Podcast appearances and mentions of Thomas Edison

This was an astonishingly good Sunday crossword by John Kugelman, thanks to a jaw-dropping display of anagrammatic magic. We've got all the deets inside, so be prepared, to be amazed!Show note imagery: THOMASEDISON, who in 1904 obtained a patent for an electric car, was only about 100 years or so ahead of his time.We love feedback! Send us a text...Contact Info:We love listener mail! Drop us a line, crosswordpodcast@icloud.com.Also, we're on FaceBook, so feel free to drop by there and strike up a conversation!

Personne ne planifie ni ne souhaite l'échec. Mais « l'échec » peut être une étape importante sur la voie de la réussite. L'échec nous enseigne certainement ce qu'il ne faut pas faire, ce qui est souvent aussi important que de savoir ce qu'il faut faire ! Rendre l'échec positif dépend entièrement de notre façon de le considérer. Nous pouvons apprendre à être reconnaissants pour nos échecs. Beaucoup d'histoires circulent sur le nombre de fois que Thomas Edison a échoué avant d'inventer la lampe à incandescence. J'ai entendu qu'il a essayé 700 fois, 2 000 fois, 6 000 fois et 10 000 fois. Peu importe le nombre exact de ses tentatives, il est de toute façon stupéfiant. Mais il n'a jamais perdu espoir. Edison aurait même dit que dans tous ces efforts, il n'a jamais échoué, pas même une seule fois : il a juste dû passer par de nombreuses étapes avant de réussir ! Il faut ce genre de détermination si vous voulez vraiment faire quelque chose qui en vaut la peine. Père, je suis reconnaissant, car tu peux prendre même les échecs dans ma vie et en faire quelque chose d'incroyable. Je crois par la foi que tu fais quelque chose de puissant dans ma vie. Je te remercie d'avance pour ce que j'apprends, même dans les moments difficiles. — Êtes-vous prêt à aller plus loin ?

In January, 2022 today's guest, Mike Paciello, made his first appearance on Unstoppable Mindset in Episode 19. It is not often that most of us have the opportunity and honor to meet a real trendsetter and pioneer much less for a second time. However, today, we get to spend more time with Mike, and we get to talk about not only the concepts around web accessibility, but we also discuss the whole concept of inclusion and how much progress we have made much less how much more work needs to be done.   Mike Paciello has been a fixture in the assistive technology world for some thirty years. I have known of him for most of that time, but our paths never crossed until September of 2021 when we worked together to help create some meetings and sessions around the topic of website accessibility in Washington D.C.   As you will hear, Mike began his career as a technical writer for Digital Equipment Corporation, an early leader in the computer manufacturing industry. I won't tell you Mike's story here. What I will say is that although Mike is fully sighted and thus does not use much of the technology blind and low vision persons use, he really gets it. He fully understands what Inclusion is all about and he has worked and continues to work to promote inclusion and access for all throughout the world. As Mike and I discuss, making technology more inclusive will not only help persons with disabilities be more involved in society, but people will discover that much of the technology we use can make everyone's life better. We talk about a lot of the technologies being used today to make websites more inclusive including the use of AI and how AI can and does enhance inclusion efforts.   It is no accident that this episode is being released now. This episode is being released on July 25 to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act which was signed on July 26, 1990. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADA!   After you experience our podcast with Mike, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to email me at michaelhi@accessibe.com to tell me of your observations. Thanks.     About the Guest:   Mike Paciello is the Chief Accessibility Officer at AudioEye, Inc., a digital accessibility company. Prior to joining AudioEye, Mike founded WebABLE/WebABLE.TV, which delivers news about the disability and accessibility technology market. Mike authored the first book on web accessibility and usability, “Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities” and, in 1997, Mr. Paciello received recognition from President Bill Clinton for his work in the creation of World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). He has served as an advisor to the US Access Board and other federal agencies since 1992.   