these professionals. So he had called me 18 times. It didn't go through Sunday night disturb so far in two hours reading, like a 39. So hotel security burst into my room. Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Lee, are you okay? Do we need to call an ambulance, this string of expletives that came out of my mouth? I will not repeat on this good family show. But I was so mad and you know, I'm calling him and I'm like, I'm like 130 right now. Fine. by that same token, I have lots of like really lovely stories where You know, I'm alone in a hotel in New Jersey, and he wakes me up in the middle of the night to say, you know, wake up and eat something, honey. So, yes, there is a good story, but I must prefer the story where he had security break into my room. Oh, my God over over what nights? That was it. So, you know, but to your question, we really were on the very bleeding edge of understanding things that you actually already deal with, with your son today and that people deal with today in terms of how will we actually establish boundaries on how much of my data you get to react to and for all the times that it is a benefit? Where are the times where it's like, no, I actually have to cut you off. We're now like seven years into him following my data. And so in some ways, I think we both see where people will get to when following data is the norm you know, should it ever scale by Live in terms of now, he doesn't look at my data all the time. Now he knows when to respond when it weren't so good. But it made me feel understood. It also made me feel a lot safer to know that just have somebody else watching my own back. I'll be celebrating 30 years with type one this year and celebrating is, you know, you've been   away there. But like to know that like somebody else is just there to pick up a little bit of slack you have for someone like where you are, it can be hard because I know when teams don't always appreciate or show their appreciation in the same way. But there is an appreciation for the fact that that you're there to pick up a little bit of slack just as much as there is resentment and issues with boundaries. And in times when they really need to just shut your assets off. And so I feel like we're just a little bit further down that road in some ways, you know, we'll let you know when we have it all figured out. But Exactly.   And what's right for us as a couple is not necessarily going to be right. For every couple, you know, there are couples that really feel like, no, my data is mine. And I don't trust you not to react to it in a way that's going to make diabetes any harder for me. And I think that that's what we 100% have, that I'm very fortunate to have is that I trust Kevin, to react to my data, the way that I'm comfortable with him reacting to my data.   Stacey Simms  39:33 So both of you, through this process wound up not only having two kids, but you made big job changes. And you now both work in the diabetes sphere. And I hope you don't mind I'd really like to talk about that a little bit. Because I mean, you mentioned the beginning. Listen, you're a music teacher. And you're right, your background, your music professional. You are Bigfoot for a couple years and now you are a tight pool and you're basically I'm going to get a But you're helping tide pool so that they can better train people and kind of explain to healthcare professionals and the public to kind of I look at that as translating, is that sort of what you're doing there?   Melissa Lee  40:12 Yes or no. So for instance, I know your family has just started with a new piece of diabetes technology. There were certain training modules that were there to support you. There's certain learning materials that were provided to your child's doctor so that they understood what they were prescribing. There's a user guide that comes with the stuff that you use in your family today, if you're buying things from companies off the shelf, and what the DIY community when we're talking about scalability, and how important that is to each of us having a knee accessibility, scalability availability like these important, how do we bring this to people in a way that they will actually be able to access tide pool announced about a year ago that they were going to take one of the DIY, automated insulin dosing systems and actually bring it through FDA review. Part of that is it has to have the kind of onboarding and support materials that your insulin pump he buys a medical pump and has today. So I am leading the development of all of those materials for both the clinics and the doctors, as well as for the end user to learn the system.   Stacey Simms  41:30 And Kevin, you're still a big foot. So you're a principal engineer there. What excites you about what you're doing there? Is it again about the accessibility because I know you know, Bigfoot is not yet to market but people are very excited about it.   Kevin Lee  41:41 Yeah. Accessibility is one of the large parts and reliability going through the DIY stuff. It's happening at an incredible pace change is happening there and things break things don't always go the way that you intended. There has to be balance there somewhere? Well, you have to have services. I mean, look at what happened recently with server outages and different companies, you have to be prepared for how am I going to support this time, I'm going to keep it running, you know, whatever the it is, it's that the reliability, we're all we're all human, that's humans behind the scenes, making the the changes and improvements that we rely on. So how do we do that safely and effectively as possible to minimize the impact and continue to increase the value to the user?   Stacey Simms  42:37 This might be a very dumb question. But Kevin, let me ask you, Melissa mentioned the the new software that we're using, and she's talking about control IQ from tandem, which is the software that we've got now. And there are other commercial quote solutions. There's other commercial systems coming out when you look back at all the stuff that the DIY community did, and is continuing to do. Do you feel like you guys really, really pushed it along? I mean, I gotta tell you and I know nothing. And I never even used Nightscout and people laugh at me. But I think we would never be close to where we are commercially. Does that add up to you?   Kevin Lee  43:12 Yeah, it adds up. It's not for everyone. You know, it is bleeding edge, the community, in a lot of ways drives industry.   Stacey Simms  43:21 You I'm not asking you to say specifically without this wouldn't have that. But it just seems to me that we would have gotten there eventually. But I don't know that the people behind Knight Scott and so much of the other things you've mentioned, really either got into industry and help push things along or helps with the FDA. You know, is it as kind of an outsider on this. Can you speak to whether that's true?   Kevin Lee  43:44 Yeah, absolutely. I think that it had you I mean, that's the nature of competition. There was an unmet need in the community and the unmet need was was fulfilled.   Melissa Lee  43:55 Well, what I would say is industry needs to see that something viability as an idea and so, I firmly believe that many of these things were floating around in companies as potential developments in the pipeline. What the community did with our DIY efforts is say, we are so desperate to this thing, we will just build it ourselves if you can't deliver. And so I think it helps prioritize like I've seen almost every company in the industry actually skip over other things that were in their pipeline to get to these things and reprioritize their own product roadmap to try to deliver. And I don't think it's, I it's not in a Oh, we better get this or the community is going to do it themselves way. It's a, okay, this is a real need, and we should, we should focus our resources on this. A lot of ways it's a playground for industry to concepts, live and die much more quickly in the DIY community than they do and it allows you to to iterate faster and find out what does and doesn't work, open source communities have existed outside of diabetes, obviously, it's a and throughout the last few decades, we've seen what happens in the open source world actually drive change in the industries to which they're associated. And so I think there are analogies to this in terms of like, what happens in the software industry, with personal computing with consumer electronics, so I don't, I don't find it at all odd or ridiculous to say that the DIY community and diabetes has actually resulted in change within industry. I mean, if only if, like you pointed out so many of those names, but we, you know, we're dropping them because we want to see people recognized for their extraordinary contributions, right. But all of those people, many of them have gone on to found companies, invent new things, join other companies. What's your Modeling about open source communities, regardless of field or genre or whatever is that you see that you see new people roll in with new ideas and lay new work on the foundations of code that were left behind and innovate and continue to innovate. And so we will see the DIY community around forever, they will continue to innovate. And we will also see many of those innovators move on into the industries in which they're working. This is a personal choice that they have to make them they'll go through the same decisions that we did. And not everybody. Well, I mean, Dana lewis is not associated with the company. We're not saying that that's an inevitability, right? But it's pretty common. You have to be pretty geeky probably to know of other open source communities. And I'm, you know, Kevin is way more well versed to speak about that, but in the way of fan   Stacey Simms  46:56 before I let you go, this all started because you wanted have kids, right? This this is the timeline that you set out from your weight the beginning here, and your kids now they're both in grade school, your daughter's 10, your son is eight. I'm curious, do they know their part in this story? Because it's not an exaggeration to say, and I'll say for you, it's not an exaggeration to say that you wanting to have kids sparked action in Kevin, that, frankly, has helped thousands of people. I know you didn't do it alone. I know. I know. I know. But your kids know the part that they played   Melissa Lee  47:31 to a degree like they know that we help people with diabetes. And they take that really seriously. As a matter of fact, when I was changing roles from my role at Bigfoot to my role at tide pool, my daughter's first question was like, but you'll still be helping people with diabetes, like will Bigfoot still be able to help people with diabetes like yes, it's all it's all good. We're all good. We're all still helping people with diabetes and they've grown up with these things in the sense that we love to tell the story of when our son was about three years old and he would hear the Nightscout song that would was basically the alert that would play. And he knew that when I was low, there was a bag of sour ball candy on the top shelf of the pantry that came down. So he would hear that sound that Nightscout song and that song was sour balls to him and he was “sour balls sour balls!” he  was all in or maybe like two I mean, he was little It was too and so like it became the sour balls song, right? You know, the other day he heard the Nightscout will song play and he said mom who undid that song and I posted something to Facebook. Well basically lane desborough and better that song or found it. I wrote something about like I just set my son down. I said, let me tell you the story of our people and how we came to the valley of silicon you know, which is of course not the way I said it to an eight year old but as you know amusing myself But essentially, you know, there is some of these folks that they literally do talk about uncle lane and Uncle Manny and Uncle Ben and like my daughter thinks she has a lot of uncles. But, you know, so they know that we've helped a great many people. And as they as they get older, and we can sort of expound on that, then I think, well, let's be honest, they won't care.   For a while, right? teenagers will be like we shut up about, oh, they'll care.   Unknown Speaker  49:30 They just want to know they care.   Melissa Lee  49:34 Someday, they'll appreciate it, and a different way, but that's what they know. Now,   Stacey Simms  49:40 Kevin, you also said this was about your commute, making sure Melissa was safe. Knowing that Melissa is a very strong and independent woman. Do you feel like she's safe? Did that check that box for you all this hard work?   Kevin Lee  49:53 Yeah, absolutely. This is kind of something that she went into earlier, but I really view the monitor. That I've done and the work that I've done is really just augmenting and trying to simplify and make her life easier. We first started dating, I actually told her that you will never find somebody work harder at being lazy than than me. And, you know, that was just the testament of I wanted to automate all the things that are just repetitive and predictable and easily managed to try to get that out of the way. And that comes from the background of operations and managing online sites. Being able to automate those those aspects have helped me feel like it's more safe. And then you know, other times like with with monitoring, it's great to be able to just see that you know, she's about to go out for a walk and then I happened to look over at Nightscout see how much insulin she has on board and where she is and say, you might want to run a temp basal. So it's just there. To try to augment and help her navigate it. And so yeah, it does give me a sense that she's safer because of this. Melissa Yeah, that's right. I got really mad at him the other day, he was right. I was like, whatever. And I left the house and I went massively low. I was walking the kids to school. I was like, Yeah, well, fine. So you know, there's that two parents completely unfamiliar to you. And   Stacey Simms  51:21 it sounds more like my marriage actually diabetes or not. That's just a component of marriage. Yeah, she was right again. Oh, oh, well, you know, thank you so much for spending so much time with me. I love your story. I just think that there are just amazing people that I hate have diabetes. But I'm glad if you had to that you've done so much for so many others who have it as well. And I really appreciate you spending some time to tell us these things from years ago now because they're really are important as we move forward. So thanks for being with me.   Melissa Lee  51:56 Thank you so much for being interested in the story and for help. Others here are cranky, Stan.   Unknown Speaker  52:08 You're listening to diabetes connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  52:14 Much More information at Diabetes connections.com you can always click on the episode page and find out more transcript is there as well. I just adore them. I know the interview went longer than usual, but I couldn't help myself. And as I said in Episode 300, when I looked back on 300 episodes, Melissa really helped change my place in the diabetes community by inviting me to speak at master lab in 2015. That really did change how I felt about where I want it to be helped me find and focus my voice. I really can't overstate that enough. So thanks Melissa, for doing that. And again, lots of information went by very quickly let them name dropping there in a good way. And I promise I will keep on the Nightscout crew. I may ask some of you as you listen to lean on your friends, I'm not going to mention any names here. But people that I have reached out to, and they're the usual suspects. If you search, we are not waiting, or Nightscout on the website, you'll see some big omissions. So I'll talk more about that on social media, we'll get them as a community. Maybe it's just me, you know, who's fascinated by this. But I do think it's a very important part of our history that we need to document because in a few more years, many of the solutions that people like Kevin were working on are going to be all commercial and all FDA approved. And isn't that wonderful, but I don't want to forget what happened. And I think it'll be great to look back. Okay, enough about that. I got Tell me something good coming up in just a moment. And then stay tuned. Later, I'm going to tell you another change we made to how we use control IQ with Benny, but first diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dexcom. And it is really hard to think of something that has changed our diabetes management as much as the Dexcom share and follow apps. I mean, what really amazed me we started it when Benny was about nine years old, the decks calm and we got shareable. little less than two years later, and the most immediate change was how it helped us talk less about diabetes. And boy did that come just in time for us because that's the wonderful thing about share and follow as a caregiver, parent, spouse, whatever, you can help the person with diabetes managed in the way that works for your individual situation, and going into those tween and teen years. It sounds counterintuitive, but being able to talk about diabetes less what's your number? Did you check what's your number? You know, so helpful. Internet connectivity is required to access Dexcom follow separate follow app required learn more, go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the Dexcom logo.   I am cheating a little bit this week for Tell me something good because while I usually read you listener submissions, I saw this on beyond type ones Facebook page, and I just had to share they did a whole post about people with type one getting married and they wanted Hear the wedding stories. So they started out with a a big Congrats, by the way to Kelsey, her husband Derek, and this adorable picture of them. They're both low at their wedding and they're sipping some juice boxes. And Kelsey is part of the beyond type one Leadership Council. So congratulations to you both. It's a really adorable picture. I'm gonna link up the whole Facebook thread because people share stories like you know, I had my pump tucked into my bra and I didn't think I needed during the wedding or I was a bridesmaid and I had it there and I had to reach in, um, you know, other people who went low trying on wedding dresses. I mean, I remember this. So this person writes, I went low in David's bridal trying on wedding dresses. It's a lot more physical than you think getting in and out of dresses and slips, hot lights and just emotions. My mom had to run across the street and grab a Snickers. I was standing in the doorway of the fitting room and inhaling a Snickers, praying I didn't get any on the clothes, which just added an extra level of stress. I remember a Polish ties into the employee helping me and he was like I don't even worry about it. And he stayed with me to make sure I was okay. Another woman writes my mom came up to me right before we were set to walk into the reception. She told me she had hidden a juice under our sweetheart table in case I went low. I've been diabetic 30 years and my mom still carry snacks for me in her purse. Sure enough, right after dinner, I ended up needing it. And the last one here, being excited, nervous and unable to sit still. I did a long and intense bike ride prior to my evening wedding. Luckily we had a chocolate fountain at our reception and I spent a large chunk of the night at or near it, and this goes on and on. So what a wonderful thread congratulations to everybody who is talking about their weddings and their their wonderful stories of support. And the humor that's on display here is amazing. So I will link that up. You can go and read there's there's dozens of comments. If you've got a story like this Hey, that's what Tell me something good is for send me your your stories, your milestones, your diversities, your good stuff, you know anything from the healthcare heroes in our community. With cute who put his first inset in to a person celebrating 70 years with type one I post on social media just look for those threads. Or you can always email me Stacey at Diabetes connections.com. Before I let you go, I had promised to share the other change we made to control IQ. In addition to eliminating the long acting basal that we had used, you know, untethered for almost two years, we decided recently to completely turn off sleep mode. I know a lot of you enjoy sleep mode 24 seven, as we said back in our episode, gosh, in late December, when control IQ was approved in the studies, they called you folks sleeping beauties, because you enjoy that 24 seven sleep mode. But I found that since school has ended, and we're trying to figure out what to do with Benny for the summer, there is nothing really that's keeping him on a regular sleep schedule, and it's gotten to the point where he is now so nocturnal, and I'm hearing this about a lot of my friends with teenagers. Maybe I sound like a tear. Parents go to bed at like four or five, six o'clock in the morning. I walked into his room at eight o'clock in the morning the other day, I wanted to ask him a question. I was like, I gotta wake him up and he was awake can come to sleep yet. You know, it boggles my mind. It's all topsy turvy. And we'll get back into a routine at some point, but I'm not really willing to make a big fuss about it. He's key is keeping busy overnight. I guess his friends are up, I don't know. But anyway, the point is, he's eating it really weird hours. And when he was in sleep mode, we noticed that it wasn't helping as much right because it doesn't bolus you in sleep mode. It only adjusts Faisal. So if you under bolus for his you know, Pad Thai at two in the morning, it wasn't helping out and true story. I asked him about that. Like, what's this line? And what happened overnight here, were you sleeping He's like, No, I was in the kitchen eating leftover Thai food. So we decided that his numbers during the the quote, day when he was sleeping, we're hovering right around 90, maybe a 110. I mean, it was very in range, right? No need to mess with that. So I didn't think we needed to add sleep mode. And I did want to predict when he would actually be sleeping. So we just turned it off. And that has made a big difference too. So I guess the bottom line is figure out what works for you for your individual situation, the weirdo wacko situation, if it's us, but you know, use this technology to benefit you, whatever way that is, if it's sleep mode right now, 24 seven, if it's no sleep mode, it's exercise mood all the time. And it'll be so fascinating to see. And this ties back into the DIY movement, right? It'll be great to see the flexibility that we will get in the next couple of years because, you know, Medtronic had a tie a higher target range, because they were first with the hybrid closed loop. tandem has a lower one Omni pod, we'll have a more flexible target, you can set your own target when they come out with horizon and of course, tandem and everybody else is going to be moving to that direction as well. And it just keeps getting better. But it gets better because people like Melissa and Kevin Lee pushed and pushed and without these folks, and there's so many of them, of course, right who said we can do it better, we would not be where we are. I truly believe that technology companies would be five or six years behind and if you're new To the show new to the community and you're excited about, you know, control IQ or horizon or whatever you're using. Or maybe you're using, you know, loop off label with Omni pod, I would urge you to go back and check out our earlier episodes from 2015 and 2016. And learn about the really early days of the community, obviously, by 2015. We're talking about things that happened in the early 2000s. You know, I don't want you to misunderstand that. That happened in 2015. But you know what I mean, okay, obligatory book commercial. And if you've listened this long, you maybe you own a copy of the world's worst diabetes mom, if you own it and love it, do me a favor post about it. The best way to word of mouth about the podcast and the book is always if you could tell a friend post in a diabetes group post on your own Facebook page, you know, I love this book. It's on Amazon, highly recommend it. If you've read it, and you don't like it. Forget that, you know, you know, just recycle the book. It's thanks as always, to my editor, john Buchanan's from audio editing solutions. And thank you so much for listening. I'm Stacey Simms. I'll see you back here next week. Until then, be kind to yourself.   Unknown Speaker  1:01:09 Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacey Simms media.   Unknown Speaker  1:01:13 All rights reserved. All wrongs avenged

Today’s episode features one of the largest spirits companies you might not know much about. You’ve heard of brands like Ezra Brooks, Rebel Yell, and Blood Oath, but there is a lot to discover about Luxco. We sit down with Philip Lux, Global Brand Ambassador at Lux Row Distillers and son of CEO Don Lux, as he guides us through the family history of the Lux’s along with their acquisitions of bourbon brands. Then we also get the inside scoop on what’s happening at Lux Row Distillers. After sourcing whiskey for many years, it became apparent they needed to build a distillery and they did it right in Bardstown, KY. We discuss the future of the brands and how they plan to grow and evolve. Don’t sleep on this location during your bourbon trail visit because the facility is incredible. Show Partners: The University of Louisville has an online Distilled Spirits Business Certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry. Learn more at uofl.me/bourbonpursuit. Find out what it’s like to taste whiskey straight from the barrel with Barrell Craft Spirits. Learn more at BarrellBourbon.com. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: Black Market Liquor Sales: https://www.forbes.com/sites/fredminnick/2020/03/19/wholesalers-warn-of-black-market-liquor-if-liquor-stores-close-amidst-coronavirus/#3b5445042e88 Supporting Spirits United: https://p2a.co/JRoHtT8 Bourbon Pursuit USBG Fundraiser: bourbonpursuit.com/usbg Bourbon Crypto: https://www.coindesk.com/wave-financial-to-tokenize-20m-worth-of-bourbon-for-new-whiskey-fund Pat Heist on TedX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSLWEnz-1mc This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about supporting craft distilleries. What was your introduction to bourbon? How did you get into the business? What stands out about bourbon when you are traveling? Talk about the difference between Luxco and Lux Row. Did your dad ever tell you about how he had the foresight to acquire all these brands? Tell us the story of David Nicholson. Talk about Blood Oath. Was Rebel Yell acquired the same time as David Nicholson? Tell us about your bourbon portfolio. When did you break ground on the facility? Why did you decide to build in Bardstown and not St. Louis? What is the difference between regular David Nicholson and the reserve? Tell us about your still and capacity. Any worries about your bourbon being ready in 4 years? Are you trying to replicate the existing flavor profiles? What is your storage capacity? What is something that people might not know about your brands? When is the Lux Bourbon coming? Any plans to use this facility to support Luxco? What issues have you had starting a distillery? 0:00 If you have a bachelor's degree and live anywhere in the United States, there's now a way for you to take your bourbon education to the next level. The distilled spirits business certificate from the University of Louisville is a six course online program that will prepare you for the business side of the spirits industry offered by the AACSB accredited college of business. This certificate is taught by business professors and industry leaders from Brown Forman beam Suntory jack daniels and more. join this one of a kind experience and prepare for your next adventure. get enrolled into this online program at U of l.me. Slash bourbon pursuit. 0:38 Let's kind of talk about you know your history your your upbringing, because because you're you're young strapping lad your last names luck, so obviously you have something to do around here. Yeah. 1:00 Welcome back, everybody. It's Episode 246 of bourbon pursuit. I'm Kenny, one of the hosts. And here's your Cova 19 updates because a lot has changed since last week. Texas has temporarily adjusted its laws to be more lenient on the drinks industry and are now allowing alcohol as a part of to go orders. This is pretty big news because we know that anything in Texas that is regulated by alcohol is very, very hard to change. And they are also in listening distributor trucks that are designated for alcohol only delivery to support grocers and delivery needs during this time for roses distillery will temporarily suspend their operations of us distillery located in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, and that began on March 20 of 2020. And based on the current situation for roses expects to commence operations once again on April 6 of 2020. A new statement by the wine and spirits wholesalers of America or known as the W swa their CEO and President Michelle Cosmo warns that in a crisis 2:00 consequences are major concerns for industries and private citizens. And they implore all governors to keep Wine and Spirits retailers open as to not encourage bad actors to pop up black market liquor operations. Other industry partners including the distilled spirits Council of the United States, otherwise known as discus has made a similar statement. And Fred MiniK recently published an article on Forbes, referring to the actions taken by the state of Pennsylvania, where they closed the doors of all alcohol stores in the state that the same thing could happen to them, as it did during Prohibition. And you can read more with his article to the link in our show notes. Right now, many other distilleries are making hand sanitizer. Back on March 20 of 2020, the FDA issued a new guidance for the temporary manufacturing of hand sanitizer by companies and entities that are not currently regulated by the FDA as a drug manufacturer. The TTB or the Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has found that it isn't necessary and desirable to waive provisions of internal 3:00 Revenue law with regard to distilled spirits, and therefore is providing certain exemptions and operations to distilled spirits permittees who wish to produce ethanol based hand sanitizers to address the demand during this emergency. any existing DSP can immediately commence production of hand sanitizer or ethanol for use in hand sanitizer without having to obtain authorization first. These measures are generally authorized under authorities that apply in disaster situations, and are right now approved through June 30 of 2020. There are now over 50 distilleries across the US that have switched to making hand sanitizer including big ones like wilderness trail, smooth Ambler town branch, rabbit hole, old Forester, and there's many more craft distilleries across the nation like co vault, Illinois, Coursera in Tennessee, and Caledonia spirits in Texas. I would love to be able to give everyone a shout out on here but you can contact your local distillery to see if they had any available Republic purchase in a day. 4:00 There's a lot of giving going on by bigger corporations. And here's some of the highlights. Beam Satori and southern Glaser's are donating $1 million to support the impacted bar and restaurant employees. Beam centaurea is also working with other distributors across various states, including major brands, badger liquor, Fenway associates, Allied beverage Corp, Empire distributors, best brands, horizon beverage group and more to provide donations to local organizations that will further help to support in the trade of their respective communities. biagio has also pledged $1 million to the US VG or the United States bartenders guild and their emergency assistance fun for Cova 19. biagio is also doing another million euros to support bartenders in the United Kingdom with a million million pounds. Brown Forman is donating $1 million to us big the restaurant workers Community Foundation and one level is separating between those three different organizations. gallows, New Amsterdam vodka and barstool sports 5:00 created a new t shirt highlighting support your local bartender program, where 100% of the net proceeds will go to us bartenders guild foundation. And additionally New Amsterdam will donate $5 for every t shirt purchased. Jamison donates another 500,000 to the US big mixers distillery in Philadelphia have made a $10,000 donation to the US BG patrol is donating $1 million to three different organizations. You have the children of restaurant employees otherwise known as core, another round another rally and the James Beard Foundation. Sasa rack and fireball Have you started a GoFundMe called the world's biggest tip jar by starting it off with $100,000 donation, and it will match all contributions up to $400,000 donations with everything going to tax exempt organizations. Tito's is donating $1 million between four organizations focused on those in the industry. We have the core, US big Southern smoke and the world central kitchen. They're all 6:00 pledging another additional $1 million as further needs are seen. Zamora is donating 400,000 euros to charities such as Caritas, the Red Cross and the food bank foundation. Yelp, who you all know the app is providing $25 million in relief in the form of waived advertising fees and free advertising, products services and more that during this period. 