Mike has served as an international leader, technologist, and authority in emerging technology, accessibility, usability, and electronic publishing. Mike is the former Founder of The Paciello Group (TPG), a world-renowned software accessibility consultancy acquired in 2017 by Vispero. Ways to connect with Mike:   mpaciello@webable.com Michael.paciello@audioeye.com Mikepaciello@gmail.com     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity and the unexpected meet. Normally, our guests deal with the unexpected, which is anything that doesn't have to do with inclusion or diversity. Today, however, we get to sort of deal with both. We have a guest who actually was a guest on our podcast before he was in show 19 that goes all the way back to January of 2022, his name is Mike Paciello. He's been very involved in the whole internet and accessibility movement and so on for more than 30 years, and I think we're going to have a lot of fun chatting about what's going on in the world of accessibility and the Internet and and, you know, and but we won't probably get into whether God is a man or a woman, but that's okay, God is actually both, so we don't have to worry about that. But anyway, Mike, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Mike Paciello ** 02:21 Yeah, Hey, Mike, thanks a lot. I can't believe has it really been already since today, six years since the last time I came on this? No, three, 320, 22 Oh, 2022, I for whatever I 2019 Okay, three years sounds a little bit more realistic, but still, it's been a long time. Thank you for having me. It's, it's, it's great to be here. And obviously, as you know, a lot of things have changed in my life since then. But, yeah, very   Michael Hingson ** 02:46 cool. Well, you were in show number 19. And I'm not sure what number this is going to be, but it's going to be above 360 so it's been a while. Amazing, amazing, unstoppable, unstoppable. That's it. We got to keep it going. And Mike and I have been involved in a few things together, in, in later, in, I guess it was in 20 when we do the M enabling Summit, that was 2021 wasn't it? Yeah, I think it was, I think it was the year before we did the podcast, yeah, podcast, 2021 right? So we were in DC, and we both worked because there was a group that wanted to completely condemn the kinds of technologies that accessibe and other companies use. Some people call it overlays. I'm not sure that that's totally accurate today, but we we worked to get them to not do what they originally intended to do, but rather to explore it in a little bit more detail, which I think was a lot more reasonable to do. So we've, we've had some fun over the years, and we see each other every so often, and here we are again today. So yeah, I'm glad you're here. Well, tell us a little about well, and I guess what we'll do is do some stuff that we did in 2022 tell us about kind of the early Mike, growing up and all that and what eventually got you into dealing with all this business of web accessibility and such. Yeah, thank you.   Mike Paciello ** 04:08 You know, I've tried to short this, shorten this story 100 times. Oh, don't worry. See if I get let's see if I can keep it succinct and and for the folks out there who understand verbosity and it's in its finest way for screen reader users, I'll try not to be verbose. I already am being   Michael Hingson ** 04:28 intermediate levels fine.   Mike Paciello ** 04:30 I came into this entire field as a technical writer trying to solve a problem that I kind of stumbled into doing some volunteer work for the debt the company that I then then worked for, a Digital Equipment Corporation, a software company, DEC software hardware company, back then, right back in the early 80s. And as a technical writer, I started learning at that time what was called Gen code. Eventually that morphed in. To what Goldfarb, Charles Goldfarb at IBM, called SGML, or standard, Generalized Markup Language, and that really became the predecessor, really gave birth to what we see on the web today, to HTML and the web markup languages. That's what they were, except back then, they were markup languages for print publications. So we're myself and a lot of colleagues and friends, people probably here, I'm sure, at bare minimum, recognized named George Kercher. George and I really paired together, worked together, ended up creating an international steer with a group of other colleagues and friends called the icad 22 which is 22 stands for the amount of elements in that markup language. And it became the adopted standard accessibility standard for the American Association of Publishers, and they published that became official. Eventually it morphed into what we today call, you know, accessible web development. It was the first instance by that was integrated into the HTML specification, I think officially, was HTML 3.1 3.2 somewhere in there when it was formally adopted and then announced in 1997 and at the World Wide Web Conference. That's really where my activity in the web began. So I was working at DEC, but I was doing a lot of volunteer work at MIT, which is where the W 3c was located at that particular time. And Tim Bursley, who a lot of people i Sir, I'm sure, know, the inventor of the web, led the effort at that time, and a few other folks that I work with, and.da Jim Miller, a few other folks. And we were, well, I wasn't specifically approached. Tim was approached by Vice President Gore and eventually President Clinton at that time to see if we could come up with some sort of technical standard for accessibility. And Tim asked if I'd like to work