6:24 In addition, we're trying to do our part as well. bourbon pursuit we have our own fundraiser going to help support the US BG or the United States bartenders Guild. So at this time, you can go and you can win bottles of pursuit series and our latest peril picks from will it go to bourbon pursuit.com slash USB G to get entered into our raffle? We appreciate all the support. 6:47 Discuss that we talked about a little bit early before the distilled spirits Council of the United States is now asking the government to include distillers in the Cova 19 Relief Fund. distilleries across the nation have close tasting rooms suspended to 7:00 And cancel large events to limit the exposure of Cova 19. As a result, the Steelers have been forced to make difficult decisions, including in some cases shutting down production in laying off staff. As a result, many distilleries may not be able to survive during this crisis. distillers right now employ 1.6 million people across the country and generate 180 billion dollars in economic activity for the United States. You can help take action by supporting spirits united with your name and vote with the link in our show notes. This story poured out a little bit over last week, and I'm sure many people know about it, but we need to report on anyway because we all know about jack rose. It's that iconic whiskey bar in DC that's owned and operated by Bill Thomas. But you've heard back on episode 67 and 127. They're putting up all 2700 bottles for sale. In response to the escalating health and economic crisis. The public can now search through their treasure trove by stopping into the bar 8:00 browsing their whiskey Bible menu which is also available online and talking to Bill Thomas himself, you can order anything you want. That could mean 20 or 30 year old pours in our bag or MacAllan hard to find bullet family estates or jack roses own private barrels that are made in collaboration with Blanton's and other distilleries. The drums will be packaged in little sealed bottles that could be kept on your home bar in pours of the rare stuff or anything that's $100 plus an ounce will be 50% off while all other pours are 20% off. Thomas says he plans to offer the spirits at a lower price than what consumers would find on the secondary market. If you're in the area, they also have to go cocktails available from all three of their company bars, jack rose, Imperial and DRAM and grain and classics like old fashions a Manhattan's two visible creations that they all have starting at $10 each. The story is spread and when it broke, people were lined up for around five blocks. Their website crashed and they had to use Facebook and Instagram to let everyone know 9:00 Know how to contact to them. So please check out the jack rose social pages for the latest and up to date info on how to get your hands on anything. All right, let's change subjects for a minute. Let's get out of the coronavirus talk. Wave financial has finalized an agreement with Danville Kentucky based wilderness trail distilleries to tokenize between 10 and 20,000 barrels of whiskey worth up to around $20 million that will be made publicly available through a specialized digital asset fund. Now if that didn't make sense, this is turning bourbon inventory into cryptocurrency. So known as wave whiskey 2020 Digital fund, investors are able to purchase asset backed tokens linked to an inventory of whiskey barrel this year, that will represent as many as 4 million bottles of bourbon by tokenizing. It wave says that investors can gain exposure to Bourbons value appreciation and can also share some of the proceeds from when a whiskey is sold to wholesale to merchants and three years after the whiskey is first 10:00 Still, and the tokens are then issued to investors, users will be able to trade their tokens at whatever price they wish. And wave is also in discussions with some security token exchanges to develop an official secondary market infrastructure to facilitate better trading in the whiskey back tokens. A wave spokesperson added that the token was available for accredited investors from all around the world. And what they first closed at the end of March and a second at the end of June, a final close expected to take into place in September. You can read more about that with the link in our show notes. And didn't more wilderness trail news. The yeast and fermentation doctor from wilderness trail that we all know is Pat heist, who we had back on episode 121. That blew everyone's mind, had his first TED Talk published. It talks about the effect of climate on production and the quality of bourbon. And this was done at TEDx at the University of Nevada. Give it a listen on YouTube with the link in our show notes. All right for today. 11:00 Today's episode, we feature one of the largest spirits companies you probably don't know much about. You've heard of brands like Ezra Brookes, Rebel Yell and blood oath. But there is a lot to discover about Lux CO, we sit down with Philip Lux, the global brand ambassador of Lux ro distillers and he's also the son of the CEO Don Lux, as he guides us through the family history of Lexus, along with the acquisitions of their bourbon brands and labels. Then we also get the inside scoop on what's happening at Lux ro distillers. After sourcing whiskey for many years, it became apparent they needed to build a distillery and they did it right in Bardstown, Kentucky. We discuss the future of the brands and how they plan on growing and evolving. Also, don't sleep on this location during your bourbon trail visit because the facility looks incredible. Let's get on with the show. Here's Joe from barrel bourbon. And then you've got Fred minich with above the char 11:56 it's Joe from barrel bourbon. Tasting whiskey straight from the barrel was truly alive. 12:00 changing moment for me. In 2013 I launched barrel craft spirits so everyone could have the experience of tasting whiskey at CAST strength. Next time ask you bartender for barrel bourbon. 12:11 I'm Fred medic, and this is above the char. I have some very, very staggering news. This just in from ACS a or better known as the American craft spirits Association. According to a survey of a CSA 150 craft of 150 craft distillers 67% will be forced to close within three months. 32% of those respondents said it, they won't even last a month 87% of all craft distillery tasting rooms have closed and 60% of the distilleries making craft spirits has already laid off employees or furloughed staff. 13:00 This is absolutely staggering to thousand small distillers across the country. And that survey tells us, we may very well lose two thirds of them in a matter of months. Those are people who have put it all in the line to do something that they love and, you know, want to really push the envelope. And this just breaks my heart. This just absolutely breaks my heart. The distilling community right now is trying to get federal support, you know, so they're basically looking for the same kind of federal funds that's going to be given to the airline industry in the hospitality industry. And here we are. 13:49 amidst this coronavirus scare, and we're about we're about to see a lot of a lot of great people lose their dreams. And that's just fair. 14:00 Very scary. 14:02 I think about what we do you know, Kenny Ryan and I, you know, this is, yeah, it's it's my job. But let's face it, I have a dream job. I talk and write about whiskey for a living like all the time. And I have some time said some things that are not so nice about craft whiskies. It was never anything personal. It's just about their whiskey. But never in a million years. What I wish this upon anybody in the industry, I can't even imagine, to begin to think of like, what it what it must be like right now to be a craft distiller and to know that if things don't change, you're going to have to shut down for good. So let's do what we can. Let's, let's do what we can Let's buy their products. And you may push back here and say, Hey, well, Fred, we can't go to the liquor store. Our governor is shut us down. We have to stay inside. You know, that's very well true. But get this. There's a 15:00 A lot of delivery services out there right now. That will bring a good old DRAM to your doorstep. You can go to silver box comm craft shack is another one you can go to drizzly calm, and these are all delivery services that will buy from a local retailer and deliver to you. Another one that you can join is called spirits network comm go to spirits network comm I actually have a lot of shows on there, but you can, you can buy booze, and then watch booze TV. So there's a lot of options out there that you can go to and buy craft whiskey or any kind of craft spirit. But listen, we have to band together we have to do what we can to help these small distillers because we can't lose them. We just can't. It's not. 15:51 It's very scary. It's absolutely very scary. And so let's do what we can let's band together. Hello 16:00 Let's save a distillery or two. 16:03 And that's this week's above the char. Hey, make sure you are checking out my YouTube I am dropping content every single day, in hopes of helping you get through the boredom. You can go to YouTube and just look for my channel. Just search my name Fred MiniK. Until next week, cheers 16:26 Welcome back to another episode of the bourbon pursuit the official podcast of bourbon. Kinney and Ryan back in Bardstown on the road again often, but this is fun, we love going on the road. And today it's funny because, you know, we drive around bars and we do a lot of these interviews. However, this is one place that I had never driven up and we drive past it quite frequently especially if you're a frequent are over at Keystone liquors. Yeah, you drive by where the cinemas you have the movies in. It's right across the street. It is and but this is it's one place where I drove up and I was I was amazed like 17:00 How beautiful the grounds are here at Lux row distillers and being able to in the first thing that we saw a was like some house that you said your buddy grew up in that owned the land here. And then we saw their their resident peacocks. Oh yeah, yeah, this. I've been up this driveway many times. You know, it's a running joke that I say that I'm from Bardstown. But I am from bars town and grew up hanging out here with my buddy john and his family. So 17:29 it's a beautiful property got a bunch of old farmhouses gold house and some peacocks and they were like Kenny walked up and they kind of spread their feathers out I think they're excited to see Kenny And so yeah, maybe maybe see us Who knows? Yeah, but I've kind of been you know, just being in town seen the construction and everything but never really seen it till now. And man it's an it's an impressive property with all the distillery and everything. So it's all about the property. But you know, this is also we're getting a chance to talk to 18:00 About a company that's kind of like a unknown Titan in the industry, you know, it's they've had a lot of established brands that have been out there. For the longest time, it had been a sourcing product and now that they are sealing the light, they're like, Hey, we got to grow, we got to expand, we got to we got to start pumping out our stuff too. And so we know when we start talking about these brands, a lot of them are gonna start ringing a lot of names like Rebel Yell, like Ezra Brooks, like these are all the labels that these are all the names that you're probably very well familiar with and probably didn't know much about the the distillery and the people that are behind it. So guilty. I don't know much. But now I do know, because we just did the tour got the family history, and it's like a really cool story. So I'm excited to share that with our audience. Absolutely. And that's a good way to kind of segue into our guest today. So today we have Philip Lux. Philip is the global brand ambassador for Luxor distillery. So Philip, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you, Kenny. Ryan, thanks for having me on. Absolutely. So 19:00 Before we kind of get into this and start talking about the whiskey in the tour and the grounds and all that sort of stuff again, let's kind of talk about you know, your history your your upbringing, because because you're you're young strapping lad, your last name is luck. So obviously you have something to do around here. Yeah. 19:16 So, you know, the and you kind of talked about like, your family's been in this business? What 40 years now something like a almost 60 years, almost 60 years. Wow. So talk about your first run in with bourbon. My first run with bourbon honestly, was was pretty recent, over the past two to three years when we decided to build this and that so your mom and dad and like 19:41 and now I mean, it's really was you know, as personally my my first run with bourbon was was recent, but as a company, we've been in the bourbon industry for over 40 years doing some private label stuff with my grandfather back when you know, he was still still around. And David Sherman, who originally started the business with my grandfather, Paul 20:00 Whenever you know it's doing that private label bourbon just for four different grocery stores or, or convenience stores, stuff like that around the country. And then we we bought our first bourbon. And I believe 93 with Ezra Brooks from from Glenmore distillers, who's now owned by Sam's rack and has just kind of grown from there. And, you know, that was a little over 20 years ago now and we've grown. We've had award winning brands and grown our brands over the past 20 years and into into big, big names that allowed us to now break off from sourcing and start our own distillery and have everything distilled in house verse, you know, sourcing our bourbon from somebody else. Okay, so let's get back to the original question. What was your first my first run with bourbon was was probably three years ago. In you know, Colorado when I was when I was living there and decided I wanted to get away from kind of the, the vaca vaca scene so I started to drink some different stuff and my mom actually came 21:00 To me and in said that'd be a really good opportunity for, you know, to maybe have an idea of getting into the industry as we're getting ready to build this so I jumped kind of head over heels into the bourbon industry and 21:13 kind of ran with it from there went to moonshine University in Louisville and where I really got introduced to bourbon and whiskey and that kind of helped me in golf myself in the industry and in golf myself and what bourbon really is, especially here in Kentucky in Louisville, where it's you know, American spirit and in most popular spirits, so, huh, so she kind of was like the catalyst you didn't really you were like, that's your thing. I'm gonna do my own thing. Yeah, I'd never even really wanted to be in the industry. My I was always not necessarily pressured. My dad always said Do whatever you want to do. Yeah, he was never pressuring me at all. It was always his friends are my friends asking when when are you going to get in the industry? When are you going to do this? do that so because I'm sure your friends are like, hey, yeah, 21:58 I mean, I would take boxes of boosts. 22:00 to college with me, whether it be vaca Yeah, you'd be Ron knock that probably we just got in the house, we used to own Admiral Nelson. So that was a pretty cool product for us. And that was a fun product in college. And everybody enjoyed that. But, you know, on the bourbon side, I really didn't know much about it until I started taking classes and really engulfing myself in it with Stephen thief, like I said, as well, with moonshine you and you know, my mom is said, you know, take a chance this is something that's different, it's something that's new, it's gonna be something that you can help grow and you can be a part of, I was working in a ski shop in Colorado two years out of school, and you know, love in life, but it's hard to work in a ski shop for the rest of your life. Right? Well, I guess I work in a ski town so I need to find something a little different. And I you know, I've I've used my dad in different people in the company, and then the industry is kind of stepping, you know, stuffing box to help me work into it and learn more about it and I feel 23:00 That I've, I'm learning, you know, every day, whether it be with our products or the distillation process or the supplier versus distributor side. And, you know, with my job, it really allows me to learn, you know, frequently and, and continue learning and traveling and seeing different how bourbon and whiskey is viewed in California versus in Kentucky versus in New York. You know, I like to call you know, the bourbon trail like the Napa Valley of the Midwest now because you guys probably see it firsthand as well where everybody's flocking here now for that burden. Even the peacocks even though 23:39 they're they're always here and they're, you know, they love it here. So kind of talk about what you do see the difference in in bourbon, whether it's the community or culture as you're doing these travels, you know, just across the US like what is what's something that kind of stands out to you? You know, I think something that really stands out is the, the recognition of the bigger 24:01 You know, you go to California where, and I went up to Seattle for Seattle cocktail week and people had never heard of Lexapro but they had heard of, you know, they heard of heaven, hell and Maker's Mark and Jim Beam. And, you know, being, for me my passion and what I really strive to grow not only our brands, but our brands are part of a bigger name now of Lux. Lux row. So I think you know, to answer your question, Kenny, the The major difference that I see is how quickly a brand like Lux row catches on in Kentucky, because, you know, we're a year and seven months out from, you know, putting juice in our first barrel. And people recognize those brands like you know, they, they have, you know, throughout time and they recognize Lexapro now, as in you go to San Francisco whiskey Fest, those are all whiskey, you know, enthusiasts, so they're gonna, you know, they're they've probably been following those brands, but they're not super familiar with it. Maybe they've seen that Lux ro logo somewhere and now they're gonna be you know, 25:00 Gonna be there and they can, you know, learn more about it on a first hand basis or up in New York, I was up there and personally introduce David Nicholson reserve into the New York in the Boston Market in front of all the distributors so just different brands that aren't necessarily recognized throughout the country or are and don't have a lot of backing to them that need help you know, growing and with the distillery it's allowed us to help grow those brands in a different way where we can one bring customers here and you know, they can see that product we have people from all over the country if not the globe coming here. When they come to see heaven Hillary Jim Beam or Maker's Mark or limestone branch down in Lebanon, they drive right past us now. So we're in a very unique spot here that 25:50 it allows us to help grow. Yeah, I mean, go ahead, right. Oh, no, good. All right. Well, I'll keep going. I mean, cuz i was i was talking about like his Yeah, I mean, we talked about 26:00 Kind of beginning to show that you know, the rebel gal David Nicholson blood oath like Ezra books like these are these are pretty iconic names in in whiskey like they've been around for a long time but people didn't really know a lot of the background. And so Lux ro is also is it underneath the umbrella or an extension of Lux co as well? Can you kind of talk about the differences what you have there? Yeah, absolutely. So Lux CO is I like to call it our parent brand. But Lux Lux row is actually technically a supplier of Lux Co. You know, we own it as a family. My dad, you know, is the chairman CEO still of Lux row, but we act as a supplier for Lux, COEs Bourbons. But we're also you know, owned and operated family operated out of St. Louis with my father. myself my brother my mom. My brother's not in the industry. he's a he's an aerospace engineer, but he's the winner. Yes, James. He's a one a little bit of a different path than myself But no, to each its own. Yeah. 27:00 I found you know, a niche here but yeah, I mean Lux CO is is a worldwide supplier of spirits. We own a multitude of about 100 different brands everclear probably being the biggest my grandpa Paul purchase that, you know, way back in the day that was his first popular guy in college. And to this day I'm proud to admit I've actually never drink and everclear Yeah, it really is brutal. Yeah, never drink and it was like hooch or something. 27:28 So it's, it's, you know, everclear is you know, the biggest one but then we've got you know, provoq arrow cordials we own three different two kilos, whereas tequila, which is our mixto which you can find in you know, like a Texas Roadhouse Well, it's you well Margarita is usually whereas tequila, we have LA or tequila, which is our ultra premium as well as exotic tequila. All based out of Mexico. But it all you know, we're the supplier for that. So we we've been partners with the Gonzales family over there for 28:00 3040 years my grandfather worked with Rodolfo Gonzales his father so so very family oriented. And then over on locks row even you obviously can't get to locks row if you don't have locks. 28:11 And so we've over the past 20 years we've purchased all of our bourbon brands as your Brooks been the first and 93 from Glenmore distillers. And then we had Rebel Yell in 99. We purchased from Stetson Weller, David Nicholson is one of my favorite brands to talk about because it started originally started in St. Louis, Missouri, and we can go into that story. You got a little bit of a soft spot for St. Louis don't I do I do St. Louis born and raised my hometown. Got to give a shout out to our blue Stanley Cup champions. But you know, all of our brands have a very unique backstory to them very unique roots. That's why here at Lux row we are I guess motto is real roots real family real products. We have the roots not only with the products, but the real roots here in Bardstown with the Ballard 29:00 farm. They've lived there and and Ryan you know this but 29:05 big john Ballard lived there for 40 years raised his kids there, his grandkids there. I mean, this was their family farm. So we have the real roots with the products as well as with the farm. We've got the real family with myself, my dad, my mom being the creative director. So she worked her butt off, you know, getting this place up the top notch, you know, within two years, and then we've got the real products and the drinkability obviously speaks for themselves when you when you let them touch your lips, but each one has different wards. As what to say cuz the ezard Brooks barrel proof kind of went off gangbusters this year. Yeah, we're going crazy. It was crazy. Yeah. So we'll right when we introduced it wherever we reintroduced it, Fred. 29:45 Fred MiniK, who's never heard it never had that. But he called it he called it his, 29:52 his 2018 everyday sipping whiskey of the year, which absolutely blew it off the rails, all the allocations from across the country. We're going to 30:00 Wire. And so people you know we're in love with it and then somehow some way it one in San Francisco 2019 straight bourbon of the year 2018 straight straight whiskey of the year, which was absolutely huge for us once again. But then David Nicholson reserve back to back 2000 back to back double Gold's in San Francisco and in 2017 2018 as well as straight bourbon of the year 2017 Rebel Yell 10 year old single barrel was top 20 whiskies of the world it was number 12 there were only three American whiskeys on that. So we were really really fortunate to you know to have that one it's also very delicious product as well as won some some gold medals. So each one you know that real roots, real family real products, you know really comes into play with Lux row as well as Lux CO and St. Louis. But you know, very family oriented but Lux Lux row is what we that's what we strive here. So he says your dad ever told you about how you had the foresight to like start buying up these brands like before the you know, the big boom 31:00 Like, has he ever talked about that? Like, why did he get why did bourbon interesting, I guess from in the early 90s? When no one cared? Yeah, it's a great question and I'll need to, to pick his brain about that. Because, you know, I should definitely know that I know that. He's always looking to acquire and sell different brands, whether it be bourbon or, or rum or vodka, or tequila, stuff like that. But, 31:24 you know, he's, he sees an opportunity, and he'll jump on it. I mean, David Nicholson, he literally bought that product from the Van Winkle family. He was on the phone with Julian Van Winkle, which is pretty cool story, especially. I mean, if you guys want I mean, I can go into you know how David Nicholson 1843 came about, do it. Let's hear it. But so my favorite This is my favorite story to tell about our Bourbons because it hits home for me, it goes back to 1843. I've looked it up on Google, and actually found it. Actually, it actually found David Nicholson's grocery store that I'm about to talk about in St. Louis. Okay. He was a great 32:00 grocery store owner back in 1843 in St. Louis, Missouri. So he made that four year old weeded bourbon in his basement of his grocery store 50 years later as well, it's like you can do that 50 years later in 1893, some guy named Pappy Van Winkle. Never heard of them might know something about we did bourbon. I'm not sure. What's that? Yeah, exactly. He purchased that product continued that Nashville and then in 2000, my father, Don purchased that product from from Julian Van Winkle. So which means we've now brought that full circle from 1843. Back to St. Louis, where it originally started, which is a really cool story to tell. It's 100% true, and it it puts that family you know, atmosphere that family feel back in that product that has been there throughout time but might not have been recognized. And then we introduce David Nicholson reserve that won a bunch of awards. It's not it's a seven year ride bourbon at 100 proof so they they interact with each other very well. 33:00 They're different taste profiles, one's very creamy, one's still a little bit sweeter because of that we did bourbon. 33:06 So that you know, that's David Nicholson is a really cool story with with roots dating back to 1843, but also roots a back to the Van Winkle family. So where was blood oath made? Not a grocery store, right? How not to talk about that, and how it got its name and how it made it wait made its way to your portfolio. So blood oath was a product that were our head distillers very, very fond of john rappy. We wanted something that he could put his name to, and that it could be his in that he could continue to create, you know, delicious blends, you know, year after year. So, you know, john goes to different places and different distilleries and finds very unique barrels that he can blend together. And what we wanted was three extra age Bourbons blended together with a unique bourbon that's finished in something different. So packed, one was 34:00 three extra age Bourbons blended together not finishing anything unique barrel after that and pack to three extra age Bourbons, one of which was finished in a pork barrel from Meyers winery in Cincinnati. 34:12 also failed and operated with my cousin Paul Lux who owns Meyers winery. Pack three was finishing a Cabernet 70 on barrel for an extra six months. JOHN actually went out to Napa Valley and pick those barrels from the the smiley or the head wine guy you know at Swanson vineyards Napa Valley pack for was finished in Rebel Yell 10 year old toasted oak single barrel. So that was a 10 year old, a 12 year old and a nine year old and that nine year old was finished for an extra six months. So you got very dark chocolate notes. So these are all things that you know, john, personally, you know, puts that bourbon in those barrels and tastes them month over month to make sure that they're at that flavor profile that he wants. So when I tasted that blood oath, or that that nine year coming out of 35:00 Those old 10 year old toasted oak barrels It was very dark chocolate tasted not like chocolate milk, but kind of cocoa almost. It had a very, you know, chocolatey taste to it and then pack five you know, everybody's looking for that extra aged, super high proof, very unique Bourbons these days, so pack five, it's a, 35:21 an eight year old 12 year old and a 13 year old and that the eight year old rize actually finished for an extra six months and Caribbean rum cast. So that's what we're drinking right now. Nice. That Caribbean rum casks you get 35:33 you get very sweet and sweet. Yeah, Ryan signs empty, sweet sugary notes on the front end. You get like dark fruit banana, you get that okayness coming through from that extra age that you know 13 and 12 year old coming through there. So blood oath is something that 35:51 you know, the but the blood of the tests is that you know, nobody knows where he finds his barrels or his bourbon but you know, he puts together 36:00 product that is very unique and is for the the bourbon enthusiast. And if you'd like I can read you know what the actual blood oath label says on there. But it'll, it'll, it gives the whole story but if you think about it, you prick your finger with a buddy, and you make a blood oath, you know, you don't tell, you know, tell those things. Only you guys know where it's from, and tell you get on the podcast and 36:23 reveal everything. It's all we do. We sit here and poke and prod until you run out mash bills and ages and where your source your barrels, we save our blood. 36:32 So that's cool. I mean, that's, I think that's a side of, of, at least that particular brand that most people don't know about. You know, for I mean, I can remember when I think blood was packed, one came out, and there was just kind of this, like, what is this? Where do they come from? It's in a box like, what, what is this stuff? And so now we kind of have a little bit more of the information and really kind of what goes into it now. Now I know that each pact is uniquely different as well. It's not so 37:00 supposed to be this 37:02 similar creation over and over and over again? Yeah, the main similarity and that's only three barrels yet another thing to three three extra age Bourbons is the main submit similarity, excuse me, and, you know, each year, different box different label different flavor profile completely. And it's something that that john can really get behind and put, you know, a lot of his passion to it as well, other than, you know, all the other Bourbons, but he loves the blood oath, and it's growing in popularity, you know, year over year, we've continually made more of it. It's still allocated. 37:36 But I believe we made 37:39 I think it's 5003 in cases for this one, so about 15,000 bottles, maybe a little bit more might be vitamin 17,000 bottles, but it's allocated bottles for three barrels. You know how you're doing that? 37:51 Well, it's not three barrels total. Oh, yeah. Okay. 37:55 I thought it would be different. I literally thought it was like three barrels. No, no, so like, math as well. 38:00 All right, we'll take about we'll take about 40. 38:03 About 40 barrels. So like with the pack for we had 40 to 10 year old barrels that we sent back to the cooperage, they took them apart, scrape the number three char off, put them back together, suck a flaming hot rod in the middle for about an hour, put a very deep toast on them, put it back together and send it back to us. And then we aged that nine year old or finished that nine year old for an extra six months in those barrels. So it wasn't all three Bourbons finishing those barrels, it was only that one. So then john will blend them together in whatever way he finds, you know, best so that he gets those flavor profiles that he's looking for. So it's more than just it's three, three types of barrels. But it's not three barrels total. Gotcha. And so it was was Rebel Yell acquired at the same time as David Nicholson. About a year before but right around the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's, that already has a pretty historic past, you know, being something that was at Stillwell or stuff like that, you know, it's it's good to kind of get the background of 39:00 What these are and I'm assuming this is this is the the line that you have right now in your Bourbons. Yeah Miss Rebel Yell at her Brooke split oath and David Nicholson, the Rebel Yell we just reintroduce, or we just new label on it, which you know pops much better than the old one, you can really read the lettering. So we've reintroduced that to the, to the market. 39:22 You know, we're coming out with new bottles and new new products eventually, as you know, as we get going. 39:32 There'll be there'll be something along the lines of you know, a regular or just like a distillery product from Lux row. 39:40 So definitely look look forward to seeing that at some point. 39:45 But yeah, this is this is our line. These four products are two mash bills. I ride Nashville and our we did Nashville, we can get to all of our products from those. Hmm. And so I guess let's talk a little bit about the distillery here because 40:00 Cuz we mentioned when we were walking and talking, breaking ground around 2016, which was, you know, for us, I remember doing the podcast and we're like, oh, what's this place that's getting ready to start and we didn't really, really think anything of it now, a couple years later, we're here finally doing a podcast. Yeah. And then you realize they make you know, they have Rebel Yell and all those brands, all the big brands, yeah, I'd never heard of before. And so kind of talk about the the timeline of breaking ground. When you first started distilling, getting everything online, first barrel, everything like that. Yes. So see, we broke ground, January 2016. 40:39 The ballers lived in that house pretty much two weeks until we broke ground on the property. So it was still their family farm pretty much up until then, I mean, we obviously haven't get out. 40:50 So yeah, we broke ground, January 2016. We're on about a two year you know, we wanted it to be you know, up and running in two years. So 41:00 January 2018, I think January 10. We filled our first barrel, January 5, we turned the steel on. 41:06 And then April 11, we opened up to the public. So that was our grand opening. And that was a huge day not only for our family, but for our company. It was the largest investment that we've ever made for our company. But it was really big in nursery, more morale, but just for the whole team, I mean, my dad shut down our whole company in St. Louis and bust about 350 of his employees out here so that they could stand out on this front lawn while we had bagpipers walking, you know, taking my mom and my dad and David Bratcher, the president of our company down to the flagpole to, you know, to raise that Lux row flag for the first day. So you got people that, you know, have worked have driven a forklift in a warehouse in St. Louis for 30 years, with a smile on their face coming to work every day for my dad and my grandfather. That got to come out here and see firsthand where they're, you know where that Rebel Yell or that Ezra Brooks is that they're pushing every single 42:00 All day unloading trucks they got to see firsthand where that's made with with their co workers. And it really spoke volumes you know who our family is and what we're all about and just to have everybody out here is just a really cool experience. You know, April 11 2018 we'll remember that day is you know, the day that you know we we cut the ribbon on this place and open it up to the world and that really is what you know what what we did you know, not only here in Bardstown but i mean i'm going to London next week to you know, work in the market with our with Ezra Brooks and rebel yo with our, our international reps over there. So 42:37 to see a grow over the past, whatever it is year and a little over a year and a half now from where it was to where it is now and then just envisioning where it can go, you know, over the next two 510 years and past that is really special and just to see, you know, everybody in the company, really get behind 43:00 Everybody in you know, in our bourbon 43:03 section of Lux co get behind it and all the events that we're doing, we're now going to be at at every whiskey fest around the country. So Chicago, San Francisco, New York. 43:16 I'm missing a couple nights, but there's no whiskey fest whiskey in the winter in St. Louis. We'll have a booth there. So you know, the everybody's really getting behind it, especially here in Bardstown. I mean, you got to tell better mommies, they've got our products and they love it and they'll they'll sell it or 43:34 you gotta love Manny's Gotta love nannies you can't go wrong with the country cooking there. Yeah, we had one actually. We had a group that came here. I was like a VIP tour or something. And they went to mommies for breakfast. And they were just like, That was crazy. The pancakes are huge. And I couldn't even like we're bloated. Yeah. secondaries. Yeah. 43:54 So talk about why did you all decided to do the distiller here and not kind of do a footprint 44:00 You know in St. Louis, 44:04 there are more craft distilleries popping up around the country now, more than ever before. So how do you find the best stories and the best flavors? Well, rack house whiskey club is a whiskey of the Month Club, and they're on a mission to uncover the best flavors and stories that craft distilleries across the US have to offer rack houses box shipped out every two months to 39 states across the US and rack houses April box, they're featuring a distillery that mixes Seattle craft, Texas heritage and Scottish know how rack house whiskey club is shipping out to whiskies from two bar spirits located near downtown Seattle, including their straight bourbon, go to rack house whiskey club comm to check it out and try some for yourself. Use code pursuit for $25 off your first box. 44:52 Why did you all decided to do the distiller here and not kind of do a footprint you know in St. Louis, you know you got a bunch of breweries here 45:00 They're, you know, a nice big city like, you know, in your bottling they're still currently why not do it there and instead of kind of putting your foots down here or not your foot putting making your stamp here in Bardstown? Yeah, definitely, I mean, I think I think that you know Bardstown is the heart of bourbon country. And we found that I think we wanted to be around everybody else. I think it definitely helps us being here. Versus you know, being in St. Louis. We have our other our plant in St. Louis, where everything else is made. But you know, this is bourbon country and we wanted to be by by the other distilleries, and we wanted to be right in the heart of it. Like I said earlier, you know, the, the Napa Valley of the, you know, of the Midwest is that bourbon trail right now, and yes, people are going through St. Louis to you, but they're gonna go there and see beer when they're coming through Kentucky. They're coming for bourbon and we needed somewhere that could be you know, 100% about our Bourbons that we could, you know, really get behind and, and we 46:00 been, you know, we've been sourcing for 20 years so we've been driving our barrels from Kentucky back to St. Louis for 20 years and it's been working for us why change anything now? Why not you know break ground in the heart of bourbon country where we have that limestone filtered water. I mean, we just still we cook we ferment with Bardstown city water, this limestone filter we don't do anything with you know, with it when we're putting in the cooks or anything like that. Well, you know, we'll reverse osmosis, purify it when we're, you know, we're proofing down everything, but to be here in Bardstown in the heart of it is what it's all about, and that's where the most traffic is. That's where people want to want to come to see that bourbon, and also, in Kentucky in it's the same weather as Missouri. You just get it about a day later, but you get all four seasons. You get all four seasons, very hot summers, very cold winters. So that aging process is really unique here in Kentucky, 46:54 and is probably the best agent process for bourbon. 46:58 So I mean 47:00 We're right in the home in Lebanon, Kentucky is not far away so independence Dave it's easy to get barrels from them. Everything very centrally located here in Kentucky. selfishly I like being in Kentucky because it's close enough to St. Louis Right. You can drive back for a few hours and one hour drive. Yeah, it's not bad at all. But I think this is where the majority of people know what they're talking about here in Kentucky for bourbon. And you know, when I got started I in the industry I it was a little challenging for me because I was kind of just cold calling on different bars and restaurants and stuff like that and the saturation of bourbon in in Kentucky. Louisville is just insane. I mean, you go into any bar and there's more than 100 Bourbons on there. So 47:48 to be able to get our name behind something that can compete directly with those big brands. With Lux ro but also you know, Rebel Yell is growing as her Brooks is growing. David Nicholson is growing. David Nicholson reserved 48:00 The biggest you know our top skew coming out of the distillery here you know it's it definitely speaks to the location that we're in. I guess I forgot to question about this so what's there between this the regular David Nicholson and the reserve the 1843 is a four year old we did at 100 proof so for us we did bourbon in the reserves a seven year old ride burn out 100 proof There we go. Yeah, so once we add ones ride, Alright, so now our listeners know exactly what you're looking at when you're perusing your store shelves. 48:29 So I guess, you know, as we kind of keep talking about the the distillery here and everything like that, what's the I mean, it's a massive still so kind of talk about the relationship you have with Vendome and and the size of it and kind of like how much product you're pumping out to. Definitely so yeah, we got are still 43 feet tall. 36 inches in diameter handmade custom copper still from Vendome in Louisville. So family operated with the Sherman family. 48:54 They are the best when it comes to still making this obviously, other stills hillbillies. 49:00 Try it instills. I would think Vendome is up there with, you know, the best in the industry. 49:07 But yeah, so Ours is a 43 foot column still, which then feeds the low wine into our doubler, which is also made by Vendome. I'm not 100% sure the capacity of the doubler. But once it gets into that double, there's a slide on that one. 49:23 pure, pure alcohol in there, no more grains or anything. And we're going to pump out about a million million gallons a year, which is about 70 barrels a day with the capacity to do about what we do about 20,000 barrels a year and we have the capacity to do about 50,000 barrels a year. If we add a couple fermenters 49:42 down the road when when we need that to production to jump up. Is that based off like what you're kind of seeing sales in the marketplace, either current brands or more is that kind of like we see this is the growth of what this company is going to be. Yeah, a little four to five years. Obviously, there's projections and I don't see those projects. 50:00 firsthand, but I think you know, we deplete about 20,000 barrels a year. So maybe a little bit less. But as as those projections and stuff as we get rid of some other barrels that we have at other distilleries will, you know, by the time those are finished, we'll be ready to dump our first four year old barrel here and we can just kind of jump right into it same seamlessly and that's what was kind of unique about us building building here as well is that you know, we've been in the bourbon industry owning our own Bourbons for over 20 years and and we've been doing it you know, we've we've had it it working very well and very good relationships and to have those those products. We're doing the same thing that those other distilleries had been doing for us, except now everything's in house and we can just, we were able to have have barrels aging, 50:56 continue producing those products and having them in the market. Why 51:00 We're building our distillery. So whereas you know, a smaller craft distillery that's just popping up out of the ground, they're either going to source their product off the start, or they have to wait, you know, a year or two years for their first product to come off the still or to be dumped out of the barrel for us, we could just jump right into it. 51:18 And they're not too much of a leeway. And in you know, getting that still turned on pumping out juice and just jumping right back into that, that process of putting bourbon in, you know, on the shelf. Yeah, I guess that that also kind of leads into another question is when you start thinking about when the day does come when your barrels are ready, until you said like 20 2022 2022 is kind of like the date that you all are aiming at. Is there ever any any worry because, you know, if you're, if you're sourcing and you're buying and you've been buying at a consistent product, and you kind of know exactly like what it's going to be at that age, you have a little high confidence and then now you're kind of like Okay, now we're working with our equipment. 52:00 Is there any sort of thoughts or worries to say like, God, I really hope it's gonna be ready in four years. Personally, I don't have any worry. But people in the industry I'm sure will have worry. 52:12 For I don't have any worry for a couple reasons. One, I've tasted our year juice that came out of our first make barrels. And it's absolutely delicious at 125 proof very calmly, very dark for a year, which gave me a lot of confidence into what we're going to be taking out of those barrels, you know, three years down the road, but also when when we're doing the exact same thing that those other distilleries you know, had been doing for us for 20 years, our head distiller was, was you know, we were deciding what that Nashville was going to be stuff like that. But when we pull our barrels, you know, especially for our Rebel Yell, and our Ezra Brooks, as well as some for the David Nicholson, but mostly the rebel Jonas for Brooks, we're going to pull in a cross sectional method from the Rick house, so we're not going to rotate any of our barrels so when we pull those barrels, we're going to pulled 200 barrels, maybe 250 barrels at a time and blow 53:00 those all together to get to that consistent, you know, flavor or proof that we've had for the past 20 years that's been, you know, award winning or that we've been putting on the shelves year in and year out. So, and that's all tested by our head distiller and some people back in St. Louis to making sure those flavors are there. But me personally, I don't really have anywhere because we have the best in business, you know, doing what, what they do here, but I'm sure that's going to be a thought of some people once we get our first product, you know, that we actually distilled here, you know, into the market. Y'all trying to kind of replicate the existing profiles you have now with the existing brands is that kind of what your match bills are geared towards is kind of replicating the agenda now. It's gonna be the same Nashville, we're using the same corn we're using the same wheat or rye, we're using the same yeast, everything like that. We're just doing it in house now. So gotcha. You know, it's, it's hard to I would think that would be the smart way to do it. 53:56 Yeah, I mean, it's it's hard to it's hard to kind of replicated 54:00 offer, you know, a year and seven month old barrel shirt. As we get closer and closer, I'm sure that replication process will become more in depth and taking a couple different barrels and mixing them together and proofing them down to see if we can get to that exact proof 54:17 for that exact flavor profile, which I know we will. 54:22 But yeah, I mean, there's definitely, I'm sure there's definitely some worry or thought into if it's going to be exactly the same. Mm hmm. I mean, I think that's always a always a concern when you're doing this and figuring out Okay, do we do we keep the sourcing do we start blending a little bit, that sort of thing as you start going down that path? Even more? 54:44 And so we kind of went on the tour kind of so we have what 1212 fermenters here 12 54:51 I'm already testing my knowledge here. 12 fermenters a massive still doubler what else am I missing that we kind of solve on our little tour here? 55:00 We talk about think tanks. So you got some proofing tanks, we'll we'll put, we'll put juice in the proofing tank said 140. And we'll prove it down to 120 4.9. For it to be bourbon can't go in 125 or higher. And so we'll talk about the storage capacity we have here too, because we were able to go inside there you have this beautiful wall of barrels, anybody that missed you can always check out Instagram scroll way, way, way back and you can probably find it but there was a an idea that they had of being able to make an impact when you come into a particular warehouse 55:34 to kind of talk about what that is. Yeah, so my dad Don and David Brasher, the president of the company had a really good good really great idea honestly to take out first couple Rick's and and Rick house and just make a big wall of barrels that people could see and, and allow people to really, you know, see what a wreck house looks like see the magnitude of a wreck house. 55:59 You 56:00 See how many barrels are in a wreck house from floor to ceiling instead of just being in a confined claustrophobic area and and leave you know a lasting impression on on people that come to the distillery 56:13 I don't don't quote me on this but I believe it's probably the number one picture people take at our distillery once they get in there the wow factor is definitely ducks. Yeah number two speaker blend them together and make one 56:26 you know the wow factors you know definitely there we have we have in that Rick house will all of them were are built by bucyk construction here in Bardstown also family owned operated. But you know, they were kind of skeptical about it at first until they did some engineering on it and they found a way that it would work. And so we were the first ones to do it. We're one of you know that Rick house is one of a kind in the industry. So they've bucyk is brought other people you know, that are maybe interested in it to kind of look at that, but all of our rec houses aren't like that. So that one holds our first one Rick house, one holds 57:00 19,200 barrels, and then all of our other Rick houses hold about 20,000 barrels. So if my math is right, about an 800 barrel sacrifice about 800 barrel sacrifice and we definitely think that that sacrifice you know paid off an aesthetic purposes. 57:18 I'm hoping that those barrels stay on that wall for a very long time, at least like 10 years. Me personally, but I'm not the one calling the shots when it comes to what barrels are being pulled. But, you know, we've got some special barrels on that wall that people can see and hear the story about. 57:36 And you know, those brick houses, that's where the magic really happens. I mean, in my mind the barrels most influential aspect of the bourbon process, see 70% of the flavor or 70% of the flavor 100% of the color. So it'll be interesting to see how a little bit of that extra airflow kind of affects the barrels in a positive or negative way. We hope all positive Yeah. 58:00 Either absolutely, hundred percent. But, you know, it's it's just we tried to be differentiate ourselves from other distilleries in a few different ways through visuals, whether it be the video at the start of the tour, the artwork throughout the tour, or, you know, the Rick house, you know, very, very visually appealing that people you know, it sticks with them when they when they leave here. Yeah, it's one of the first warehouses we've been around to recently that doesn't have like the black fungus several or Yeah, so we don't have that yet. We'll get better. I think it's starting to grow on a couple of the small trees out there. Yeah. 58:40 It's like every tree bars on the black like, like you brazenly like what's wrong with your trees? It's like, I'm worried. It's just the 58:47 tree. It's just the bourbon. It's just the bourbon talking. Yeah. So you know, last thing I want to kind of talk about because I think the brands are a very sort of focus for what you do in all the ambassadors 59:00 centering. I think that's a word that you that you do around the globe, sort of what is what has been like the one thing that people latch on to when you talk to them about their brand or about your brands? Like is there one thing in particular each one of these that they're kind of like, oh, wow, like, I didn't know that, or that's a pretty cool little factoid. I think there's there's a couple things. I think the roots behind each one of our brands is very unique. And people don't realize the roots that you know, each brand has come from, I mean, you mentioned if you mentioned stitz, a Weller to anyone that you know, drinks bourbon, they know that it was a very prestigious distillery back in the day that you know, has amazing juice that we've continued that you know, that process or you mentioned, the Van Winkle family. 59:44 Everybody knows who you are, most people that drink bourbon, know who, you know, the van winkles are so I think that the, the, the roots of each one of our Bourbons is very unique. The flavor profile is very unique, but what I really enjoy about this job 1:00:00 is telling our family story and how we've grown throughout the past 60 years, starting as just a small you know, private label distribution company in modeler all the way up to one of the top suppliers and you know, in the country, if not the world of spirits and to be able to grow that family name into bourbon is very special for for not only myself but for our family as a whole. I mean, I've my mom, and it was absolutely a job to raise me over, you know, 25 years but she put her heart and soul into this distillery for two year process and, you know, 1:00:45 the tasting room the visitor experience that was all her so to see, to be able to tell our family's story and put it behind not only the brands but the whole distillery in general is very special and I think people will actually latch on to it. 1:01:00 at, you know, whiskey fests and stuff like that. Because 1:01:06 no, okay, like you're saying, some people do know the brands, some people don't know the brands and, and if you can give them something to latch on to that reminds them of that brand. I think it's it helps them, you know, one they'll drink it, they'll maybe ask for that over a different product and at the store after, you know, they go from San Francisco whiskey fest drinking all day and night and the next morning, they're like, oh, what was you know, what was that? What was that product from Lux, Rhoda. Still it was that thing I can't remember. And then maybe, maybe they remember it. Or maybe I was just in the liquor store that they go to. And they walk in there. And I was just, I personally had just been talking to the owner and talk to them and explained all of our brands. So they walk in there and they say, Oh, do you have any brands from Lexapro, distillers? Oh yeah, we have Rebel Yell we have as Rob Brooks. We have these great 1:02:00 Are any of those ringing a bell and they can kind of relate to, y

Brandon A.:                        People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Simon Sinek. Brandon A.:                        I am Brandon Anderson and I'm a Tri-Cities influencer. Paul Casey:                         Remember, you're either owning your behavior or excusing your behavior. You can't do both. So it's always the mature thing to do, to own it. Announcer:                        Raising the water level of leadership in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington, it's the Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast. Welcome to the TCI Podcast, where local leadership and self-leadership expert, Paul Casey, interviews local CEOs, entrepreneurs, and nonprofit executives, to hear how they lead themselves and their teams, so we can all benefit from their wisdom and experience. Here's your host, Paul Casey of Growing Forward Services, coaching and equipping individuals and teams to spark breakthrough success. Paul Casey:                         Thanks for joining me for today's episode with C.A. Hurst. C.A. is a youth advocate and a professed professional dot connector. So, we can't go any further, C.A., with you without you explaining that. C.A. Hurst:                           Okay well, hey first, thank you, Paul. I'm really happy to be here. And yeah, professional dot connector. What does that mean? What on earth am I talking about? What it means is, I see connections between resources and needs and also see connections between people and other people. And years ago, I started kind of developing this, not consciously, but it just kind of happened. And what I've learned over time is that, especially in our world today where we're all connected so much, that's really a cool skill to have. Paul Casey:                         It is, it is. Well, we'll dive in after checking with our Tri-City Influencer's sponsors. Neal Taylor:                        Hello, my name is Neal Taylor. I am the managing attorney for Gravis Law's commercial transactions team. The CT team helps business owners, investors, and entrepreneurs accelerate and protect their business value. Today, we're talking about employment law and alcohol and cannabis licensing. Josh Bam and Derek Johnson are both here with me now to describe those practice areas. Take it, Derek. Derek Johnson:                 Thanks, Neal. I'm Derek Johnson, partner at Gravis Law. We find that many employers in Washington State simply don't have handbooks, employee policies, or any other written materials to protect themselves and their employees. Without having these types of policies in place, an employer can run into trouble by firing employees, even if the employee isn't properly performing or are causing issues at work. Even if an employer fires someone for performance issues, for example, but fails to take the proper steps, they may run into trouble by inadvertently exposing themselves to a wrongful termination suit. We build strong, predictable, and protective employee policies to protect our clients' business. Josh Bam:                            That's true. Thanks, Derek. And having employment policies in place when you're dealing with cannabis or alcohol licensing is especially important. We know that clean employment policies, clean corporate structure, and having an attorney that can work with the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board is critically important to protecting your business through licensing. The attorneys at Gravis Law have this experience. Visit us today at www.GravisLaw.com. Paul Casey:                         Thank you for your supportive leadership development in the Tri-Cities. Well, welcome again, C.A. I was privileged to meet you, we just figured it out, it was over 10 years ago at a young professionals networking event and neither of us were young at the young professionals event, which I think was pretty funny. C.A. Hurst:                           I think we were the two oldest guys there. Paul Casey:                         I think we were. And what was cool, even though they probably looked at us strange was that we both wanted to give back. And we were there to be, if anybody wanted any kind of mentoring or, we're just both learners too. So whoever was teaching whatever, we wanted to be in the room. So, that was a pretty cool connection. And to stay connected throughout the years via social media and books that we've read has been really a joy. So that our Tri-City influencers can get to know you, take us through your past positions that sort of led up to what you're doing now. C.A. Hurst:                           Oh, man. Okay. Well, I'll try to keep this short because I got like 40 years worth of stuff. Paul Casey:                         Sure, sure. Yeah. C.A. Hurst:                           So, in 1970... Paul Casey:                         I was born in a hospital. C.A. Hurst:                           Okay, so, in 1970, in July of that year, this is like the year, the summer before December, after I graduated from high school, before I started college, I had a massive born-again experience. There was a little church in, well, actually Washington, called Bethesda Christian Center. That was part of the Jesus people movement. They're just young people coming in. And they really didn't know what to do with us because we were just responding to their openness to loving us, right? Anyway, so I had this massive born-again experience in the summer of 1970. And then I spent my first year of college at Central Washington State College at that time, now a university. So that fall, I had dived into reading the Bible because I'd never read it before. And so I was hungry, hungry, hungry. I'd taken a study break. I was in one of the little parks near the dorms there at Ellensburg, sitting under a tree. C.A. Hurst:                           I'm not sure I could find the same tree, but I know I remember this because I was reading in Ephesians about, "And God gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers." I hit pastors and teachers and I got this little thing in my heart that said, "Yeah, that's you." I said, "Oh yeah, really? I don't think so." So I responded to that, though that's where that started. And finished out my year at Central. C.A. Hurst:                           Then the next year, I was doing Bible college stuff in Wenatchee. And I eventually, then when I graduated from there, as you and I were talking a little earlier, I ended up on staff at Faith Assembly here in the Tri-Cities, way back when, in the '70s when they were in the building that now houses the Hungry Generation Church. So, cool stuff there. But through a number of events, just life events, I ended up needing to reinvent myself. My ex-wife and I had ended up in Montana. We started a church there. Then we separated in 1990. And that began kind of an interesting roller coaster for me of reinventing myself and reinventing myself again and again and again in truth, figuring out how to take all the skills that I had learned as a youth pastor and a pastor and a founding pastor, taking those skills and interpreting them for the secular world, which is a huge challenge. C.A. Hurst:                           Eventually, I ended up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The highlights there is I was the program director for Residential Treatment Center, horribly damaged young people. Really cool experience because I was able... we as a team of, my guys and gals that work with me, we were really able to touch some of those lives and help them. And then I spent eight-and-a-half years as a counselor at the Albuquerque Job Corps Center. We had a capacity for over 400 students, 8 counselors on staff, so everybody had at least 50 students on our caseload at all times. Paul Casey:                         Wow. C.A. Hurst:                           If somebody got sick or was out for a while, at one point in time, we were down four of us. So we all had a hundred kids on our caseloads every day, all day, every day. And we got really good at what we did. I spent a year and a half as the counseling manager. The job of a counselor at the Job Corps Center is to actually protect a student from the bureaucracy. That's a government program. But then a counseling manager then, once you bump up, now you're protecting both the kids and the counselors. So I kind of rubbed everybody, I rubbed the upper management, the wrong way for too long. Paul Casey:                         You contrarian, you. C.A. Hurst:                           So, anyway, I need to brief this up. At this point in time, the last time I counted, I reinvented myself either in a small way or a large way about 37 times. Paul Casey:                         Wow. C.A. Hurst:                           But out of all of that, what I've learned to do is morph and to figure out how to function in our world today. So, it's been a weird ride but it's bearing good fruit. Paul Casey:                         Yeah. Yeah. That reinvention is so critical. Some people go their whole lives without reinvention and you've done it 37 times. I did it for my first time following a divorce as well, over 13 years ago. And it sort of hits you in the face and you're just like, "Okay, I can stay down and wallow in this tragedy or I can reinvent myself." Every time you pick yourself back up and reinvent yourself, I tried, I did thirteen, no, it was 11 things. And it wasn't magic. 11, right? I don't know why, it's not even a round number. Paul Casey:                         But listeners, if you ever want those 11 things of how to recover from a traumatic experience in your life, I'd be happy to send those to you. But looking back, it's like I needed all of those habits, those new habits in my life. That's when I started playing golf. That's when I got more male friends. It was just like, there's just so many different things that happen on the other side of that. So, in your life, what do you feel like you're very good at, like what are your talents, your strengths, and how do you use those on a day-to-day basis to be successful and help others be successful? C.A. Hurst:                           Okay. So, when people ask me what I do, what I really do, my life calling, is working with young people. That's where I've been for the past, going on 50 years. I am so proud of that. On next year, 2020, that it will be 50 years since I actually started counseling with people and doing that kind of thing. And my specialty area has been young people. When I was working at Faith Assembly, we ended up doing a lot of outreach to young people here on the Tri-Cities, and of all different walks of life but especially the kids that nobody wants, and nobody wanted then and they still don't want them. I do. I do. I didn't have a clue what to do with them when I started, because I was like 20-something. And I would spend a lot of time praying about, "Hey, God, so what do we do with this guy?" And I don't have a clue. C.A. Hurst:                           And the answer was always the same, just love him. Or if it was a gal, just love her. Just accept them the way they are. So, that's the biggie for me. That's the undercurrent of everything that I do. That's what I do. So, that gives me context for everything else that I've studied over the past 40 years. See, you already know that I'm a huge reader. Paul Casey:                         Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. C.A. Hurst:                           Right? And one of the coolest things that's happened in our world in the past 10, 15 years is that, because of social media, because of all of the high-tech communication stuff we've had, the people who write and people who are thought leaders have a much easier time sharing what it is that they know. So, I've still got that young person perspective, but because of my age and because I've had to reinvent myself 37 times and because I have been desperately scrambling for answers, I've read. Just read and read and read and read and read and read and read, and without trying to be proselytizing anybody, done a lot of praying like, "Hey, God, what's next? Where do I, where, where, where? And so, what I've learned is the most important person to learn how to lead is me. Paul Casey:                         Yep. C.A. Hurst:                           That I've had to learn how to lead myself from, "Okay, here's where I am. This is not working, so I need to do something else. Where do I go from here? Where do I go from here? Where do I go from here?" And honestly, that to me is probably the very most important thing that any adult could possibly learn in our world today. In fact, as a parent, I would encourage people to begin shifting our thinking and teaching their children that same kind of a thing. Just learning how to be self-reliant, learning how to be entrepreneurial, even if you're going to work for somebody else, still consider yourself an entrepreneur- Paul Casey:                         If anything, could be an intrepreneur, right? C.A. Hurst:                           An intrepreneur, whatever you want to call it. But really developing you, and your own unique abilities. So, I would say one of my unique abilities is communicating. I've always loved to write, and I've done more writing in the last, oh, five, no, six, seven, eight, eight years, about eight years with Facebook. Nobody's going to tell you you can't. You might get a couple of shots across the bow for what you write, but you can go ahead and write. So, I've been really having a lot of fun with that. Paul Casey:                         Yeah, you have. So, I'm hearing you're a lover, a learner, and a writer. C.A. Hurst:                           There we go. Thank you. That works. Paul Casey:                         Core value of love, core value of just constant personal and professional improvement. And then, the writing or adding value to others. So on the flip side, what would you consider one of your biggest liabilities? And how do you mitigate that so it doesn't limit your influence? C.A. Hurst:                           My greatest is, I've learned this in this last six months, that my greatest liability is, even though I've been a very strong advocate for others my entire adult life, I haven't done a very good job of advocating for myself. So, I've been learning a lot about that over the past six months. And I've also, oh, asking for help. Paul Casey:                         Asking for help. C.A. Hurst:                           Asking for help. Do you know who Brene Brown is? Paul Casey:                         Oh, yeah. C.A. Hurst:                           Okay. So, have you read Daring Greatly? Paul Casey:                         Yes and Dare to Lead, her newest one too. C.A. Hurst:                           Okay, yeah, we're reading Dare to Lead right now. So, Daring Greatly, I read that, oh, about eight months ago. And now here I am, I ended up, recently I'd had a little toe of my left foot amputated. It was in June of this year, and I needed help. I needed help from people that I've known for years and I've needed help from our community. And it's embarrassing to ask for help, especially as guys, it's embarrassing to ask for help because we're trained not to. Then yeah, "We want you to be in touch with your feminine side," Brene Brown. "We want you to be in touch with your feminine side." Go ahead, try that out. I dare you. Let's see what happens. Oh yeah, now you're really going to get beat up anyway. So that's what I've really learned over the past several months. I've just not been good at asking for help when I've needed it. Paul Casey:                         And yet it's a strength, not a weakness at its core, right? Because we're robbing other people of the blessing of what they've been wired to do, which could be to help us at this moment to get us unstuck or to that next opportunity. So when we go, no, I'm going to pull myself up with my bootstraps and be self-sufficient, we actually rob others of the opportunity to give. C.A. Hurst:                           Yeah, there's that balance of being self-sufficient and then knowing when to ask for help. Paul Casey:                         Yes. C.A. Hurst:                           Not codependent. Nobody is truly independent. Paul Casey:                         Right. C.A. Hurst:                           What we need to be, interdependent. Paul Casey:                         Interdependent, I love that word. I love that word. Totally believe that and that's a core value for sure. And what I love is that as an amputee... Amputay? C.A. Hurst:                           Amputee. Paul Casey:                         Yes. You have not made that a liability in your life. You said you surrounded yourself with a community of others who have gone through that, that only you guys can really understand. C.A. Hurst:                           Yeah, yep. Paul Casey:                         You're not letting that hold you back. I mean, it holds you back physically. You probably do way more if you could but you're not letting that hold you back from your influence. C.A. Hurst:                           You're right. And one of the biggest lessons I've learned, I've always known that the value of being quiet, I've learned that way back when, when I was going to Bible college, that kind of thing. Just one of those things that they taught us, sit down and shut up, sit down- Paul Casey:                         Seen and not heard. C.A. Hurst:                           And listen. God's trying to speak to you but you're so busy running around and you're making so much noise, you can't hear what he's saying because oh, when he speaks, it's with that little still small voice. Paul Casey:                         Yeah. Yes. C.A. Hurst:                           So this last, actually, it's the last several years, I've ended up spending a lot more time being ultra-quiet than I ever wanted to, on the one hand. On the other hand, that has been yielding the coolest stuff I've ever learned in my entire life, that you know that. And also, the biggie has been, I got you. I got, I got you. You're okay. I got you. Because, so, I got my leg amputated, my right leg amputated below the knee when I was 59 years old. You get kind of attached to a leg after 59 years. Paul Casey:                         I would think so, yes. C.A. Hurst:                           Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, all of a sudden, it's not there and you are in another universe. There's just no way to describe it. It's like, where am I? Who am I? Honest to God is, who am I? I woke up from the surgery and it was gone. I don't even know who I am anymore. Paul Casey:                         It cuts your identity. C.A. Hurst:                           Yeah, it does. It just... So I've ended up spending a lot more time being a lot more quiet than what I thought I should be. It's like, I need to be doing this and I need to be doing that. I need to be... And that's been part of what God has been speaking to me. It's like, no, no, I got you. Just shut up. Paul Casey:                         Yeah. C.A. Hurst:                           Just chill out, dude. You know? I got you. It's okay. Paul Casey:                         Yeah. That reassurance is amazing. Also, I think the breakthrough has really happened in solitude. And because where we surround ourselves with our distractions and our noise and we get in the car and my last car, the radio just popped on automatically. It's just like we're just surrounded by so much noise and we can't be creative. We can't have those breakthroughs of what's next. C.A. Hurst:                           Yeah, we do need to get quiet. In fact, one of the greatest concerns I've had over the past couple of years, and then actually over the past several months, is that with social media, everybody has a voice, which is really, really cool. However, extroverts being extroverted, I liken it to be in a band. I'm a bassist. My job is to be in the background. Okay, I'm not a lead guitarist. The lead guitarist's job is to be in the foreground or the vocalists or whatever, right? Oh, I liken it to the lead guitarist because the extroverts are lead guitarists, or vocalists, so they're always encouraging everybody to be a lead guitar. So it's like, "No, no, no, no, no. No, no, we just need one." Paul Casey:                         You wouldn't have a band. C.A. Hurst:                           We love you to pieces. And we love what, we love those riffs but we only need one of you. So we've thought, "Well, you're talking about all the noise. That's what I'm hearing out here on social media land is just that overwhelming, you got to be on 24-7, 365. You've got to hustle and grind 24-7, 365. It's totally unsustainable. I get it. I get it, I get it. Especially if you're in your 20s or 30s, you need to be out there hustling and you need to figure out what that's all about, and you need to be staying up late at night, reading, reading, reading, reading, reading- Paul Casey:                         Did you say reading? C.A. Hurst:                           Studying, digging, doing all of that stuff. But then as you get a little bit older, then you need to take all this stuff that you've been studying and you need to begin to mold something that's more sustainable, that you can teach to other people, that you can look to other people and say, "Listen, here's what happens when you do all of this study and all this reading." What you're doing is, you're growing roots. And you want to grow a strong, complex, sustainable root system so that when the storms of life come along, not if, but when, because it is going to happen, that then rather than that or that rather than breaking, you're going to bend and sway and you're actually going to become stronger through those storms. C.A. Hurst:                           But you have to take time to grow that root system. And that's what you do in your late teens, early 20s and to your 30s. But then you need to be able to start kind of mellowing out a little bit. And let me use Eric Clapton. Okay. So, if you listen to Eric Clapton playing with Cream, way back when, well, in the '60s, right? And you listened to him in the '90s, whatever. He just matured. And so he still plays brilliantly, but it's got a different flavor to it. It's like a fine wine. Paul Casey:                         There you go. C.A. Hurst:                           Mellows. Paul Casey:                         Yes. C.A. Hurst:                           That the taste mellows and that's what you want. Paul Casey:                         So you've got the root system metaphor. You've got the wine metaphor, Eric Clapton metaphor. Woo. C.A. Hurst:                           I got them all, man. I've been doing this a long time. Paul Casey:                         You came at it three different ways. Well, hey, before we head into our next question on a few of C.A.'s life hacks, let's shout out to our sponsors. Paul Casey:                         The C12 Group is a national organization focused on spiritual and professional development of Christian CEOs and business owners. Members participate in professionally facilitated monthly meetings, during which 12 experienced Christian CEOs exchange ideas to solve business issues biblically. Additionally, members receive a 90-minute personal coaching session each month. Information is available from Tom Walther at (715) 459-9611 or online at C12EasternWa.com. Paul Casey:                         So, C.A., what are a few of your life hacks that help you be successful on a daily basis? C.A. Hurst:                           One of my buddies, online, is a guy by the name of Tim Sanders, who was Yahoo's chief solutions officer way back when, when they were the thing, right? He wrote a book called Love Is The Killer App, and a bestseller, and I got acquainted with Tim through Dan Pink, who's another best-selling author. And I connected with him. He wrote a book several years ago called, Today We Are Rich. So, number one life hack, feed your mind good stuff. He has an entire chapter. He opens with intros, it's a couple, three chapters of just kind of background stuff. Then his first main chapter is that feed your mind good stuff. And that life hack right there, that has literally saved my life over and over and over and over and over again. That's it. I mean it's so, it's not complicated. C.A. Hurst:                           We live in what's called a knowledge society. So, everybody is a professional whether they want to be or not. Everybody. It's like, guys, this is where we're at. So, if you pay attention to what you allow in your heart, your mind, your soul, your spirit, then you're going, whatever comes along, you're going to be able to fight back. You're going to be able to push back. Let me talk a little bit about being an amputee. Depression. You ain't lived until you're missing part of your body. You can't get away from it. You can't, you're depressed, and you can't get away from it. And you can either give up or you can get up, one or the other. What enables you to get up is what you've been feeding into your heart, your soul, your mind, your spirit. C.A. Hurst:                           So that's my number one life hack is that. Feed your mind good stuff. And then honestly, everything else just kind of flows out of that. I think in numbers. A number two life hack would be, stay connected with other people. Figure out how to keep those connections happening because we need each other. Even those times when we are just all grumped out and we want to be by ourselves. That's okay for a while. But then you got to get back in there and you need to reconnect with other people and let them, as you were saying earlier, let them give back into you. Paul Casey:                         Sure, sure. Yeah, I love that crucible moment that they give up or get up. The key thing that tips you to the getting up is feeding yourself that positive input every single day. C.A. Hurst:                           Well, yeah. Here's what's cool. I've been doing that for years now. Years and years and years and years, right? So, it runs on autopilot. Sometimes you have, when you started, when you start a good habit, you have to fight for it. Paul Casey:                         Yep. C.A. Hurst:                           Okay. But once you get it established, after whatever length of time it takes, it takes on a life of its own. Paul Casey:                         It does. It does. Yeah, there's four habits that I do every day. I get eight hours of sleep every day. These are all my wellness habits. I read the Bible every day. I read professionally every day, like you're saying, and I exercise every day. And I don't have to think about any of those four because they become so ingrained in my life that I'll feel like, if I go too long without that, something's missing. Right? C.A. Hurst:                           Yeah. Yeah, and you... Paul Casey:                         That's like, I crave it. Yeah, I crave it so much because it's... But a new habit coming into your life, whether that's flossing or something else that you know is good for you, it does take work. And it's the 21 days, there's not a real thing. Sometimes it takes a long time to do that. So before you make an important decision, C.A., what process do you think through in your life so that you make more good calls than bad calls? C.A. Hurst:                           The reason I'm being all quiet and kind of thinking is that the last several years had been so crazy, and that I've had a lot of decisions made for me. It's super, I don't, I'm not going to say scary because it's not scary, it's terrifying. But in a more normal setting, the stuff that I am, essentially, like the feed your mind good stuff. I'm always thinking about, what's the best thing to do that's going to benefit the most people, the most beneficially? Paul Casey:                         Yeah, yeah. C.A. Hurst:                           That's the way that I'm made. And then I begin to work out from that. It's like, "Okay, what do I need to do? What's my..." And I think of it as kind of mental or emotional reading and I go way out and say, "Okay, this is where we could go with this. Okay, now let's come all the way back in. And let's figure out-" Paul Casey:                         What's that next step to get there, yeah. C.A. Hurst:                           What's the very first tiny little step that I can take right now? Right now in order to get that process happening, because once we make that first tiny little step, then we begin to... Then we see the next tiny little step. Until we make that step, we can't see the next step. Paul Casey:                         That's right. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "You can't see the whole staircase." C.A. Hurst:                           Exactly. Paul Casey:                         You just can only see that next step. C.A. Hurst:                           Exactly. Yeah. Well, and a young guy named Richie Norton, I was on the launch team for his book, The Power of Starting Something Stupid. His brother-in-law, Gavin passed away at the age of 21. A year or so later, he and his wife Natalie had a baby that they named Gavin after her brother. He caught whooping cough. They're living in Hawaii. He got whooping cough and he died at the age of 76 days. Paul Casey:                         Oh. C.A. Hurst:                           So, and what Richie has incorporated into his life is what he calls Gavin's law, that you live to start and start to live. And he said, "I can get anything done at 76 days." That's what he does. He gives himself, he'll create a project that takes 76 days. To live to start, start to live. Paul Casey:                         What a great motto. C.A. Hurst:                           Yeah. What's cool about Richie is that he lives it and he has been living it. And it works. Paul Casey:                         To take something traumatic and turn that into a mantra. C.A. Hurst:                           Yeah. Paul Casey:                         Or these 76-day chunks of life. Because sometimes, we underestimate how much we can get done in 76 days. C.A. Hurst:                           Yeah. Paul Casey:                         We overestimate how much we can get done in one day. C.A. Hurst:                           Yeah. Paul Casey:                         But in 76 days, you can make a lot of difference. C.A. Hurst:                           Oh yeah. You can, especially if you shift your mindset to that. Paul Casey:                         Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So when you've lived your life, C.A., and you think back on your influence, how do you want to be remembered? It's a legacy question. C.A. Hurst:                           Simple, a simple thing. "He made a difference." Paul Casey:                         "He made a difference." Love to see that on my tombstone too. C.A. Hurst:                           Yeah. Paul Casey:                         They used to have those Tombstone Pizza commercials. "What do you want on your tombstone?" I think that's actually a pretty profound slogan. C.A. Hurst:                           He made a difference. Paul Casey:                         He made a difference. Well, finally, what advice would you give to new leaders or anyone who wants to keep growing and gaining more influence? C.A. Hurst:                           Read. Paul Casey:                         I sort of knew you were going to say that. C.A. Hurst:                           Well yeah, it's like at this point, because... My buddy, I call him my buddy, Lou is. Actually Lou Wen, Louie Wen, Ph.D., psychologist, whom I met at the Albuquerque Job Corps Center when I was on staff there. And he worked with one of my students one day. It was about six weeks after I'd been there. And he absolutely changed this young woman's life in 30 minutes, helped her see what was going on, and she wept cathartic tears. Walked out of my office, a changed young woman. So I looked at him, as soon as she closed the door, I looked at him and said, "Okay, what is it that you know that I don't know?" What he said was, "I have a book I want you to read." And his book called Warm Logic. C.A. Hurst:                           And then Lou and I are still close friends, but he was the center mental health consultant for the Albuquerque Job Corps Center. He was there, he'd be there usually two or three days a week. And every time he saw me, the very first thing he'd ask me is, "What are you reading?" What are you reading? And again, because of the world we live in today, that is, honestly, that is the very most important habit to develop as a leader. Another one of my author buddies, again, Tim Sanders, "Readers make the best leaders." Paul Casey:                         Amen. C.A. Hurst:                           You can go through history. Everybody that's been a great leader has been a reader. If you want to lead, there are certain things you have to do. Paul Casey:                         And that's one of them. C.A. Hurst:                           Reading is number one, not number two, I mean, seriously. That's number one. Paul Casey:                         Yeah. So, I'm just going to ask you this on the fly here. Would you be willing to write up your book list for our listeners that I could post on our Facebook page sometime? C.A. Hurst:                           Sure. Paul Casey:                         Now, that would be phenomenal. Because we can go a whole nuther half hour on just the books that we would recommend leaders to read. C.A. Hurst:                           Oh, yeah. Easily. Paul Casey:                         But how can our listeners best connect with you, C.A.? C.A. Hurst:                           They can, honestly, the best way to connect with me is on Facebook. I've used that. That's my primary social media platform. It works for me. I try to stay away from the ultra controversial stuff. And it's just a capital C, capital A squished together, no periods, because Facebook won't let me use them. And then H-U-R-S-T. If people know who I am, my picture is my profile picture. So, I'm pretty recognizable. That's the simplest way. Paul Casey:                         Okay. Very cool. C.A. Hurst:                           Or they can text me. (509) 420-3515. Paul Casey:                         Awesome. Well, thanks again for all you do to make the Tri-Cities a great place. C.A. Hurst:                           Well, thank you, sir. Paul Casey:                         Keep leading well. Let me wrap up our podcast today with a leadership resource to recommend. It's QuoteInvestigator.com, QuoteInvestigator.com. And if you want to look for a cool mantra for your life, it's called Just For Today. And a gentleman wrote a, it's almost a little poem and there's about 10 to 12 lines of Just For Today. "I will try to live through this day only." And it talks about generosity and reaching out to others and putting yourself in that mental right state for the rest of the day. So, I found it through QuoteInvestigator.com and maybe that will be inspirational for you today. Again, this is Paul Casey and I want to thank my guest, C.A. Hurst, the dot connector, for being here today on the Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast. We want to thank our TCI sponsors and invite you to support them. We appreciate you making this possible so we can collaborate to help inspire leaders in our community. Paul Casey:                         Finally, one more leadership tidbit for the road to help you make a difference in your circle of influence. It's Theodore Roosevelt. He says, "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." Until next time, KGF, keep growing forward. Announcer:                        Thank you to our listeners for tuning in to today's show. Paul Casey is on a mission to add value to leaders by providing practical tools and strategies that reduce stress in their lives and on their teams, so that they can enjoy life and leadership and experience their key desired results. If you'd like more help for Paul in your leadership development, connect with him at growingforward@paulcasey.org, for a consultation that can help you move past your current challenges and create a strategy for growing your life or your team. Paul would also like to help you restore sanity to your crazy schedule and get your priorities done everyday by offering you his free Control My Calendar checklist. Go to www.takebackmycalendar.com for that productivity tool. Or open a text message to 72000 and type the word, growing. Paul Casey:                         The Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast was recorded at Fuse SPC by Bill Wagner of Safe Strategies.  

  Did you know magnesium is needed to perform 300 different bodily functions? That is the power of magnesium. In today's episode with Matt Gallant, we will talk about some of those functions, why we need different types of magnesium for different parts of the body and why we created a special magnesium blend to address these needs. Different types of magnesium are generally used by different parts of your body. For example, magnesium chelate is really important for muscle building recovery and health. Magnesium citrate helps with counteracting some obesity issues and it can help with arterial stiffness in people who are healthy and in those who are overweight. Magnesium biglycinate or glycinate is great for sleep, and it may also help with stomach acid (meaning it can aid in digestion). It may also be helpful in reducing heart disease, Type 2 diabetes as well as osteoporosis. Magnesium taurate is also very beneficial for the heart and for reducing muscle cramping and migraines. Magnesium malate may also help with some of those same issues plus it can alleviate depression and anxiety. Malate is also good at removing aluminum from the body, so it can aid in detoxing as well. Another magnesium we talk about is magnesium L-threonate, it helps with memory, cognitive functioning in the short and long-term as well as overall mental ability. And finally, the last magnesium we recommend is magnesium orotate, which is very helpful for the heart and is especially useful for metabolic improvements. We also share a few studies that show the power of magnesium and how truly beneficial it is for a healthy, functioning mind and body. One particular study followed 4,000 people for 20 years and found that people with the highest magnesium intake were 47% less likely to develop diabetes. Today we also discuss some at-home options for increasing your levels of magnesium like bathing in Epsom salts and more intense, even experimental options that are out there. We share our personal experiences with intravenous magnesium, and how we have brought all 7 types of magnesium together in one special combination for you. Join us to hear these cutting edge insights and more on this episode of Awesome Health! Episode Resources Magnesium Breakthrough web site Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill by Dr. Udo Erasmus Read the Episode Transcript : Wade Lightheart: Good afternoon, good morning and good evening wherever you are. It's Wade T Lightheart back with the Awesome Health Podcast. And I got Matty the mad scientist with me today, my co founder, co-conspirator, co-creator co everything. And uh, we're excited today because we're going to reveal something that happened to me a number of years ago. Basically I made a profound discovery crisis is an awesome, awesome opportunity for those who don't know in Japan they write crisis and opportunity actually together in Kaishu script. And so it says danger, proceed with caution, but there's always opportunities within it. And one of the things when you're on the leading edge, the bleeding edge, um, and pushing your body to the max pushing your lifestyle, the maximum as a high performer in variably, I don't know, a high performer that doesn't run into trouble somewhere at some time. It's just, it's just the nature of revs engines at high level. Wade Lightheart: A couple years ago, I fell into a that doing more than I thought possible writing checks my body couldn't cash and just burning it to the absolute max. And I did this for years. Running a bunch of different companies, working day and night, sleeping crazy hours, traveling around, burnt myself to a crisp. Literally, I was at a restaurant in Panama. I was listening like some that's like my best friend. We were living literally five minute walk from each other in, in, in, in about six months. I saw him five times and on the fifth time he's like, dude, what's, what's going on? And I said, Matt, I'm living in hell. And the crazy thing is is, well, let's see. He's like, okay, yeah, I can see that you're struggling. I see you are not quite yourself. Well, what's going on? I said, it's like I can't function. Wade Lightheart: It's like my brain isn't working. This distress of my decisions, I'm having emotional reaction. He goes, okay, well let's go look you up on a brain machine and tell them. Now, Matt, you're an expert in, I would say a in a, in a really great experiment on brainwave function, neurological activity. We both dove deep into that and I knew I wasn't like there was something seriously wrong with me, not just physically. I was lethargic in the gym. But like mentally I was just struggling. What happened when I, when we, when you hooked you up to your, to your lab, your lab tests. Matt Gallant: I have a medical grade neurofeedback device that measures the electrical activity in someone's brain. And part of what gets revealed is the amount, you know, like basically the voltage in someone's brain. And at that time, uh, Wade had around a quarter of the electricity of, uh, my 78 year old friend, uh, who I've seen his brain waves. So, you know, Wade was like maybe one or two levels away from being brain dead essentially. Wade Lightheart: I had the brain of a 280 year old. So, uh, something you don't want to look into. And so of course, uh, you know, the crisis opportunities, like, okay, what do, what do we got to do about this? How do we go about this? And obviously I went off and hired a naturopathic doctor to do a bunch of tests and uh, looked and I, one of the things that I was suffering from was extreme levels of adrenal fatigue. I had been using a variety of stimulants in order to sustain the output. And those work for a while, you know, it's kinda like you, you burn the candle at both ends. And it turned out I was suffering from a condition. It's actually according to American psychological at one of the six leading causes of death. And I, I felt like how I felt like I was gonna die and it turned out I probably actually was well on my wave to setting myself up for a problem. Wade Lightheart: So one of the key elements that I did, obviously I had to change to make some lifestyle changes, but I had to start addressing some of the deficiencies that my, uh, desire or my excess type of lifestyle would contribute to. And the reality is, is one particular nutrient that was super deficient and was my road to recovery is I had to take massive doses of a, of a nutritional supplement that virtually 80% of Americans are deficient in. They don't have it. Uh, and almost everybody doesn't get enough that's deficient just for basic functions. We're not even talking about optimal functions. We're not talking about super optimal function. Matt Gallant: And let's face it, we're BiOptimizers all about like optimize levels, not normal levels, you know, cause again with bioptimization spectrum, yeah, most people, you know, people want to stay normal. That's cool. We're not into that. We're into becoming super humans as you know, in whatever shape, way or form that means for you. And in order to do that, you need to be at optimal levels. So it's very different than, than normal levels. Wade Lightheart: I want to talk about something really important and when we get into this and how important are key elements to a dietary facts. I'm going to share a story, uh, that might seem unrelated, but it is. And that is at the turn of the century, there is a variety of, uh, conditions in North America related to iodine. Remember, we're not talking about iodine today, but I'm going to tell you this story cause this is mindblowing. So there was an iodine deficiency ramping across North America. They started looking at it and they started adding iodine to salt. Here was the crazy result. The average IQ increase in America because of iodized salt increased by 15 points, 15 points just because people were deficient in iodine. I was deficient in this element that we're going to talk about today. And I've come full circle from the moments of hell to the moments of super optimization. I'm so grateful for it and that's why I'm so excited and that's why we're here to talk about this today because I don't know what the potential results are free people out there, but I think it might be the biggest breakthrough in nutrient. Uh, I would say optimization that I've seen in the industry and it doesn't cost that much. That's the best part. It and, and its effects are not only short lasting, but I think it's certainly something that's gonna have a big impact for people over the long term, maybe as effective as what iodine did a hundred years ago. Matt Gallant: So as Wade was going through that experience, um, simultaneously I went through my own, you know, we'll just call it if Wade was, you know, at 12,000 RPM in the red in the, you know, the engine's about to blow. I was probably in the yellow, you know, and the symptoms of that. For an example, I remember I had to give up coffee because I would drink coffee. I would instantly feel fried, like frazzled, like my nerves, my nerves were raw and my nerves felt, you know, frazzles the most accurate description I can come up with. So, and then three different help experts, including Charles Paul, Dr. Joseph Mercola and a friend of mine, all revealed a protocol that we're gonna share with you today that's inspired me to go hog wild. So this was like three months, I think before Wade kind of hit rock bottom. Matt Gallant: And so I get on this protocol and I go hog wild with it, which we're going to reveal. And it was probably you, you know, like there's a lot of supplements, especially when it comes to minerals and vitamins. You don't feel them right? Like, you know, it makes sense. The, the science makes sense and theoretically makes sense. So you, you take them. But this, in terms of feeling it, I just, I was feeling it heal my nervous system. I was feeling myself a shift from fight or flight. And again, when I did a great podcast on healing the nervous system, the parasympathetic and sympathetic. So I was feeling myself shift over from being trapped in sympathetic and certain moving into the healing mode. My sleep improved, my mood improved and I just became like super chill, you know, like just relaxed, which was, you know, it's a sign that you're in a parasympathetic versus when you're, you know, intense and angry and frustrated and irritated and discontent. Matt Gallant: That's, you know, you're in fight or flight. So all of that happened relatively fast. I think it was around two months and you know, it kept getting even better the third month. And then that's when you kinda hit bottom and I said, Hey man, this, you know, this has worked really wonders. And then Wade, you got on this protocol and then you, you know, healed in, in a relatively short amount of time, especially considering how fried you are at that time. Um, you, you made a very quick comeback. Wade Lightheart: Yeah. And that I was really grateful for it. Now it's hard to believe that this one thing could make such a big difference. I mean I did a bunch of things, but we did the testing and stuff in that, the one factor that that changed everything was this particular, um, element, this ingredient. Matt Gallant: I think we've teased them enough I think. I think right now, you know, there's, there's a lot, I feel like we're strippers, just this keep teasing here. They were ready to, to reveal the goods. Um, but before we do, you know, it's this, this nutrient, I got to say when the deeper I went into the research, the more my mind blow and what we're talking about is magnesium. So you've probably heard of magnesium. I mean, you know, it's been something you heard in school and chemistry class and you know, the importance of it. I remember hearing a long time ago. Okay, those 300 different things in the body. But yeah, it's, it's just incredible what it does. Now going back to Wade's story and my story, there's something that I had learned relatively recently about magnesium that blew my own mind. I didn't know this, which is that when you're stressed, okay, you start leaking magnesium at an accelerated rate, your body starts expelling and losing magnesium. Matt Gallant: Now what then does this, there's a numbness, a second order of a consequence, the less magnesium that you have, the more stressed you feel, and then you lose more magnesium. So it's this vicious cycle that Wade went through and I went through that, you know, leads to some level of burnout, of feeling stressed out, feeling overwhelmed. So you know, the antidote, the answer is, you know, taking enough of the right magnesiums and that's what we're going to be talking about. Uh, today is really about the right blends of magnesium, how much to take, how long to take it, and what you can expect. Wade, thoughts? Wade Lightheart: Well, you know, it's funny cause when I went through that piece in diagnose I was all turned on and I had a recollection of a lecture I went to at uh, Bulletproof the Bulletproof conference with Charles Poliquin and Charles Poliquin was a strength coach and he died not that long ago. Matt Gallant: Probably the greatest strike coach. Wade Lightheart: Yeah. He coached gold medalist and I think in, it's over 28 different sports. Matt Gallant: 400 Olympians, I think 400 metal winners. I don't know these guys. Wade Lightheart: Yeah. Professional athletes of all different fields. He was really far ahead. He used to read all these different research journals and you learn different languages to learn a different biases of cultures. It was a very interesting person. He looked amazing and it's unfortunate he died so soon. However, one of the things that made him unique is he athletes undergrowth a disproportionate amount of stress than the regular population. They are continually red line, especially to think about an Olympic athlete or a professional athlete. And one of the things that he talked about is even at a professional athlete and Olympic athlete is another level beyond a professional athlete on, on, on their ability to perform on demand because of professionals doing it over, over, over at an Olympic athlete. And he, one of the things that he said that he was using it's like specifically and in massive quantities was was magnesium but not just one magnesium. Wade Lightheart: He was using different magnesiums for different components of the brain. There were things for brain, things for your heart, things for uh, energy production inside the body, things for recovery, things for cramping, all of these issues. And he had actually broken down magnesium into a bunch of different types and was using supplementation because it's virtually impossible. It is virtually impossible regardless of any diet that you're following to get all of the magnesiums. And one of the things that's happening today in the world of testing and stuff is we're now able to drill down a little deeper instead of just protein, fats and carbohydrates. Well, it's now we've taken minerals and vitamins and supplements nce and we're able to drill down to the different components of those, which ones are more utilizable by the body, which ones are more available to the body, which ones have performed different functions inside the body. Matt Gallant: It's a great segue into talking about like the different types of magnesiums and what they do. Um, and the essence is this. Different magnesiums tend to go to different parts of the body and affect them. So if you just taking one type or even two types of magnesium, there's a lot of your organs in different parts of your body, including maybe your brain or your heart that are deficient. So what's the answer is to have a wide variety of different types of magnesium. So magnesium chelate is really important for muscle building recovery and health. Magnesium citrate helps with some of, you know, counteracting some of the obesity issues and it can help with arterial stiffness with healthy, even overweight individuals, magnesium biglycinate or glycinate, essentially the same thing. Um, that's a great one for sleep, and sometimes it also helps with, you know, stomach acid. So on the digestive side it can have some positive benefits. Wade Lightheart: It's, it's also used for heart disease type 2 diabetes to assist in breaking down sugars. And it's a key component in osteoporosis as well. Matt Gallant: Yeah, magnesium malate - some people believe it's the most bioavailable and it can help with migraines, chronic pain and depression and just, just the research there that we're going to get into around magnesium and anxiety and depression is just, it's just mind blowing. Wade Lightheart: Last thing, one thing on the, on the, on the malate, it's also good for removing aluminum from the body. So if you're looking for detoxification, it's a, it's a, it's a great one for that as well. Matt Gallant: Magnesium L-threonate. Um, L-threonate, which is the one you use for brain. I've used a lot of it. It's one of my favorites. Uh, it seems to help with working memory, mental ability, functioning capability, long and short term. Wade Lightheart: And in my, in my own situation that was the, that was the one that was really a big game changer for me on the cognitive side, on the sleep side. I was so stressed out, I wasn't sleeping. It was part of the reason why I was getting so, uh, reduced. And my naturopathic doctor, she recommended that I take massive quantities of this in particular because of the brain. And one of the things that I noticed if you're struggling with memory, that's, that was the one I couldn't remember anything. And when you're, and that one literally my, my memory came back cause I generally have an extraordinary memory and uh, it really made a big difference for me when I was taking L-threonate. Matt Gallant: Well what happens when you're stressed out? It blows out your hippocampus, which destroys your short term memory. So you know, that was just another side effect of the vicious cycle that you were trapped in. And you know, I might as well reveal this right now. I'm the best stack that like, cause I'm about four and a half years ago, I was noticing that my short term memory was starting to decline. And you know, at the time I'm 38, I'm like, you know, this, this is not good. So I started taking um, magnesium and fish oil, which we're going to get back into, you know, uh, you on DHA essentially you can get it from plant-based as well from the allergies. We'll get back to that. But that and Lion's Mane, which is a mushroom that helps increase BDNF in the brain, brain drive and trophic factors that stack from memory. Matt Gallant: And again, it's, it's one of those things that it builds up and it gets better and better. Like you'll notice it in about 30 days and then 90 days it gets better in six months. And now, I mean, it feels like my short term, just my memory in general is as good as I was probably as a, as a teenager before I started using drugs. So there you go. You know, definitely works. Um, next is magnesium Taurates, which is probably the best one for the heart. And one study noted this complex magnesium Taurate made us have considerable potential as a vascular protective nutritional supplement. So that's a really good one for your vascular system. Wade Lightheart: It's also, it's also for people who suffer from migraines. Um, that one is a really great one. And for women who are suffering from PMs, cramping. So I have a lot of women that reach out to me and that my naturopathic doctor who happens to be a female, she's like, this is the one that females typically respond best to. Or also athletes who are dealing with a lot of cramping issues. Matt Gallant: Yeah, that's awesome. And uh, the last one we recommend is magnesium Orotate, which is very helpful for the heart, but the, it's really the number one use magnesium for metabolic improvements. So far on the athletic side, if you're working on hard, uh, you want better performance, better recovery energy, and that'll help because magnesium is involved and helps the mitochondria produce more ATP, which is where your energy comes from. So this magnesium seems to hit that pathway significantly. Like you know, and I remember that. I think the first time I heard about magnesium was back in our body building days Wade and you know, we had the big stack magazines, you know, they were talking about magnesium for, for strife and for working out. And I remember when I did my loading phase of magnesium, like I added two, three, four reps on everything. I think in like two weeks. I, you know, it was, it was a huge jump in performance in the gym. So I mean, what have you noticed in terms of the benefits from an athletic side in terms of working out or recovery? Wade Lightheart: Well, you know, particularly with Orotate as well, um, it's really good for blood sugar. It's, I find it's great for handling food, uh, food cravings or sugar cravings if my magnesium levels are high. If I'm taking math, like I actually, cause I eat a lot of carbs, but I notice when I take my magnesium in the mornings, uh, my first milk, cause sometimes I'll, I'll have tea, any caffeine subject can diminish your magnesium supply. Just so you know, and I, and I, and I also, because I eat such a rich of vegetable diet, I tend to get a lot of calcium and calcium and magnesium work in a ratio. So if I take my magnesium, I don't have the sweet sugar cravings. When I, when I don't take my magnesium, if I forget for what he was on or I'm on the road and I forgot my magnesium, okay, uh, I get those sugar cravings. Wade Lightheart: But the other thing is what I find, I don't get cramping either. A, I that the tightness in the muscles, uh, firing as well is if I get, if you're sweating, one of the things for athletes who are sweating, particularly, you know, people who are on quarter the field for hours at a time, the drop in magnesium is one of the reasons why they start losing the pop. They start, they start to, you know, slow down. It's, and if you see those fourth quarters in the NFL, often times it's not just dehydration, it's the key loss of magnesium in those cases. And in a worst case situation and you see this with a long distance runners and endurance people or athletes that get heart rhythms like a, they get the heart rhythm gets disrupted or they have an irregular heartbeat. You're seeing it more and more in athletic performance that's directly related to magnesium and Orotate as the probably the best one to deal with those things. Matt Gallant: Yeah. So you know, and just to kind of add to what you've said, like in terms of athletic performance, um, in terms of moving beyond just magnesium, your magnesium, we just highlight how critical it is. Couple of things you are there, things you want. One is potassium, um, which I, I don't think I've shared in this podcast, but what I do, I have this pitcher of, of water and I put about a quarter teaspoon of cream of tartar inside of it with salt so I can absorb more. And it just got my blood work done and my potassium was like kiddo, really up there where you want it. Um, I mean you don't, you don't want it too high but quarter teaspoon and they'll give you the dose. And then enough calcium, cause you know, if you're cramping or your muscles not firing, you're either missing your calcium, the potassium or the magnesium and calcium. Matt Gallant: You don't need that much. Like, you know, eating cheese, like a little bit of cheese twice a week. Most people just have an overload of calcium in their body. And in what way? To share really cool story in a second. But like I said, right now there's kind of an overdose of calcium and most people's diet you don't need that much. So I don't think people need to be concerned too much with that. I think it's more to the magnesium that people are really deficient in. And then again, the potassium. So you know, using salt, especially like Himalayan salt, sea salt, I mean they just load it in your food unless you have really, really high blood pressure. Um, but you want to be able to, to retain water. Okay. If I don't, especially like I'm on keto, so if I'm not eating enough salt, I just lose water like crazy cause I don't have the carbs to hold it in. So that's one of the things. But Wade, why don't you share your story about when you went to Bali and you did the intravenous magnesium because I've done it too, but I think think it's a really powerful, um, story, Wade and I have a really powerful theory or an exciting theory about magnesium and calcium. So Wade, go ahead. Wade Lightheart: So one, so as being, the radical experiment is there, once I've found out that I had magnesium deficiency, I was like, okay, what else can I do? And I found out there is a way that you can do it intravenously. And so I happened to have, I went to Bali and had a naturopathic physician who would use this actually, he was a special forces person and they used to do a magnesium for, for special forces people who are in extreme cases of stress and distress. They would do this. And so what they did, you kind of dose up and obviously don't do this at home, get a doctor to supervisor. You could really mess yourself up if you took too much. But basically you take this, you put an intravenously and they start dripping it into your system. Now what starts to happen? First off, there's a general sense of regular like relaxation and then it kinda hits pretty much. Wade Lightheart: It gets, you get so relaxed, it kind of gets hard to move around if you have to go to the bathroom or something. You're getting kind of feel a little jelly. Uh, I mean this is super physiological doses of magnesium. But then what happens is where you've got little alleys or calcium buildups in the body, it starts to burn. And I literally started to get burning inside my brain where I had calcium deposits built up in the brain tissue. I had like cold shoulder injuries from way back in the day when I was benching too much weight, too fast, um, that would literally start to burn. Uh, and so what I believe is that the, and this is theory theoretical, is that the magnesium as it went through the body, was finding these places where the calcium was up, bonding with the calcium and dissipating the calcium in those particular pieces. And I've done that a whole bunch of times ever since. And I can tell you every single time I get burning in some area of my body. Matt Gallant: Yeah. And the last in the last hardcore brain optimization brain training we did, we were doing, it was a blend of different vitamins and amino acids, but there was a very high dose of magnesium and the doctor that was injecting that says, uh, that's going to hit you right in the genitals. And yeah. You know, I don't think I did as high a dose as you did. Um, I mean it was kind of a nice warm, uh, pleasant feelings. So that was my experience injecting my knees. Matt Gallant: You know, I am the extreme optimizer, the mad scientist. So it, it, I wouldn't be doing myself a service. I wouldn't be authentic Matt Gallant: unless I've revealed another way to load magnesium, which, you know, only the crazies will be excited about. And I haven't done this yet. I have researched it. Um, there is a doctor that uses a protocol and again, you know, try to set your own risks, make sure you talk to your doctor, if you're doing crazy experiments, but it's rectal magnesium loads. And the, the issue with like doing a crazy amount, uh, orally is that the magnesium pulls water. That's not a big problem. You know, you get just a flushing effect and you go to the bathroom and you know, it ends there. In fact, some of them, there's, there's other magnesium's yeah. That I've used for flushing. Like let's say you're doing a fast and you really want to do kind of an intestinal cleanse. There's, there's special magnesiums that like really pulled the water in. Matt Gallant: And you know, we've, we're a fan of minimizing that. But when you start getting past like two grams at a time, that's typically when you start getting some flushing effects. So let's say you want to load like five grams at a time, then that's when, um, you would basically prepare the magnesium with water and basically do an enema and your body's just going to absorb it. So it was probably the second best way after injections. And again, I haven't done this yet but probably will very soon. So anyways, again, just wanted to share that cause I know some people like crazy experiments. Wade Lightheart: I know another thing that you were a big fan of is floating in magnesium, salt pools and one of the big things, Joe Rogan is a big fan of that as well. And the magnesium is a great way just lying in a pool of mags, which has been known for a long time. Wade Lightheart: Magnesium salts also as a way of get it externally. It doesn't have the internal benefits but it does have a general relaxation effect. Matt Gallant: Yeah, I'm a huge fan. Um, I mean and again for those of us that don't have float tanks at home, you can buy like Epson salts, get in, get into the bathtub or you know, hot tub or whatever you have and throw it in there and, and get, you know, cause you will absorb some, uh, through the skin and it will have some effects. So yeah, I'm a huge fan. It's a great thing to do before bed to relax or yeah, floating to me is still my, like my number one favorite. Biohacks so to speak, uh, to, to, to relax and to heal the nervous system and get me out of fight or flight. So anyways, let's jump into some mindblowing research on magnesium. Matt Gallant: Um, so on the aquatic side, there was athletes supplementing with magnesium for four weeks. They had faster running, cycling, swimming times during a triathlon and they experienced reductions in insulin, which, you know, when your insulin goes down it, there's almost every part of the body. There's this, uh, you know, yin and yang. So the yin and yang would insulin is glucagon. And when you release glucagon, you burn, you're in fat burning mode periods. So anything you can do to reduce insulin is a, also reduction in stress hormone levels. Um, now on the mood side, this is where, and I experienced the effects of this. Like I really did. Um, I went from kind of being kind of stressed out to being a level of chill that, you know, you know, haven't smoked weed in a long time, but when I used to, um, you know, that it was almost like that level of chill, you know, and it was like all the time. Matt Gallant: It wasn't, I wasn't high after taking pills. I was like in a permit chill zone. So in terms of magnesium, um, it's been linked to like magnesium deficiencies have been linked to depression, increased risk of depression, uh, and then supplementing with the mineral, there's been a lot of reduction in the symptoms of depression. Sometimes in some cases it can be dramatic. Um, now in randomized controlled trials in depressed older adults, 450 milligrams improved mood as effectively as an antidepressant drug. I mean, think about that. That's, that's incredible. So, and that's, that's a relatively low dose in our opinion. So four 50 can replace antidepressants. That's pretty exciting. One study follows 4,000 people for 20 years and found that the ones with the highest magnesium intake were 47% less likely to develop diabetes. So we're talking massive beneficial effects on blood sugar and insulin. I mean that, that alone in terms of weight loss in terms of health is again, incredible. Matt Gallant: Then there was one study that found that 450 milligrams per day increased, experienced a significant decrease in blood pressure in both the systolic and diastolic. Um, again, more research on prevailing insulin resistance and many people would, metabolic syndrome are deficient. So metabolic syndrome is a term for people that you know, don't seem to be responding to normal weight loss parameters. Like the, maths not making sense, you know, they're, they're not eating that much or direct resizing. They're, they're not, um, you know, they're insulin resistant. Like there's, there's a whole set of things that makes up metabolic syndrome, but again, people that are deficient in magnesium seem to, to show that another study shoot insulin, uh, improvements in insulin resistance. But another study found that it reduced insulin resistance and blood sugar levels even in people with normal blood levels, which means that it will help you again burn more body fat. And we'd mentioned this earlier, that magnesium has been shown to improve mood, reduce water retention, aka bloating and other symptoms in women with PMs. So, I mean that's just a quick, quick overview of, you know, there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of studies, but I just wanted to highlight that, you know, this is the mineral that can drop your stress, improve your blood sugar, improve your brain, improve your athletic performance, improve your sleep, improve your PMs symptoms. I mean, there's almost no part of your body that it doesn't have a positive impact on. Wade Lightheart: And also just increase your capacity to handle things like caffeine because pretty much everybody is pounding caffeine these days. It's a big trend. And you know, I think one of the things that's really important is now you're able to enjoy a coffee or a caffeinated beverage without any of that, that edginess that kind of comes associated with it or the, you know, the frying feeling, if you will. Matt Gallant: Yeah. So let's talk about the protocol. Um, so I want to share, I'm going to share again, it was, you know, in three people that you trust and respect. Tell you more or less the same thing. I always think that is a sign from the universe. So Poliquin's protocol was around five grams of magnesium a day and 20 grams of fish oil. You know, uh, Mercola was very similar. Now Mercola hit his, what he's saying is that the magnesium can help counter counteract a lot of the negative consequences of the EMF cause the electromagnetic frequency pollution from cell phones and wifi. What we know now is that it opens up what's called the calcium gates in the cells. So you're basically like leaking calcium. And if you think about aging, aging, like most of the negative consequences, whether you're talking about heart disease or arthritis, is that calcification of the body, right? Matt Gallant: The body's hardening in all the wrong places. So you don't want to be, you don't want your cells to be leaking calcium. So he's a big proponent of magnesium to help counteract a lot of those side effects. And then the other guy, uh, it was, uh, a mutual friend of Wade's. His, his approach was to heal the nervous system. So that's where he was coming from. So all three guys again had a very similar protocol which was around three to five grams of magnesium a day with a big essential oil loading protocol. Now if Wade is vegetarian, and Wade I want you to share your favorite vegetarian oil sources because I think there's some synergy between the magnesium and again, essential fatty acids. Wade Lightheart: Yeah, I do believe that's true. Um, for those of you who have checked out some of our podcasts, there's two particular ones. I'm going to refer you to dr Udo Erasmus, "Fats that heal, fats that kill", he's kind of the guy that put fats back on the map. He's a friend of mine here in Vancouver, world renowned guy, great guy. He talks about the relationship and how important that is and and providing, you know, your three sixes and nines, you can get them from plant sources. You just, the threes are a little bit tough, so you've got to watch that and make sure that you get an a balances. The other one is Ian Clark's Activation oils. I think some of the best liquid oils I've ever taken. I, I was always someone that struggled with oils, taking oils probably from my bodybuilding days where we had to, I'm a literally cut fats out of my diet for about 10 years and got to super physiological low body fat levels, which depleted my myelin sheath and nervous system. Wade Lightheart: So again, on the extreme side, again, you know, feeling the burn. But yeah, I use those oils. I like to, I like to take my magnesium with my essential oils in the morning. Uh, they're great. And again, with oils, I mean it like everything cheaper is cheaper. Like go with the best stuff, go with the products are out, you can and if you're a vegetarian, uh, definitely you want to supplement your diet with a, you know, either the Udo's oil or the Activation oil inside it. There's a, uh, there's another company out there. It's, I think it's an MLM company called doTERRA. They have an essential, and I, I'm not getting anything from any of these, just so you know, they have an essential, uh, a plant based essential fatty acid, which is a combination of a bunch of different essential oils. That's really good as well. So the vegetarian one from those guys is fantastic and I've, I felt benefits on all of those products and I use them. Uh, I stack, I take a little bit of each one, uh, every day. Matt Gallant: Yeah. And another great source for vegetarians that want the DHA, which is really the key one for the brain is Algae, right? So either, you know, E3Live is a great one and they have BrainON, which is specifically, it's an Algae that these spin to remove the cell walls that crosses the blood brain brain barrier. I'm a, I'm a fan of that product as well, even though I am a, I'm not vegetarian, but um, yeah, so the Algae, another good service. Now, if you're not vegetarian, I'm a fan of krill oils. Probably. Um, my favorite source and you know, I'll, I'll usually stack that with the fish oil, but curls my go-to and uh, again, I'll sack that official. Now let's talk about dosage. Um, in my opinion, you start with 500 milligrams, maybe two or three times a day, which will give you about one and a half grams a day. Matt Gallant: And that's a really, you know, it's a good dose. Uh, and it's a tolerable dose. Yeah. I'd be surprised if you have any digestive distress. Um, you can also start with about five grams of fish oil and then you start ramping it up. So you go from, you know, half a gram to a gram. Um, where I went the highest was six grams a day. That was a little too high. Yes. You know, I was, I was definitely having watery stools at that point. So for me, if I'm really pushing the dose, it's around, you know, four or five grams. And the thing is we recommend you do a loading phase of 60 to 90 days and once you're loaded then you go back to like a gram, a gram and a half, maybe two grams a day, depending how intense your life is. Cause you know, keep in mind like if you're training hard, you need more minerals, you're burning up more things, you know, you're, you're, you're using up, um, you're sweating minerals, you're sweating salt through sweating, magnesium, you're sweating, all of these things, you're burning them up at a higher rate. So what have you found works for you in terms of dosage? Wade Lightheart: Orthomolecular nutrition, um, which was developed by Abram Hoffer and um, Linus Pauling and Hawkins way back in the 70s, they developed a way of doing things. It was kind of what Matt's referring to. This isn't something that we've just cooked up at a, our ideas, what they did is they would always keep titrating up, bringing up the dosage until you break what's called the gastrointestinal barrier. That's where you get the runs. That's where you get the watery stools. So start at that half gram. And what I did is when I first started out get this [inaudible], I went to eight and a half grams per day before I started getting stills. That's how deficient I was. My body just started stacking. And then after about three weeks, I got the runs one morning on my, on my dosage, and I was like, okay. So at that point, what I did is I tapered down to six. Wade Lightheart: I went about another month. And keep in mind though, I did do the intro. I, I, during that time I went and did the, uh, the, um, IV drip of magnesium. And when I did that in combination, I went from six down to four and I've stayed around for ever since. And I take it every single day. And, uh, if I go for a long, like sometimes I do these long walks or I do an intense, like I'll do like a four hour work, four hour walk in the heat or whatever. I'll, up it a little bit and I don't get any, uh, digestive stuff. Now that's me in particular. Um, each person is going to different, you can do what's called a SpectraCell analysis. So we talked about this on another podcast with dr Maximus and everybody should do this test. Wade Lightheart: Um, it's a test where they spin your blood and they can tell how well you absorb a particular, uh, nutrients. So for example, Matt, myself, and let's say you the listener, we could all take the same amount of magnesium, but we will not absorb the same amount of magnesium. And we're also, Matt and I are taking, uh, we're taking one of our, you know, well-known products, which is Masszymes, which in order for you to get your minerals, you need minerals to get your proteins, proteins to get your minerals, minerals to get your vitamin. And most people are deficient in enzymes. So I would recommend also adding in enzymes or Masszymes product. And on top of that, because that's going to also assist an absorbent. And if you can take it with a meal or, Wade Lightheart: or, or with the protein drink or, you know, breakfast and stuff like that, I usually have it with my breakfast every morning. And I like it that way. And then also for my lunch.. Matt Gallant: So Wade and I, we, we were kind of guys that just follow our passion and, and we, you know, we, we, I'm passionate about things that work and from the beginning of BiOptimizers, you know, just to give you some backstory, and I don't think we've ever shared this publicly, so if we share bits of it, but Wade and I were doing this, this incredible protocol with very high dose enzymes, very high dose probiotics. This is before we ever created any products. And we were so blown away by the results that we said, you know what, let's create a better version of those products because they work, they're incredible. Let's build a better version and share it with the world. Matt Gallant: And that's what we've done with magnesium. So again, Wade and I, I've been using magnesium now for about two years. Um, again, using these protocols and you know, like I, I've got to think like five different types of mag, like five different types of magnesium downstairs that I have to pop in and, and take and you know, and one of them as three and you don't want, as you know, that's just what I have to do to get all the magnesiums that I want. Um, the other issue too with a lot of magnesium blends, and I don't know why they don't do this, but they don't put the cofactors. There's a couple of things that you can put into magnesium that will actually help absorption. So what way did I have done? We have a combined all seven magnesiums that we talked about earlier along with the cofactors and we've created a product called Magnesium Breakthrough. So we're really excited to share this with you. I think it's going to become the magnesium of the health industry. We haven't seen anything like it. There's some magnesium of act three, some have four, but I haven't seen any with all seven. So we're super excited to be bringing this to you. I think that's going to be one of the most impactful supplements you've ever felt, specially if you're stressed out. And again, it's one of these things too. If you're training hard, you'll see some incredible results in the gym. Wade Lightheart: Yeah, pretty exciting. The other thing I also want to add to that is like all of our products, we have the 365 day your Money Back guarantee. If you don't, if you don't feel the difference taking this, if you don't say, this is awesome, I feel awesome, I can feel the difference. You just reach out to us and call us and we just give you your money back. We, there's nothing more expensive than a product that doesn't work and then there's nothing that feels better than a product that delivers on what you want. And one of the things that we represented by optimizers is over delivering on the promises that we make and removing all the risk of purchasing with us because we were not in the business of selling products. We're in the business of creating relationships with people who want to optimize their health, live long, live strong for a long period of time. Wade Lightheart: So, you know, I simple sale or something like that. That's not what we're interested in. We're interested in being your GoTo advisors, your health advocates, to bring you the latest research. What we've been doing, what we've blown up on, what we've learned as well as the experts who can, who are influencing us and our decisions. And if we can make a product that will enhance people's lives better than other people, we do it. If we can't make a product that's better than anything on the market, we refer you to the people that, that we do check our podcasts. That's what we're into. We don't make everything, but what we do make is absolutely fantastic. And for those of you who have tried our products and are with us, we want to thank you and enjoy it. And I think this is going to be another element that you're going to add to your repertoire that's going to make a big difference for you and your family over the decades. Matt Gallant: Yeah. So the website is a magnesiumbreakthrough.com. And you know what's really nice about magnesium is even if you're on a tight budget, uh, you know, you can get a really positive effect for around a dollar a day. So, you know, even if, again, if you're cash strapped, I think it's probably one of the biggest bang for the bucks in terms of cost to benefit ratio. And you know, going back to the BiOptimizers triangle, which is the aesthetics, the performance in health, um, everything that we do is moving, you know, one, two or all three of those such triangles sides further out. And you know, for those of you that are into high-performance and whether that's, you know, business pushing your brain or at why I performance, um, you have to make sure, and again listen to our nervous system projects cause we went pretty deep, but you have to make sure that you're, you're balancing or managing the fight or flight response. Matt Gallant: If you're just trapped in that side and you're going to burn out and really your performance then starts dropping and your help starts dropping. So that's why the magnesium blend, Magnesium Breakthrough, you know, you're keeping yourself out of fight or flight, you're, you're, you're pushing your body into parasympathetic, just using this miserable. So that allows you to keep training harder without burning out or working harder without burning out. I think, you know, way you would have had this product back when you were in your, you know, super intense work zone, you probably would have avoided, you know, being almost clinically brain dead on a EEG machine. Wade Lightheart: Yeah. And that's a, that's the thing, you know, um, you always have to be kind of humble enough to say, well, what if maybe I should give it a shot? Um, the reality is is I'm probably not gonna change my hard wiring. I've, you know, I've been an extreme athlete virtually all my life. I was, you know, from hockey and violence, sports like that, and then that transit into kind of extreme levels of bodybuilding at the high levels. And now we're at extreme business building and, and as you age, things happen in your body, changes happen. And sometimes deficiencies can kind of go undetected too. You kind of fall off the cliff or life changes. You go through a divorce, you go through a business stress, um, maybe someone in your family gets sick, maybe you end up traveling a lot, and there's these little points, these spikes that are the pieces that puts you over the top. Matt Gallant: And oftentimes it's for those high performers out there, you kind of think that you can gut it out. Um, so I do recommend, uh, getting a net naturopathic doctor. Do your regularly regular testing, look at your, your blood, look at your results. And what's interesting when you add products like magnesium, like are digestive enzymes. Everything else just seems to work better. So a, we're pumped and we're excited about this. I think it's a, we're for all those guys that are like us who have been, you know, we've got half a dozen bottles of magnesium in our cupboard. Uh, it's nice to just be able to throw all of those in, you know, uh, in the garbage and just have one bottle. And I've got that covered every day. And that's, that's one of the beauties, you know, it's also about efficiency. And effectiveness. And so when you look at the price invested for your magnesium, instead of buying five bottles of all these different ones, you can just buy one bottle or three bottles and you're good to go. Matt Gallant: Yeah. Our philosophy when we create products and Wade alluded to it, we're either the first in class meaning you know, we're creating a new type of product or we're the best in class. And you know, magnesium was a lot of magnesiums out there. But again, you will not find one that has seven magnesiums plus the cofactors in this ratio. Cause you know, one of the things we did, we optimize it to minimize the water flushing. So the ratio of the magnesiums that we put in, we're again designed to minimize that water flushing so that you can push the dose if you want you to get. Again, there is a point where it'll happen, but it's, it's a lot higher than what you would normally experience. So again, the website's magnesium breakthrough. Uh, we want to thank you for spending your valuable time with Wade and I, and we'll be back soon with some more cutting edge bleeding edge information. Wade Lightheart: Thanks so much and have yourself an awesome day.

Continuing with our focus on men's health this month, we've got Nick Perry on the show. Nick works as holistic lifestyle coach and a corrective exercise specialist. With a special interest in men's health, Nick loves to take a holistic approach. Exploring the relationship between the physical, spiritual, mental and emotional bodies and how they relate to sexual health and our expression of life in general. Today is a juicy one folks! Tune in to hear Mason and Nick journey through the multidimensional landscape of sexuality and libido. Nick and Mason discuss: Libido as a messenger, what is your body trying to tell you? Personal practice and self inquiry as pillars of health and wellness. Sexuality and sexual practice. Insecurity and cock shame. Self love, what does that term mean for each of us individually? How libido serves us beyond the bedroom.   Who is Nick Perry? Nick Perry is a Holistic Lifestyle Coach, Corrective Exercise Specialist and Remedial Massage Therapist who is passionate and driven by authentic relating and inspired living. Nick’s education in Corrective Holistic Exercise Kinesiology (CHEK) draws from personal mentoring and learning from some of the world’s leading healers and physical therapists. Known for his deep presence and down-to-earth nature, Nick’s goal when working with clients is to leave them feeling empowered and aligned in themselves - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.     Resources: Nick's Website Nick's Instagram Nick's Facebook ManKind Project Australia   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Mason Taylor: (00:00) Nick. Thanks so much for being here with me in Brovember. Nick Perry: (00:04) Thanks for having me, Brother. Mason Taylor: (00:06) I was trying to kind of tracking back and trying to figure out how, we've known each other since back in the days of the Frenches Forest Market. Nick Perry: (00:13) Frenches Forest Markets. That's what I was going to say. That was the center point for us. We were kind of like ships in the night. Nick Perry: (00:20) Our paths would cross, we'd dig each other's vibe but that- Mason Taylor: (00:24) A word wasn't passed.. Nick Perry: (00:27) Stop, that bro down never happened, did it? You know when it was, you might not remember this, but the first time that we got a moment together was at a flower, that was like a Shamanic Dance ceremony and Carmen Moratas what was running it and I got to chat with you and it was literally like weeks before you moved up and started this Odyssey of yours, coming up here. That was the time where it was like sick [crosstalk 00:00:54]. Mason Taylor: (00:54) I brought my mum. Nick Perry: (00:55) [crosstalk 00:00:55] your mum, yep. Mason Taylor: (00:56) Brought mum, and I had just gotten back from Peru where I bumped into Carmen at Machu Picchu. We had that kind of connection going on, which was amazing because it kind of made Machu Picchu for us, and she gave us the Coca leaf and taught us how to sit there in prayer specifically on that mountain, and the spots to do it and how to weave in your intention in your prayer. Until I got back and Adrian, you know Adrian, the human flower? Nick Perry: (01:21) Yeah. Mason Taylor: (01:22) As soon as you said flower I was like, all right, it's something that Adrian was at. Nick Perry: (01:25) He was definitely there. Mason Taylor: (01:27) Actually remind me, I've got some of his new Agua Florida, which is called Medicina, the flower water, just ceremonial flower water, the ones coming out of Peru often like petrochemicals. Nick Perry: (01:38) The yellow bottle. Mason Taylor: (01:39) The yellow one where we all have, you've sat in ceremony, you have that memory of just having it like spat all over you. They've got one that's just pumping, it is incredible. I'll give you some after but finally, we're actually getting a good chance to sit down and chat. Do you want us to give everyone a bit of a rundown of what you get up to with yourself? I'm sure that can be succinct if you want in general, but I'm sure it'll kind of come out in the wash in the interview. Nick Perry: (02:06) I suppose. I'll just give a little bit of background about myself for context's sake. I'm not just some dude. My name's Nick Perry. I work as a holistic lifestyle coach and a corrective exercise specialist. In the last couple years, I've been very involved in men's work specifically. The way that I like to operate is very holistically. It just absolutely makes sense to me to factor in and to explore and to incorporate things of matters of spirituality, of the emotional bodies, of the mental body and the physical form and how we live and relate in this plane of existence with one another. That's my jam and that's my deep passion, and everything that sort of offshoots from that. I'm like nutrition for example. I heard you say earlier on when we were chatting, like hormonal regulation and some of the feedback of life shows up in so many different ways. Biochemistry is just one of the myriad. I like to get around things in a very holistic sense. That's sort of how I work and what I'm interested in. Mason Taylor: (03:18) There's a couple of things you'll touch on then. I think it'd be really nice to be able to come down back to a pillar, you know there's many pillars, a pillar in this chat. If we can keep on coming back to that concept of libido and rather than widening everyone's perspective and men's relationship with what that is deepening the concept. I feel like that'd be a nice place to continue to come back to. Especially, I wouldn't mind getting into, what I think is really fascinating is that integrative, that conversational aspect of body, emotions, your intellect and your mind and then your spirit, your essential cells. I got something I'd definitely recently, I feel like I've gotten a bit more conversation between all those aspects in myself and, but just over the years, that's always been my biggest trip up, in where my deepest patterns can come over and just start ruling my life is when I have this huge inner turmoil, when fighting between these two segments of my life. Especially if one's run off. If my mind and my morality and my logic is run off and created an identity for myself. Mason Taylor: (04:25) Then I realize that I've gone too far and I don't know how to get back. That can happen with diet, that can happen with ideology, or whatever it is. You come off center, naturally for me especially when you get a little bit older, you see that's going to be one of the core things that starts bottoming out libido, right? Nick Perry: (04:44) Most definitely. That's a beautiful, I suppose entry into what we're talking about because libido is feedback, and it's nice because it's very clear. It's either we're turned on or we're not. If we became a bit more objective around that, and removed the stigmas and the definitions of, I'm horny or I'm not horny, and became more observant of our own inner libido, we can actually nurture a very healthy relationship with a low libido and see the value in that as a feedback mechanism. It's like, okay, I'm noticing that my life force has decreased, to the point that my body has in a way decommissioned my sex drive. That's a gift, that's one of the most loving things the body could do for us is to say, "Hey, pay attention. Where are you making your choices from? Why are you burning the candle so low? Whose values are you expressing?" It can be our home base, it can bring us back in. The thing that I really like about libido and sex drive is, it's a difficult one to repress or to ignore. It screams us- Mason Taylor: (06:02) That's a good point. Nick Perry: (06:03) ... to the face particularly because culturally we're so, to a degree sexually geared, and then biologically we're sexually geared obviously, which is what we are speaking to now. Instinctually we're sexually geared as well, to honor high libido but also to honor low libido is a very valuable thing to cultivate for every single individual in my opinion. Mason Taylor: (06:28) You mean the state, the fluctuating nature within ourselves or in different men in different situations? Nick Perry: (06:35) I think just as a simple barometer, as a simple feedback tool. I know, for example, I use myself as an example. I know if I'm horny, I'm well rested, you got it? If I don't have sex drive, or the desire to ravish, then that's an indicator to me that my Qi's running low. That I've kind of betrayed myself to an extent in that I've traded in my health for some other sort of gain. I've lost the awareness, and I've lost the equilibrium and that low libido is indicating that to me. It helps me refine my center, reflect on the choices that I've made over the last four weeks, for example. Then I get the opportunity then, to cultivate a more honest relationship with myself and the intention that's driving my actions. A pattern for me, subconsciously, which is sort of an expression of my wounded is overcompensating. Nick Perry: (07:39) I get to reflect and check in, fuck over the last month, has my inner child really been in the driver's seat or has it been more of my king energy. As my warrior and my lover of being present with me and my inner father figure for example. Or did I lose awareness and fall into that old way of being and the overcompensatory pattern that's mine. I see it in a lot of other people that I work with, and friends and family and whatnot. We've all got our thing, that's going to create outcomes, and it's an inauthentic way to live and be and relate. I need feedback to be able to see that. That's the wisdom of the body speaking to me. It does that in a myriad of ways. The libido is a very loud and clear one for me where, I know, I've been unaware or unconscious in my decisions and actions for some time because for it to get to a stage where my libido is dropped, it takes a bit. Mason Taylor: (08:39) Especially to overcome like biological markers as well, that would be there because you've essentially, this is really important. I know you talk about these pillars a lot, and I think we should probably get to it later in the chat. Hydration, movement, diet, breath, so on and so forth. All these things, which are so paramount, if you're rocking those, because we've both been patterned to just making sure that those things are rocking. Hydration, actually speaking of hydration, I'll pop some molecular hydrogen in your water there. Hydrogen, super antioxidant. However, that stealth anti androgenic libido smasher, I [inaudible 00:09:20] point to like, I can definitely speak for myself, those emotional patterns and those intellectual patterns you start taking on during childhood and start running wild. Mason Taylor: (09:28) Definitely got mine emotional, but even if I go to an intellectual pattern, for me that was just really thrashing lately. In the last couple of years even, was that what I've been trying to really get a handle on it and what emerges if that's in its place, is that trying to control how I'm perceived by other people at all times. Obsessively in thinking that maybe the mind is in any intellectual, get bored of this and get atrophied after a while. It's just not, I'll just keep on sucking all your energy and that what eventually happens is, we start leaking the Jing. If you don't have, you keep going with your lifestyle and keep on getting enough daily Qi to kind of keep on feeding this addiction, this way of being, or for me, I'd say it was a dysfunction when it's excessive, as you were saying as well with your emotional wounded child, but then at some point it starts leaking Jing. Mason Taylor: (10:20) If you're already walking on eggshells as well, that's going to just immediately just suck up all that libido and all those sexual juices and that, it's all right, so in that. Because that's for me, I realize I'm getting a little bit older, a little bit wiser. I've got my daily practices of breath, I'm working, we went down to the little gym area we've got here at SuperFeast, there's things to be doing, but what's the center? I don't give a shit about superficial outcomes anymore. I don't give a shit about achieving certain elements of flexibility and strength or endurance things anymore. That always led me to those inner patterns and that disharmony between my mind and my emotion that led me to that place where I would slowly be leaking Jing, and maybe I could still get it up, but it's still, I wasn't really able to embrace that fiery sexual essence of myself. Mason Taylor: (11:13) In that nature of chop wood, carry water consistency, what are you doing daily or what are your greatest takeaways from your journey so far that are allowing you to come back into harmony, daily so that you're getting to the source of what's possibly wiping out that essence to begin with? Nick Perry: (11:32) It's easier when we have rituals, and when rituals are tailored right. When we figure out what's right for us because the one I'm about to say, I'm not dogmatic about, what I'm about to share of my own rituals is what I have experimented with for a lot of years and had support in and it comes from a range of different ideologies and modalities, like TCM, man, the Taoists wanted to live forever. Mason Taylor: (12:00) Some schools. Nick Perry: (12:01) Yeah. Their practices are really enjoyed. Then it's like some of the Tantric stuff and the yogic stuff and it's about, and then my own sort of creative flow and expression. But, when I wake up in the morning, for example, what I find works for me is checking in with my thought forms. That's super important. Checking in like is fear alive in me? Am I starting the day with fear alive in me? If it's there, to not reject it but to inquire, like what am I afraid about? What am I anxious of? Where is this projection coming from? That would be my first port of call in entering into the day, making sure that I'm making it, taking actions that conducive to a high libido. That's where it begins. Next thing, it's like a little detox ritual that I like to do. Like tongue scraping, that's an Ayurvedic thing. Mason Taylor: (12:55) Hard hitting questions, copper or stainless steel? Nick Perry: (12:58) Oh, stainless steel. Mason Taylor: (13:02) I don't know which dosha that means that you have, but anyway [crosstalk 00:13:08] Nick Perry: (13:10) No, breathing and then hydration. There are those pillars. Breathing in, water and thoughts reign supreme as the top three. That's where I start. Mason Taylor: (13:19) When you're doing your, looking at your thought forms, I say this because you mentioned you were a wounded child when your inner child, which is I get to be reductionist about it is very much about feeling states. Do you tune in? Do you have a personal method for tuning in to how you're feeling, of a morning or is that something more that you find is consistently working on throughout the day? Nick Perry: (13:38) How do I access the awareness of those quieter pieces and those subconscious pieces? My way is through the body. I'll notice typically, if I have a bit of a trajectory fear, my energy goes, and it stays from my neck up and it's sort of sitting around my head. What I do is I consult all corners of my body. Just with the breath, that's how I direct my intention. I'll breath down and I'm like, Oh, I can't breathe into my solar plexus. It's so tight right now, it's gripped with fear. I'll just breathe in and start to sort of mobilise the energy and the physical symptom of that energy until it starts to sort of open and soften and let go. Then I'm like, what was that about? It's through the body that I make that inquiry. Rather than notice that my head's busy first thing in the morning, it's a new day, that I've pulled yesterday in today, you know, that's a bit weird what's going on. Nick Perry: (14:43) I can't really unravel that or redirect that from the head space, so I need to come back down into the body and kind of get the circulatory system, all that energy in motion, make sure it's moving and not hyperactive in certain areas or underactive in certain ways. Hopefully that answers your question. Mason Taylor: (15:02) It's such a broad question. It does answer it. I was just curious in your little tag. It's something I really noticed my own, if I'm going to trip up, it's because I'm not taking, at least if I don't have that practice present and I don't have that dedicated time, I'm very good at constantly, throughout the day, tuning in and checking out what's going on. But if life's too busy, that doesn't work, creating that spaciousness and they come in every tradition, whether it's Taoist or Yogic or Shamanic or indigenous anywhere and everywhere, including psycho spiritual, they're always having a spaciousness to do the same thing every day where, and my acupuncturist is just kind of like really getting in and tuning at the moment in terms of that, you want to know what chop wood and carry water is? Mason Taylor: (15:48) Imagine you're fucking chopping wood for the rest of your life. It's not going to always be super insightful. You are literally getting an insight. The whole nature of enlightenment is letting go of that insight and going back to the mundane of chopping that wood. It's not that exciting anymore. That concept is the same as when you tune in every morning, what's going on with your emotions and feeling in or however it is through your body. You said, then, when you like doing your release of your diaphragm, that feel and then you heard that, what's going on there? That might just seem like a rhetorical question, but I think what I can feel is that, that wasn't a rhetorical question. That's like an actual, alright, come on what's going on in here? What am I feeling? Mason Taylor: (16:26) That's always my little, if I trip up, it's if I don't have that time where I go, I think you're saying, that's what I like, I do wake up in the mind, all right, what's going on and where are these thought falls coming from? What do I need to do to bring freedom to that space? Then how am I feeling? How am I feeling? Then how's my body feeling? That's something I've been... you bringing this up, there's four aspects of self, and I'm turning up to my practice for me at the moment, and just really stopping and seeing and feeling what the body needs when it gets to that back clear point. Mason Taylor: (16:58) That has been the most incredible thing for the depths of my libido in that, allowing the emotions to be felt, allowing my intellect to actually be acknowledged. Then what's coming through, is that melting pot in that refinery of then the spirit coming through. But I just wanted to hit that, because next, then just get your little tidbits on that. That's rad. Mason Taylor: (17:20) Then we're going on to the fact that we're talking libido. We've opened up talking about this. A lot of people know Juliet Allen, your partner, your lover, because she's been on the podcast previously and three half years ago, four years ago, she was on my podcast and the SuperFeast once was the most listened to podcasts, it was a great podcast. Just talking about all the things, talking about hand jobs, talking about- Nick Perry: (17:43) All the cool things. Mason Taylor: (17:44) ... talking about all the cool things, talking about sexual cultivation. Everyone loved it. But now we've chatted about these concepts of having these parts in ourselves that can be fractured, coming together and unifying and being tended to. Basically what I wanted to talk about now that we've talked about that, for everyone to know it, but that's the first place we've started in talking about libido. Mason Taylor: (18:06) Now, let's start talking about the fact that there's some guys listening. They'll be like, whoa, your longterm partner is a sexologist, one of Australia's most respected sexologists, and she's very avert and like Juliet, anyone who has listened to her. Now you're dating a sexologist. We're talking about libido. Where does the conversation go now? You mentioned before one of the things that, it pops up in our minds, what was it like in the fucking beginning, man? Were you thinking, shit! Were you trying to pull out techniques? Were you going back and reading the book, She Comes First? Was it just like, you just have to just throw it out and just assume that she'd be conscious enough to not judge you or did you have a process to actually get into a place of self love where you didn't feel any of those fears or anything? Mason Taylor: (18:54) Because I think what we're all talking to here or we're projecting that onto you, which I think I would probably, I can get the part of myself that would be thinking about that. We start touching on what you were speaking about earlier, is those unspoken social taboos or concepts or pressures that we have on ourselves and our own cocks and our own sexual performance there. That's what I assume where these questions towards you would be arising from, and maybe just a little bit of curiosity as well. If you wouldn't mind, let's open up that can of worms. Nick Perry: (19:23) It's a cool one. I want to make it as transparent and honest as possible. Just for the sake of that. How did I feel when we first... reflecting, I wasn't overthinking it at the time. For me, in the early stages of hooking up before it was an established relationship. Actually you know what, there was definitely a part of me that was thinking bring your A game. Mason Taylor: (19:55) It's just as simple as that boys. Nick Perry: (20:00) Definitely. Actually that's cool because I've kind of, where our relationship's evolved to now is just very expansive and it's more, I suppose there's a lot of other pieces in there, but early stages, how was it? All right. Ah, I haven't divulged this before, but I will because it's true, right? I came across Juliet, I'd heard of her work and I had just recently started getting quite involved with tantra and tantric practices. Anyway, I came across her Instagram and slid into the DMs. That's where it starts, I was like, "Oh wow-" Mason Taylor: (20:41) Is that, you guys tuned in on Instagram? Nick Perry: (20:42) ... I was like, wow, this is a really interesting woman. Mason Taylor: (20:46) That's how Tahnee and I met, on Instagram as well. Nick Perry: (20:49) For sure, it's like this is the age that we live in. It's possible to connect and initiate consciously through the social media platform for sure. That's what happened. I was like, there was a part of me that was almost, like there was a cheeky part of me that was like, "come on, have a crack." It was in our stories, and there was a Brian Jonestown Massacre song that I really like, and I was like cool, there's a relation point there, connection. Then anyways, so that's where the conversation started and then it fade away and for certain reasons and disappeared. But it was all cool. Then the universe sort of brought us back together and it came back up and then the day came when we had our first date and that was lovely. Then there was the second date where it was a bit like, okay, we've got that out of the way, now our true nature can come forward even more. Nick Perry: (21:48) She's very sexually geared, I'm very sexually geared. So there was the chemistry that took care of itself. But then there was the part of me that had this desire to perform. I think that's what you're asking, or where we're directing this is like, how conscious is that expectation that a man or a woman has on themselves to, "perform". What does perform mean? Because performance is defined by a plethora of assumptions. Those assumptions are established through how sex is portrayed to us from the moment that we're born, as this sort of really private taboo thing when we're kids, then we start to figure it out for ourselves as teenagers. It's a little bit more like raw and unconscious and- Mason Taylor: (22:47) ... Who knows what kind of patterns and stories we'd got if our parents weren't overtly loving each other, or if we saw them hiding it all. Seemingly just like, they watch porn or if we just walked in on them having sex and didn't have any context for it or anything like that. Who knows what pops up. Then as you're saying, you add in the societal elements to it because we're so prone to societal ideology and programming when we're young and gooey. What's the cocktail that comes out there? Nick Perry: (23:14) ... Exactly. It's like what's the cocktail and a cocktail is more potent and- Mason Taylor: (23:20) Hi, sorry, I had to say this, is it called a flaccarita? All right. Nick Perry: (23:26) Flaccarita? Mason Taylor: (23:27) You settle down, everybody. Come on, get serious. Nick Perry: (23:29) 10 deep breaths. It's about the unconscious way of relating and a sure way to down regulate polarity and chemistry in the sexual connection. Mason Taylor: (23:51) Can you say more about down regulating that polarity? Nick Perry: (23:54) Yeah. Think of attraction in terms of a positive charge and a negative charge. So you look at a car battery or any sort of electrical current, there needs to be a very much negatively charged pole and positively charged pole. That's how that arc happens. That's how that spark ignites. Mason Taylor: (24:17) You're talking about generally like the polarity between a man and a woman especially? Nick Perry: (24:20) Yes. We think of like negative, which is the drawing part of the current, pulling in as the feminine and the out, like the doing and the taking and the ravishing polarity as the positive, the masculine. What you will notice with, that awareness is like the most cosmic sex happens when there is a strong polarity in the room. When there's a strong polarity between two people. The point that I was getting at is what down regulates that magical cosmic charge is when we get stuck in our head. The times that we get stuck in our head, the worst is when the inner critic really comes through and really comes forward. Nick Perry: (25:19) To bring that back to the context of what you and I were just talking around, like society's definition of a good lover and the social pressure of, how long did you fuck for? How many times did she come? Say these things, these performance markers- Mason Taylor: (25:39) Are we able to go straight away afterwards again. Nick Perry: (25:42) ... Yeah, all that stuff. There is a space for that, but where's the conversation in the mainstream around the sex without penetration. Sex doesn't just include friction and penetration. There is ways to connect energetically that, like an example I'll give is for somebody who's really not following. It's like, have you ever sat in front of your lover naked, cross-legged and eye gazed for five minutes? Noticed how your breath synchronizes and notice how you feel. Either your cock or your pussy starts to tingle and you start to feel that sex center really awaken and really awaken and that charge gets really strong. If you can hold the breath, keep it cycling and circulating, typically you'll notice that charge goes all the way up and you start to really feel it in your chest, in your heart center. That starts to tingle, and that starts to open. Suddenly it's like you get to a stage where you feel that you are, you have penetrated the person sitting in front of you without the physical penetration per se having occurred. Nick Perry: (27:13) To bring it back to what we're speaking to, it's like the piece that I'm reflecting on for myself was how much of these tantric tools had I learned and how capable was I of applying that? My first, Juliet and mine first hookup, and how much of the old way of being stuck in my head and being goal-orientated and being more concerned about having the reputation of a mack, than actually having a deep intimate connection. Where was I? Where did I land in that? Somewhere in the middle, I reckon. Mason Taylor: (27:53) Did you feel like, because I can kind of like from personal experience, I don't know whether this is the case, especially in the beginning when the oxytocin is cranking as well, I feel sometimes the most virtuous aspects of ourselves can very naturally emerge. I feel after that honeymoon period for me burst and all those insecurities come crashing forth. That's, just to make sure that I'm not just talking about that initial stage for anyone listening as well or even for yourself. I just wanted to kind of put that out there as well, just in case that was something worth speaking to. Nick Perry: (28:32) That's arguably far more important to speak to, because everybody at least knows conceptually, or a lot of people have experienced the honeymoon stage. That is the newness of a relationship where that polarity takes care of itself, for the most part. There is so much charge and so much of that you'd like you say, oxytocin running through the bloodstream and then we become familiar with one another and we stop looking at each other through new eyes each day. That's where the demise begins I think. We create... the mystery and the wonder of the person starts to fade and we start to form an idea of them. If we're not conscious, most of those ideas are just projections of ourselves. Mason Taylor: (29:40) Or our parents. Nick Perry: (29:41) Yeah. Parts of us that, of our parents. Then we stop seeing them through new eyes and that aliveness and that magic and that wonder of the honeymoon stage fades. We typically fall into our old way of being again. Then, we've got this mirror in our life now, that if we don't take responsibility for ourselves, we start blaming them for the things in us that are unresolved or where we're feeling miserable or blind. What happens is, it's like we start to go into a familiar way of being, and it's like the thought and the emotion that equates to our state of being. That's thought forms, unconscious and conscious and the chemistry, the hormones that those thought forms signal. Then we've got this like cellular neurochemical identity and we've arrived back there. If we weren't fully in love with ourselves before the relationship, the relationship isn't going right to fill that hole, basically. If we're not cultivating connection and relationship where there is awareness and ownership of that, and structure where we can support each other in seeing that and resolving it for ourselves, then that's when toxicity forms. Mason Taylor: (31:20) What about... because self love is, I feel like almost a term, for me became quite cliche from the Instagram world. But I always, endeavour to not let my judgmental mind, just [inaudible 00:31:37] like sit there and go and go into the depths of what we're actually talking about about self love. I definitely, I feel like that's, I'm kind of getting the gravity of that lately. The extent and just how uncomfortable... I thought I was, maybe I'm happy to say I love you to my dad, but there's quite often something a little bit uncomfortable there. But the gravity of how uncomfortable I was really feeling in love with myself and not needing to be overtly... I've gone, had experiences just like trying to.. Trying to deepen my own sexual relationship with myself. Mason Taylor: (32:16) Again it was a little bit... that's something that may emerge from my self love. That's okay. But I was inherently, I guess that inherent shame of feeling how sexually, how much of a sexual man I am, which we all are [inaudible 00:32:31]. I shouldn't generalise like that, but a lot of us are and just feeling like what do I do with that? I'm so used to sending that out or that for game or using that to please someone else. What do I do with that much love, including what I now kind of feel is that sexual Yang energy. Mason Taylor: (32:49) What do I do with that..? What does that self-love look like? I think it looks very simple externally, but just anything to talk to in that process of you coming back to loving yourself, therefore not projecting onto your partner? Nick Perry: (33:06) Yeah. I'll put a scale to it I suppose. Because like you said, it gets thrown around Instagram a lot and it's like, oh, if you've got problems, just love yourself. It's like that's not helping. Mason Taylor: (33:23) Just have a self care Sunday. Nick Perry: (33:26) Totally. Mason Taylor: (33:27) Don't forget the bath. Nick Perry: (33:29) Oh, and the bath bomb and little glass of bubbly 80, 20 [crosstalk 00:33:33]. Mason Taylor: (33:33) You really love yourself. Nick Perry: (33:43) That's what we here to do. Loving yourself is your life's work and it's important to make that your center. Like that's your center. That's where you return to. I'll give an example, so this makes a bit more sense. There's lots of people championing and promoting and holding in high esteem, philanthropist work, being in service to others. So that's, when it's done unconsciously, is one, codependent, which is unhealthy. Two, the philanthropist work becomes the source of distraction for coming home to the authentic self, back to the heart temple. I want, because you mentioned the Instagram thing, I just wanted to drop that as well because self love is a very personal journey. Nick Perry: (34:49) We can review spiritual philosophy and we can get coaching and we can accumulate different tools through our toolkit. But the integration, the application and the exploration of the path of self love doesn't stop ever. If you get there in this lifetime, then you'll essentially ascend. Self love- Mason Taylor: (35:17) [inaudible 00:35:17] Don't worry guys, you'll get there and it's good, me and Nick liked it. Nick Perry: (35:19) That was super fun. It was cool hanging out with the Buddha. He's a cack... Mason Taylor: (35:24) He's all right. Nick Perry: (35:28) Oh hell no. Look, take it from me, anyone listening. I don't love myself, but I am on the journey. That journey requires acceptance of where I am. You can't take a step towards self love, without first accepting exactly where you are exactly as you are. Mason Taylor: (35:53) That extends to exactly how your body is. I think I've heard you talk, actually I've heard you talk to Juliet on your podcast about this. That felt familiar, accepting where your body is at, before you're taking a step into the gym or into your own personal practice. Accepting what your cock and your libido and your body, doesn't necessarily mean justification. Doesn't mean sitting there and just gorging on what, I accept this is how I am and that's it. I'm just going to sit here. [crosstalk 00:36:30]. Nick Perry: (36:29) It's not apathy. Mason Taylor: (36:29) No it's not apathy. But that's probably one of the most... that for me, or just you saying that, that brings up that wall of, "Oh, that's uncomfortable." Damn and what if you go beyond the superficial and you go to that part of yourself that in all reality, doesn't change, it's been constant through all the fluctuations of your body and your libido, through the last few decades. For most people that had been listening, and so, but by logic sake, there is something which transcends all of it. Because it's still in you, you have to have it in that relationship with yourself and that coming home to, even that consideration of who am I. What is love? What is that love and how does it, how do I relate to it within myself? And feeling that non pressured, what's it going to be like when I'm 80? Maybe this is... maybe when I'm 90 maybe this is a nice intention, speaking for myself now, it's a really nice way to go into my personal practice and my movement, or even my diet exploration and definitely my sex life. Even my relationship with my daughter. Mason Taylor: (37:37) Where am I coming from, from that place where, it may be when I'm looking at those things and when I'm 80 years old and feeling into those things that I have settled into, more of a loving place, whatever that happens to be, that's nice, slow and steady to engage, right? That's massive. You're saying it wasn't just sexual techniques when you first got together? Nick Perry: (38:06) But I'm saying it was too. Mason Taylor: (38:08) I was going to say, what's the 80-20 rule come back and apply again? Just as a general. 80% self love. Nick Perry: (38:17) For sure that's the acceptance piece, right? Acceptance of our shadows, because projection of our shadows, of our savage, of our tyrants, of our... just gives them more reign, more space to be calling the shots. I think sex is a vehicle for spiritual exploration, big time. Because there's those parts, sex, with all the stigma and the shame that just comes with the territory in our society and culture. It's kind of a private place to start to work on parts of the self that we wouldn't dare expose to anyone. Whenever I'm working with someone, and they're not sure where to start, the thing that I sometimes cue them with is, "What's the one thing you don't want me to know about you? What's the thing that you would be mortified to expose?" Nick Perry: (39:31) Take that idea and take it into the bedroom and do it consciously and hold space for your partner to do the same. Then there's this exploration, and there's this healing going on, but there's also an integration, because how we show up in the bedroom is how we show up to life. Mason Taylor: (39:50) Can I also say, because you're talking about communication there. Have you got an example? Even just made up, of something that you wouldn't want known and the kind of process of communicating that, or how you would hold space or request space to be held? Nick Perry: (40:09) Yeah. Well in the context of sex? Mason Taylor: (40:16) Yeah, let's look at that. Nick Perry: (40:21) Probably the obvious one to go to here is kink. Just as an example of where might somebody be suppressing themselves. That means where are they denying their truth, that this is what turns them on. Because maybe they'll be rejected. There'll be suppression of that and that suppression festers and turns into resentment to the other person, because they're not stepping out of the comfort zone and initiating a conversation around, "Hey, this would turn me on. How does that land on you and would you be into exploring this role play with me?" Nick Perry: (41:06) It's like, I want to choke you or we want to choke each other, for example. Somebody might be like terrified to expose that. How do you initiate the conversation? By first of all, know that it's not a good idea to just dive into it. To sort of stare yourself in the eyes in the mirror and just run out and say, choke me, whatever it is. A sentence that works for me is, when is a good time to talk to you about something that's important to me? It's not bad, because it's really respectful of the person. Mason Taylor: (41:52) Sorry about my weird. But I'm like, "damn, that's good." Nick Perry: (42:04) It gives time for that person to center themselves and to assume that the polarity of the space holder. They're not going to be in a reactive place and they know that you are going to go to more of a vulnerable space. That can be very, if you're the space holder, it can be like a ... I'll give you an example because, typically the feminine has a freer flow of emotion. It's actually, an access emotion and express emotion, and that's a generalization- Mason Taylor: (42:47) But I think that's a fair one. Nick Perry: (42:48) ... it's a fair one. We see evidence of that easily. Mason Taylor: (42:53) Just physiologically, governed by Blood and Yin versus men being governed by Qi and Yang. Nick Perry: (43:00) Right on. Imagine if you lived in that state. For a man to just cross the bridge and be like, how would that be? How would that be? It's actually a gift for a man to ask a woman to hold space for him to go into that emotional place in that feminine flow. Because then she gets a break. She gets to pause from being in that place and she gets to be, sort of occupied the voidal space in herself while she's holding space for you to go into that vulnerability or whatever's coming out that emotional charge to move that. Nick Perry: (43:47) Back to, how do you initiate a conversation like that? That sentence is a great one. To bring in, if you're not sure where to go, allow a playfulness to be present in the conversation and you can do that by just going, "Oh, I'm really nervous here. I want to talk about some things that turn me on that I haven't shared with you yet. I just love to just expose that to you and see if you'd be open to exploring that with me." Mason Taylor: (44:24) Dude so good. Couple of things popping up, first of all, the times when I've been there wanting to say that, it'd be nice to have that wording and as well as just, it's very obvious, but it's something that you forget when you're in your mind. Also, sometimes I feel like I've almost felt the pressure because one of my assumptions are, you need to know what you want as a man. Sometimes I just don't know what I want. In that instance of, say, if I was going to say in the instance of choking, I wouldn't be like, I don't know if that's what I want, but perhaps I'd like to explore. I feel like that, I would have liked to have known that ability to communicate. I'd like to explore this, without feeling that pressure that, this was my projection, that I'm going to get judged as someone who wants this when in fact I wouldn't mind if I knew that I wanted it, but maybe I don't want it. Mason Taylor: (45:19) I want to explore it and see where it goes. I feel like that's a huge piece just opening up that space to be able to share. Would be able to communicate. Would you also think that that's a similar thing if there's, if you have insecurities about size, performance, not being able to get it up, sometimes coming too fast and quite often when there are not even issues, they're just thing, I know I've had my things that have hung on despite the fact that the evidence been to the contrary, that I still to maintain as absolute truths, whether it's just through chatting with boys and then making assumptions. Or porn, when you're in your early teen years or whatever it is and it just sticks. Mason Taylor: (46:02) Was it working that same way? Do you find that approach of I wanted like something too important to talk to. When can we have a chat about something important? I just like to communicate this insecurity that's there. Nick Perry: (46:14) Oh my God, yes. That is such an amazingly expansive conversation to have. Such a gift that you could offer whoever you're sharing that with, the safety that that creates for that person to then divulge something that they've been holding on to, is then formed. You've just created a container in pushing yourself to expose that shame piece for you. The healing alchemy of that, in sharing that is, I'll give an example. Cock shame, lots of women, from the women I've discussed this with, aren't aware of how afflicted men are with cock shame. What I also want to add to that is, the shame that a man holds around his cock will directly impact his self esteem in every other aspect of his life. Nick Perry: (47:28) Men are holding back and they're not realizing that if you followed it in like what's the blockage? What's the limitation for so many males? Part of that is this perception they have of their cock and that their cock isn't good enough. That their cock isn't unworthy and that the cock is an appendage of the man. It's actually just, it carries into the rest of the being. The most amazing thing, and any brothers listening to this, just open your mind to exploring. If you maybe have some cock shame, is to go there and to speak to it. There doesn't need to be any fixing, or resolution that comes from it, but bring it out of the shadow and just name it. That is such an empowering fucking action to take. Mason Taylor: (48:34) You are saying, without that expectation or agenda on it being like resolved then as well. I think that's where my mind has put too much pressure on the sharing and wanting a resolution in that moment. That's where I've lost that motivation on continuously to just keep on bringing you into the light, sharing in appropriate ways. For bro's who are out in a relationship at the moment, you've got ways that they can go through that process for themselves? Nick Perry: (49:02) Yes. Ok there's a couple of things that just sprang to mind. Become responsible for who you surround yourself with. If you were around men who can't go there, then put yourself around different men who are willing to have that conversation, who are mature enough to hold space for that, who might be willing to lean into that for themselves and expose that, and have a very beautiful intimate healing relationship, friendship conversation around that. How can you do that? I'm part of a non for profit organization called ManKind Project, MKP. Without going too deeply into that right now, that is a, they hold men circles. It's global. It's all around, it's all around Australia. It's all around the world. It's online, they're called igroups, the men circles that they hold, there's online igroups. Nick Perry: (50:15) Literally, you can seek out the right environment and the right people and put yourself there, and push yourself to have the conversation. That is how you're going to step more into self love. Like we were saying, that's the trajectory of self love. That's the inconvenience of self love. It's not convenient to love yourself, because you got to drop, start dropping these defense mechanisms that have served you. They got you to where you're at, you're still alive. Mason Taylor: (50:46) It's not convenient based on the way that society is set up in the way we've kind of got that story about selves. How the propaganda machine is driven, the way that life needs to look for us. It's kind of completely go against grain of that and going with the grain of our spirit and our emotions and our integration, which is ultimately been like, life being more fun, and rad, and sexually potent more laughter and good parties and being able to fill your cup in terms of, we know your practice actually widening your cups so you can get out there and contribute to other people having a rad time in life. Mason Taylor: (51:22) I mean it would probably end with that, with men's circles, I think what some people, I see a lot of men, a lot of men around this area as well as, it's just like, I need to completely eject myself from all social circles that don't foster these kinds of conversation. Which I know you're not talking to but...Sometimes I feel like we take [crosstalk 00:51:39]. Nick Perry: (51:43) That's shadowy as fuck again. It's like going into, so thank you so much for bringing that up. Because what I'm saying is, if those relationships and environments aren't in your life, then choose to have them in your life and put yourself in them. That doesn't mean to scave and abandon and judge and condemn other men and brothers who might'n be making these inquiries just yet. We all have different degrees of readiness. There isn't a right or a wrong by any fucking means. There's no step in anybody's journey that isn't sacred or divine. It's like, the whole process is divine. Recognise the divinity in every person no matter where they're at. Mason Taylor: (52:40) That's like, that's ideology one-o-one. Going like, I'm ready to go down this route. Then, by all intents and purposes, you can look at a guy who's, maybe not doing that, but he's decided to take it upon himself to I don't know learn like carpentry or, go down the routes of like, mechanics or something like that and feeling that's something that he's exploring in himself right now. Then judge the shit out of you, because you're not actually taking the responsibility for your own car or house or whatever. It's all ideology. That's good. That's good stuff, it's spicy. Nick Perry: (53:17) Nice. There's just one little thing as well I want to say. Because recently, I had a trippy experience with this. Talking about the cock thing, the cock conversation. "I'm going to say it out loud and be seen and witnessed in speaking to the cock shame is a very healing way to transmute that shame. The other thing is, start to befriend your cock again. What I realised was my cock was a commodity to me. It was a commodity to me, and it was a burden. It was either a commodity or a burden. It's like I lost the shame. It messed up. Mason Taylor: (54:09) [inaudible 00:54:09]. Nick Perry: (54:10) Having a really positive relationship with your cock, how I... I had this experience a few months ago and I'd just done a sweat lodge and I was tripping and I came out and I was staring at the flyer and I was real head spinney and I sort of slumped over. I was slowly sorta like rolling up my spine, back to a standing position, I kind of went eye to eye, with my own cock. It was the first time I'd seen it, in a very long time where I was like, saw it beyond the flesh and artery that it is. I was like, Whoa and I really connected to what it does. It's like this part of me brings a lot of pleasure into my life. This part of me has the potential to create a human being to be a part of that birthing alchemy. Nick Perry: (55:23) This is my creative center. This is the sacral chakra essentially. All my ideas that have come into fruition were birthed from this energy center and then that rose up through me and came out and became an ecosystem, in reality. I kind of appreciated my cock consciously for the first time in a really long time instead of being just judgmental about it and non appreciative. One thing that is nice to start practicing is, it's a cock gazing. It's like, look at your cock, look at it, look at it in the mirror, stand up and look at it as yours, as a part of you. It's with you on this journey of life. Get it on site again. It's your friend, it's your mate. That's a personal practice that you can do on your own, that can have... just really develop awareness and actually it can develop awareness. Nick Perry: (56:47) It can expose how close your heart is to your own cock, or it can help you, which then becomes your priority, becomes your work or it can reconnect you to that, "Oh yeah. I fucking love, I love this fucking thing." Mason Taylor: (57:04) The cock can be the key to your heart. Nick Perry: (57:07) Totally. Mason Taylor: (57:10) It's true. Mason Taylor: (57:11) You can see exactly what that looks like. Nick Perry: (57:20) The circumference of my cock. I guess, we're laughing, but there's a degree of seriousness in there. Mason Taylor: (57:39) I think the laughing is a nice aspect to accompany the seriousness, because quite often another kind of thing that's unspoken, which is I just constantly observed myself as I have these peak experiences. Like you had a peak experience there coming out of ceremony and having that bang, whoa. Then not having, for a lot of men, like I said, I felt like this in the beginning, not realizing that it doesn't need to be at that peak experience state all the time. That it's just then it's like, ah, appreciation and that subtleness of that it's again the chop wood, carry water. You had your big pop moment and then you don't let it go, and just let that appreciation just seep in in very practical ways. Mason Taylor: (58:22) Even though it's possibly one of the most sacred relationships and there is an energetic reality to your Yang energy and your Jing energy and your energy of your cock and your libido emerging up and lighting up your heart so that your spirit can emerge. It's also very funny. Cocks and sex are very funny as well. You need to live your life. It's not all just some big hand on heart ceremony where you can go, then you go out of one societal taboo into a spiritual scene, sacred taboo, where you're not allowed to ever take the piss out of these things and actually live your life in accordance to who you are. There's someone in a way that's sustainable. Nick Perry: (59:05) Totally. I think it was Alan Watts that one of his quotes is, it's all just a cosmic joke. Mason Taylor: (59:13) Yeah fucking oath it is. Nick Perry: (59:15) It's an explosion of novelty and we're just picking up the parts of ourselves in this fucking, whatever this simulation that we're in, is [inaudible 00:59:30]. If you can't laugh, then you're totally missing the point. If you can't laugh at all of it, even the tragedy and the terror, then you're missing the point. Hell yes, such a great one to speak to. Mason Taylor: (59:44) Absolutely. With the tragedy, I mean, tragedy is tragedy. There's romance to tragedy at the same time. Likewise, there's tragedy of romance. But we don't have to trip out too much on that. But I think, because [crosstalk 01:00:01]. To bring us home, I just wanted to tune into something that I've heard you speak about, which is, if you want, I think quite often a gap I felt a lot of men would feel is we're able to just turn it on. We've got that Yang, we can just turn on and go, "Oh shit, didn't even realise I was horny." Perhaps it's a biologically driven horniness, perhaps not. Mason Taylor: (01:00:27) But the nature of, when you're in partnership and you are turned on by your life, then it makes it possible for you to be in that sexual dance, either with yourself or with your partner in at all times, every morning. Perhaps during the day, perhaps with texts, perhaps while making dinner, there is a continuation of your essence coming forth. It's not just you trying to be in foreplay at all times or trying to be sexy. It's an emergence an innate emergence because you are in fact turned on by your life. Mason Taylor: (01:01:08) I thought that when you were talking about that, I was just like, ah, yeah man. The concept of being turned on by the way you're managing your money, your job, your work, your contribution, your movement, whatever it is, is such a huge concept to all of this. I thought it'd be a nice way to take out talking about libido. Nick Perry: (01:01:33) Hell yeah, man. It's the feedback. It's kind of, we're coming around full circle. We're talking, we started with saying, libido is a very quick way to check in on where you're at spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally. When libido is down, that's a signal and you need to find what's out of step, what's out of balance. You'll get feedback when you are in making affirmative choices for your own authentic, for your uniqueness, for your own self. Because you will, you have sexual charge running through your body all the time. You'll feel turned on by the mundane. What would be seemingly mundane. It's like," Hmm, I'm going to ride my bike down and check the surf". It's just this enthusiasm and juiciness in that. You're exuding a high frequency basically. Nick Perry: (01:02:40) To make sense of that, and I don't think that we've touched on this overtly, but your sexual energy is your creative energy. If you are creating your day, if you have a blueprint for your life that you chose and that is construct of your own core values, that's exciting. That's sexy, because you're building your own kingdom and it's an extension of you. It's an expression of you. It's like, my creative energy is running and where I invest, it returns back to me, because it is an expression of what I value. It's this cyclic charge, like the microcosmic, orbital breathing. It's coming up the spine and down and back up. But it's like a closed chain cycle. Nick Perry: (01:03:40) That's why a high libido doesn't just indicate that you're horny and you want to fuck. It also can be a indicator that, I'm being true to me and the things that I'm investing my life force in and every minute of my life I don't get back. I'm exchanging my life for something that I value in return rather than working a job that you fucking hate. You're exchanging your life, like you're getting paid essentially because you're giving them your life. You gave up that company or whatever, eight hours of your life that you won't get back. Sure, you're getting paid for the labor or the skill. But to me, what's a more helpful context to review that from? Are you aware that you are investing your life into that person's project? Ok cool we've got that. Now, checking a little teapot. Nick Perry: (01:04:47) Do your values align with that person? Does that person's mission inspire you? No. Okay. Do you feel miserable rocking up to that place every day? Yes. Does the frequency not align with your frequency? Yes or no fucking shit. Is your sex drive dropping? Yeah for sure. Mason Taylor: (01:05:08) Even in that situation like again, taking those little steps, just trying to bring as much of your values and not being smothered by the external values of the workplace even, right? Giving it a good honest try and seeing if you can drive, bring your goodness and your love and lustre for life. Especially if it's a situation you don't feel it's actually that easy to get out of. Give it a real good, honest try. But I think you're right. If it's just all hell no's everywhere you look, it might be a stealthy kind of antiandrogen, but it's going to be an antiandrogen 100%. Then when then what are we looking at? We're looking at lowered bone density, lower muscle mass, lower mental acuity, and then just lower ability to actually connect with ourselves and lovers to be able to actually sit down and look your partner in the eye and not get skiddish, should your patterns to come up, to be able to even just do that for like a few seconds. Mason Taylor: (01:06:08) That all starts washing out in that excessive sacrifice essentially, just going with the flows of marketing and the corporate world, or just that traditional business model, which is just pure flat out and more, more, more. Nick Perry: (01:06:28) Consume, consume, consume. But for what? It's like, are you making love with the world? If you're not, know that, see that, and then give yourself three to five years to change that. Because, pretty much my point is, you're not getting, energy is not returning back to you day to day. For yourself, you're building an unbelievable kingdom and your company is a creation of your values and your passions. You rock up and you're surrounded by inspiration and you fucking embody life.That's probably the best description I could really choose for you right now. Is you are, you have a surplus of life force. You glow and that's- Mason Taylor: (01:07:43) Shucks... Nick Perry: (01:07:45) That's unbelievably inspiring. That's a self fulfilling prophecy of yours for whatever reason. But it is a product of the choices you made. The choices you made, lucky for you, whether it was conscious or unconscious, had this determination to incorporate your core values and your passion and stuff like that. You wear it. I see it. You have two podcasts, your ecosystem is enormous. Then you've got these other beings involved in that. These beings are beautiful people who I got to meet today, and they've got a lot of life exuding out of them and they've got a beautiful high frequency. They're on board with that. That's an indicator that, your sexual energy is running and flowing and you are giving birth, you've given birth to a human being. Nick Perry: (01:08:43) You haven't given birth yourself, but by, you know, your seed. You've given birth to this company. I'm sure there's other projects, you've got that little gym downstairs and it's like you've given birth to all these ideas. Those ideas have been projected out of the space in between your ears and into the world. Your sexual energy has given birth to that. That's how libido serves us beyond the bedroom. It doesn't need to be confined to sex, penetration, friction. Mason Taylor: (01:09:20) It's interesting, you just talking about the [inaudible 01:09:22], In that space because that, that connection is highly fit, has been known in theoretical and then that sexual energy is creative energy. Even just then acknowledging, there are creations here at SuperFeast on educating on the podcast and these things were, I can feel that creative essence and I can feel that satisfaction and joy there. Then tracking it back, to it's source, that's all just now, I've been a really nice practice for me to get in touch with the source of that creative essence and that sexual energy within myself. Also I appreciate the giving yourself three to five years saying that to the guys out there. This has been, there is a lot happening now, in SuperFeast which is happening exceptionally fast, because of how strong the foundations are and how many people are with the gym downstairs that comes together very quickly. Because I'm especially collaborating with Wazza who you've met. Mason Taylor: (01:10:23) We both had a creative outlet there. But then also going back and just seeing how all the hours of schlepping it, and accepting that meek, and that mundane and then over the years, possibly having appreciated as much as possibly can. You mentioned riding down, the checking the surf and just inquiring in those moments of how can those moments be infused with my essence and myself because it is always going for me. It's always a reflection that, I do have an external agenda right now that isn't representing my true inner intent. But that's just always biofeedback and experience and that, I think guys carry a lot of pressure. I'm going to do this. In one year's time, it hasn't all completely transformed on its head in but this is a practical thing, but it's worth speaking to that part of us that forgets this or maybe some boys listen to this and men listen to this. Kind of early on and I'm going to have that intense pressure on their self. Just nice and slow and steady consistency and it's your shit anyway. It's your journey anyway. It's your creativity anyway. You can't go wrong. Nick Perry: (01:11:40) You can't go wrong. Mason Taylor: (01:11:42) It's going to be shit at times when you take responsibility and you stop trying to flee certain things that you just know that you should be sorting out in your life. It might be boring at times and mundane, but if you've really set your vision in that direction that it's purely you, you will infuse those areas with life. You'll fuck them. What does fucking- Nick Perry: (01:12:08) Yeah baby that's right. Mason Taylor: (01:12:08) ... when you look at the world, you just said that. What comes to mind is what happens when you make love and you fuck in the way that it's purely you. You are connecting deeply. You're having an intensely pleasurable experience. You're learning about yourself, if it's self-pleasure, that's sex specially with your lover, they're learning about themselves and opening up, how are you fucking the world in that kind of context? I think, I don't know whether I heard you say that or maybe Juliet talking about fucking the world as well, but that's kind of really materializing that idea or that concept and the reality of that's what's going on. If our creative and therefore manifesting expression is emerging from our sexual energy, then get really conscious about how you're fucking yourself, your lovers and the world. Nick Perry: (01:13:00) Thank you man. That's such a beautiful elaboration and it just, it reminds me that there's breakup sex, there's wild sex. There's slow and intimate sex. There's kinky sex. In the bedroom, there's all these different ways to connect and relate. To keep that in mind that there isn't necessarily a right way to make love , in, like you said, in the creative process, in bringing your dream, materializing your dreams into reality, there are those really grindy days and that's just another way to fuck if you stay conscious. Then there's those really expensive elating days where it all comes together and that's another way to fuck. But yeah, if you stay connected to yourself, and stay accountable to your values and the blueprint that you've taken time to construct around, like what do I want my reality to look like and how is that going to make the world a better place and better the experience in this world for my loved ones? Yeah, go forth and fuck. Mason Taylor: (01:14:18) Yeah, I love it. On that, where can any men or women wanting to reach out, you're a holistic health coach. You work with people on many areas whether diet, functional movement, hydration, and then they're all leading back in entwining into this kind work and coming back to our genuine selves. Bringing together our emotional child, our intellect, body, spirit, anyone wanting to work with you. In that, I mean work with you one on one, but you also have a few offerings on your website, I believe. Where can they find you? Nick Perry: (01:14:57) One on one coaching or sometimes courses or workshops and stuff come through. Best place is either the gram, so that's Rhythm Health, R-H-Y-T-H-M Health or my website, which is rhythmhealth.com. That would be the best way. Hit me up with an email. DM me on Instagram, as you heard earlier sometimes you

Do you ever feel like you can't follow-through you on your commitments? That you tend to flake out? That the only way you can get shit done is if you have someone there to hold you accountable? I get it. I used to feel like that too! In fact, that was the whole reason that I got my start in coaching because I was a fitness accountability coach. Showing up for my clients kept me committed and accountable to showing up for myself. And don't get me wrong, I think there' s a time and place for getting accountability from others. Hell, I'm a coach! My business depends upon that... But I also think that at some point, we've gotta go it alone. We've gotta step out of what can sometimes be the SAFETY of that group accountability environment and see: "can I really show up just for me?" In fact, it's something I encouraged with my clients as a fitness coach and something I still encourage! My goal is always that, for whatever that person came to me for, that they will get to a point where they don't need me anymore. That I've taught them enough that they can handle it on their own! But, self-accountability can be hard! So, today I want to give you my top 3 tips for how to create more SELF-accountability! Because self-accountability, truly is the secret sauce. And if you can be accountable to yourself + to the commitments you've made to you and no one else, damn friend, you're going to go far in this life! For show notes, head to coachellyn.com/podcast and, of course, post on Instagram and tag me @coachellyn so that I can shout you out and say thank you! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/tbydl-podcast/message

This week on the "Dailicast Moment" host Chris Laning talks about some of the "myths" that guarantee success for your podcast or dailicast. Today, he talks about the myth that having a highly produced show guarantees success. TRANSCRIPT:  With your "Dailicast Moment" for today, I'm Chris Laning from NeighborhoodStage.com. Now all this week I'm talking about the various myths that you've heard on how to have success with podcasts and dailicasts. These are the variety of myths that say if you do this one thing that will practically guarantee you success. Well, yesterday I was talking about spending a lot of time putting together top notch quality content. That I've often heard that if you really spend that time and build top notch content that's totally full of quality, you simply can't miss. And if you go back and listen to yesterday's dailicast, you'll find out why I kind of busted that myth. Well, the one I want to talk about today is others have said, you know, if you're gonna do a podcast or a dailicast, make sure it's highly produced with a great professional sound. If you put all that time and effort into making it sound pristine, making it sound like a professional high grade production, then you can't miss. Now, again, I'm going to go back to my experience in doing podcasts and dailicasts because since I started doing podcasts way back in 2005... 2006... 2006 I think it was my first podcast, I have always strived to put together highly produced productions. To make sure I had the right music in place. To make sure that my sound was great. Editing it to get all the ums and ahs out, make it sound tight. I would try, in some cases, like I had mentioned yesterday with "Your Neighborhood Stage" to put together a variety of segments so you'd go from one segment to another and it really sounded like a high quality produced thing. But it did not necessarily make the numbers come. Really in almost all of the podcasts that I've done, I've had some difficulty getting those numbers despite doing all of these things. Making sure that I was putting a lot of time and effort into content. Making sure I was putting a lot of time and effort into professional sound. One of the things that I've been running across lately, particularly from podcasting clients and potential clients that I've talked to is everybody wants to have this NPR sound. They want to be like NPR. They want to have kind of the soft up-close sound. They want to have music that fades in and out that sets the mood and goes into this segment. And we start with a quote here and we do this and all of that. And making it a fully produced production that's on par with NPR. Well, I'm going to kind of admit something here. I've never been a huge fan of NPR so maybe this is a little bit of a biased opinion, but do you really need to have all that production value to get across your point and find that success? Yeah, NPR is successful. There's no doubt about that. They've had some of the most successful podcasts of all time. But is that because strictly of their professional production quality? I would actually argue it is not. I think there's again other factors going on and we're going to explore those down the road. But keep in mind that just because you put together and spend all the time, effort, and money to have a really highly produced production will in no way, shape or form guarantee you a large audience. Now, that's all for your "Dailicast Moment" for today. Now, don't forget if you want to start a podcast or dailicast and you just don't even know where to begin. Or you have some ideas, but you're not quite sure how to format it. Just head on over to Dailicast.com. There's a link there where you can schedule a free 20 minute call with me. We'll sit down, we'll talk over your ideas and I'll give you some idea, the direction you might want to go with it and maybe down the road even be able to help you with that as well. That's Dailicast.com, D-a-i-l-i-c-a-s-t.com. With your "Dailicast Moment" for today, I'm Chris Laning from NeighborhoodStage.com Have a great day!  

Today I share stories from the past 15 years. Actually it started well before 2004, back to when I was a kid and no one could tell if I was a boy or a girl! Today gender is fluid; it's not so much of an issue. But it was back then and it created insecurities about my femininity that ultimately led to the start of Skirt Sports. Today my company is so much more than a skirt created to help me feel pretty. It's a community of women who come together in so many ways to share their love of fitness.  There are a few things I can't quite grasp today. That I've been running Skirt Sports for 15 years. That my company has evolved to something so much more than a seller of products. And that I was in really really REALLY good shape back then!  To celebrate Skirt Sports is giving $20 to everyone! Spend it. Buy something amazing that makes you feel good. Remember my old mantra. Look good Feel good Perform better. Use the code 15YEARS at skirtsports.com or at our Boulder store. Do it now!

How To Avoid Making Payments On Private Money By Making The Interest Accrue - Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerator #37Make no payments. Wow. How good is that? Well, why would that be good for the lender? Let's say they have a retirement account and they've loaned to you at say 6% interest and imagined that that interest is accruing. That means that every month that you don't make a payment that you owe interest on the original amount borrowed, plus you own an interest on the payment that wasn't paid so they can earn interest accruing. Well, what does that mean by the end of the year? Let's say that the loan was $100,000 you just saved the payment every month on that. That could help your cashflow dramatically. And what you could do with that additional cashflow is by more marketing. Marketing will drive the train. When you got the right marketing, you've got the ability to build an amazing business in the real estate business. But the key is you got to be able to pay for it. Wouldn't it be great as if you didn't have to make monthly payments on this private money? That I've been teaching you in this series. What you say to the investor is, would you like to receive annual payments, semiannual payments, quarterly payments, or monthly payments, and let them choose if they save monthly payments. You say: “Of course when I send that payment in, what's going to happen to it? You're going to put it into your retirement account and it's just going to earn what? Zero point something percent. So not much. What if you just let your interest accrue? I'll pay you interest on that as well.” Then annually you can make them a single payment that incorporates both their regular payment and the accrued interest. How cool is that? Lou Brown has been buying, selling and holding property for 40 years and you are about to discover what a lot of so called gurus are missing.* How to buy all the property you want without ever visiting a single bank or needing to qualify for a loan* How to have a buyer or renter before you even buy property* How to have them already pay you money before you sold them anythingThese are exactly the kinds of deals he does day in and day out. Most 'investors' are getting it wrong. It's not about the property, it's about the buyer. Buying right and buying cheap is what you'll do after you have the buyer.Media Sites:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/StreetSmartInvestorPodcast: http://Streetsmart.mypodcastworld.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StreetSmartInvestor/Web Site: https://millionairejumpstart.com/ and https://streetsmartinvestor.com/Real Estate investors in all fifty states across Canada and fifteen foreign countries including as far away as Australia and New Zealand, have long regarded the training, systems and forms created by Louis Brown as the best in the industry, Quoted as an expert by many publications and authors, "Lou" draws from a wide and varied background as a real estate investor having been buying property since 1976.He's invested in single-family homes, apartments, hotels, developed subdivisions and built and renovated homes and apartments. Each of these experiences has given him a proving ground for the most cutting edge concepts in real estate today. He's widely known as a creative financing genius with his deal structuring concepts.Being a teacher at heart he enjoys sharing his discoveries with others. He has served the industry in many volunteer positions such as past President and designated lifetime member of the Georgia Real Estate Investors Association, the world's largest real estate investor group.He is also founding President of the National Real Estate Investors Association, which serves as the umbrella association of local investor groups.You can also watch and listen to this from: https://youtu.be/lX9QWfbG8O8

Line up access to money far in advance of your next real estate deal.101 Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerators #35I'm teaching you about how to borrow money. But not the traditional way. That I've done since I got started in this business. I know you can avoid all of the expenses, the headaches, the pain, the suffering that it takes to qualify for a traditional loan. Once you contact, and in other words, plan in advance, put this on your calendar, know that you're going to have a deal come and in some cases you're going to need all cash or you're going to need rehab money or you're going to need down payment money, you're going to need some cash. Well, if you've already access those opportunities to borrow money, then you've got the way that you can actually use that money. Let's say that you've got your phone, and I've mentioned this in another tip. You get your phone, you look at the contacts and you find where those folks are. You call them up and you use our script that we've got so dutifully laid out for you and you start asking some questions. First of all, you say to them, “Let me just share with you what we're doing now. I'm a certified affordable housing provider. We help people regardless of their credit or financial background to end up with ownership of a property. And we work with private moneylenders who have some idle funds sitting in their IRA or 401k or their personal account. And that money is not making nearly the money it ought to be making or earning zero to 0.1% and what we do is put that money to work using safe, secure real estate. Do you know anybody who might have some private funds that they would like to put to work?” Ask the question. It's amazing what comes out of that conversation. I've been doing this for a while and I know what happens and I know that this can benefit you. Lou Brown has been buying, selling and holding property for 40 years and you are about to discover what a lot of so called gurus are missing.* How to buy all the property you want without ever visiting a single bank or needing to qualify for a loan* How to have a buyer or renter before you even buy property* How to have them already pay you money before you sold them anythingThese are exactly the kinds of deals he does day in and day out. Most 'investors' are getting it wrong. It's not about the property, it's about the buyer. Buying right and buying cheap is what you'll do after you have the buyer.Media Sites:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/StreetSmartInvestorPodcast: http://Streetsmart.mypodcastworld.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StreetSmartInvestor/Web Site: https://millionairejumpstart.com/ and https://streetsmartinvestor.com/Real Estate investors in all fifty states across Canada and fifteen foreign countries including as far away as Australia and New Zealand, have long regarded the training, systems and forms created by Louis Brown as the best in the industry, Quoted as an expert by many publications and authors, "Lou" draws from a wide and varied background as a real estate investor having been buying property since 1976.He's invested in single-family homes, apartments, hotels, developed subdivisions and built and renovated homes and apartments. Each of these experiences has given him a proving ground for the most cutting edge concepts in real estate today. He's widely known as a creative financing genius with his deal structuring concepts.Being a teacher at heart he enjoys sharing his discoveries with others. He has served the industry in many volunteer positions such as past President and designated lifetime member of the Georgia Real Estate Investors Association, the world's largest real estate investor group.He is also founding President of the National Real Estate Investors Association, which serves as the umbrella association of local investor groups.You can also watch and listen to this from: https://youtu.be/poEChorvQyQ

Soooooo, what is going onnnnn?   If you've followed me or the podcast for a while, you will have heard me mention or speak about pivoting many times. That I've done more pivots than a ballerina. And here is another one. SHE is gone, and in her place, is a more complete woman. The podcast is continuing but s h e is not. It's a new name and expanded content to help you live a complete life. 

How Good Is Your About Page? The About Page or About Me page on your website is arguably the most important page on your site. And yet, it's so often neglected when people create a website in order to concentrate more on the "meat pages" of the site. Pages like their portfolio, or the services they offer. The About Page is often just an afterthought. You know you need one, so you whip one up quickly and move on. But if you look at the analytics for your site you will probably see that your About Page is one of your most visited pages. Chances are you have a link to your About Page in your menu bar, and when someone lands on your site, regardless of the page they land on, they will probably click on that link to learn more about you. If you don't have a well-crafted About Page you could be turning visitors off and leaving potential business on the table. What makes a great About Page? People often fail in their About Page because frankly, they're talking about themselves. You would think that's what an About Page is for. But in truth, visitors really visit an About Page not to learn who a person or company is, but to find out why they should care. What's in it for them? they're there to determine if they should be interested in you and to figure out if you can help them. If not then why bother looking at the rest of the website. How do you make a great About Page? How long should an About Page be? There is no right answer to this. The length of your About Page should be long enough to get your message across and nothing else. Every business's About Page will be different so it's imperative that you test different things to see what works for you. You've heard about A/B testing? The About Page is a great candidate for such testing. Parts of a great About Page. Part 1: Your About Page should have a hook. Something that immediately grabs the attention of visitors and lets them know they've found the right person or business for them. Here's an example of a good hook. "Welcome to my site. Are you wondering how to promote your business? Do you have a great idea but don't know how to present it to the world? Are you tired of your current brand and want something more exciting? If you're asking yourself any of these questions, then you've come to the right place. The hook gets into the head of your potential clients. The hook tells them that you know what they need help with and that you have the solution to their problem. Trust me, if they think you have the solution to their problem, they'll be begging to work with you. It's a very basic concept but it's super effective. Figure out what questions your potential clients have and list the most popular ones. How do you figure this out? By asking your clients questions. Over time you will learn what common questions come up, what problems they're seeking help with, and you'll be able to address them here on your About Page. If you open with a great hook, your visitors will want to keep reading. Part 2: Share the benefits people get by working with you. Not the services you offer, but the benefits they get. What will they get if they decide to work with you? An example can be something like this. "Allow me to use my vast skills and experience as a graphic designer to create something amazing, something that is truly unique to you. I have a knack for capturing the personality of a company and creating designs that will reflect not only who you are, but designs that lets you connect with your target market on a personal level. In other words, I create designs you can be proud of. You see? This second part kind of describes you a bit, but in a way that benefits the viewer. Part 3: Share social proof. This is a great place to display an image of yourself so your clients have a face to associate you with. Share your accomplishments, not to gloat, but to prove you're the right person for the job. In my case, this is where I would mention being in the design industry since 1989. That I've helped brand 100s of successful companies. Where I've had my designs featured and what awards I've won. A little name dropping also adds social proof as to why someone should hire you so list any well A little name dropping also adds social proof for why someone should hire you. List any well well-known companies you've worked with. They may be local, national or global companies. If you think it will help, mention them here. Another great way to share social proof is to include one or two testimonials from clients praising your skills and partnership with them. People visit your About Page to learn about you. What better way to learn, than by hearing what others have to say about working with you? Be cautious in part 3. Don't include too much in this section or you might come off as too overbearing and smug. Don't talk about awards you won 10 years ago. They have no meaning to today. You only want to share enough to assure people that you are capable of helping them. Part 4: This is where you finally get to talk about yourself. You could mention where you went to school and how you got into the business. Limit it to just a couple of paragraphs. Enough for people to get to know you a bit better. Imagine you are meeting someone face to face for the first time and they ask you why you became a designer. Part 4 of your About Page is the answer you would give them. In my case I would tell them I had no intention of becoming a graphic designer. I only enrolled in the course as a stepping stone to something else I wanted to take in university. But once I started, I fell in love with graphic design and immersed myself fully in the program, graduating at the top of my class. If you want, you can include a few fun facts here about yourself in this section. Hobbies, likes & dislikes, family information you don't mind sharing. Stay away from controversial subjects like religion and politics. Myself I would mention my love of podcasting. That I'm a dog owner. I might also mention how I'm not a coffee drinker, which goes against the typical stereotype of the graphic designer. Use this section to really show off your personality. Remember, your About Page can also weed out people who wouldn't work well with you. If they don't care for your personality, chances are you wouldn't work well together. Part 5: This is probably the most important section and yet it's also the most overlooked. Include a direct link for visitors to contact you. A contact form works best, but any method that allows them to contact you is imperative. Include some sort of call to action letting them know you're anxious to hear from them. They just spent the time learning who you are and how you can help them, so make it easy for them to get a hold of you to start a working relationship. There you have it. A great About Page. Will following these steps guarantee new clients? Of course not. But every bit helps. And there's no reason your About Page shouldn't be given as much, if not more, attention than the other pages on your website. Don't leave potential business on the table because you have a weak About Page. What does your About Page look like? Leave a comment for this episode telling me your formula for a great About Page and I'll make sure to link back to it. Questions of the Week This week's question came from Michael. He asked... I'm a staff designer at an established agency. The leadership here does allow us to take side (for lack of a better word) freelancing jobs to help us grow our skills and creativity. As long as it's not a direct conflict of interest with the company. I'm struggling to gain traction in finding work. I have good set of personal clients that I work with already but nothing to add any substantial amount to mine and my wife's income. Just odd jobs now and then when my skills are needed. What is your method to finding new work/clients? Which ones have you found most effective and which methods would you recommend I stay away from. To hear how I answered Michael's question you'll have to listen to the podcast. I did however share this link with him. 10 Proven Ways To Attract Design Clients I would love to answer your question on a future episode of the podcast. Submit your question by visiting the feedback page. Resource of the week Who Stole My Images FaceBook Group This is not a resource I'm familiar with myself but when I heard about it I thought it would be great for my audience. It was shared by Molly in the Resourceful Designer FaceBook Group. Who Stole My Images is a group that helps creative people when their intellectual property has been stolen for illicit gains. If you sell your designs anywhere on the internet there's a good chance that someone copied your artwork and is selling it as their own. It's not always easy to stop these people and that's where this FaceBook group comes in. The members have experience and are willing to share their tips and tricks to help you target the thieves. If you find yourself in such a situation simply ask to join the group. Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe on iTunesSubscribe on StitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe on Google Play Music Contact me Send me feedback Follow me on Twitter and Facebook I want to help you. Running a graphic design or web design business all by yourself isn't easy. If there are any struggles you face running your design business please reach out to me. I'll do my best to help you by addressing your issues in a future blog post or podcast episode here at Resourceful Designer. You can reach me at feedback@resourcefuldesigner.com

Day 43: On the show today, I definitively rank every single Pixar film*, deciding which of the Toy Story films is best, which sequels soar and which plummet and talk about how rats that cook are disgusting no matter what. *That I've actually seen