on it myself. Danielle, Jim, a few others, we did, and we came up that first initial specification and launched it as part of the Web Accessibility Initiative, which we created in 1997 from there, my career just took off. I went off did a couple of small companies that I launched, you know, my namesake company, the Paciello Group, or TPG, now called TPG IGI, yeah, yeah, which was acquired by vector capital, or this bureau back in 2017 so it's hard to believe that's already almost 10 years ago. No, yeah. And I've been walking in, working in the software, web accessibility field, usability field, writing fields, you know, for some pretty close to 45 years. It's 2025 40 years, I mean, and I started around 1984 I think it was 8384 when all this first   Michael Hingson ** 07:59 started. Wow, so clearly, you've been doing it for a while and understand a lot of the history of it. So how overall has the whole concept of web accessibility changed over the years, not only from a from a coding standpoint, but how do you think it's really changed when it comes to being addressed by the public and companies and so on.   Mike Paciello ** 08:26 That's a great question. I'd certainly like to be more proactive and more positive about it, but, but let me be fair, if you compare today and where web accessibility resides, you know, in the in the business value proposition, so to speak, and list the priorities of companies and corporations. You know, fortune 1000 fortune 5000 call whatever you whatever you want. Accessibility. Is there people? You could say section five way you could say the Web Accessibility Initiative, WCAG, compliance, and by and large, particularly technology driven, digital economy driven businesses, they know what it is. They don't know how to do it. Very rarely do they know how to do it. And even the ones that know how to do it don't really do it very well. So it kind of comes down to the 8020, rule, right? You're a business. Whatever kind of business you are, you're probably in more online presence than ever before, and so a lot of your digital properties will come under you know the laws that mandate usability and accessibility for people with disabilities today that having been said and more and more people know about it than ever before, certainly from the time that I started back in the you know, again, in the early, mid 80s, to where we are today. It's night and day. But in terms of prioritization, I don't know. I think what happens quite often is business value proposition. Decisions get in the way. Priorities get in the way of what a business in, what its core business are, what they're trying to accomplish, who they're trying to sell, sell to. They still view the disability market, never mind the blind and low vision, you know, market alone as a niche market. So they don't make the kind of investors that I, I believe that they could, you know, there's certainly, there are great companies like like Microsoft and and Google, Amazon, Apple, you know, a lot of these companies, you know, have done some Yeoman work at that level, but it's nowhere near where it should be. It just absolutely isn't. And so from that standpoint, in where I envision things, when I started this career was when I was in my 20 somethings, and now I'm over now I'm over 60. Well over 60. Yeah, I expected a lot more in, you know, in an internet age, much, much more.   Michael Hingson ** 11:00 Yeah, yeah. Well, it's it's really strange that so much has happened and yet so much hasn't happened. And I agree with you, there's been a lot of visibility for the concept of accessibility and inclusion and making the the internet a better place, but it is so unfortunate that most people don't know how to how to do anything with it. Schools aren't really teaching it. And more important than even teaching the coding, from from my perspective, looking at it more philosophically, what we don't tend to see are people really recognizing the value of disabilities, and the value that the market that people with disabilities bring to the to the world is significant. I mean, the Center for Disease Control talks about the fact that they're like up to 25% of all Americans have some sort of disability. Now I take a different approach. Actually. I don't know whether you've read my article on it, but I believe everyone on the in the in the world has a disability, and the reality is, most people are light dependent, but that's as much a disability as blindness. Except that since 1878 when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. We have focused nothing short of trying to do everything we can to improve light on demand for the last 147 years. And so the disability is mostly covered up, but it's still there.   Mike Paciello ** 12:37 You know, yeah, and I did read that article, and I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I personally think, and I actually have my own blog coming out, and probably later this month might be early, early July, where I talk about the fact that accessibility okay and technology really has been all along. And I love the fact that you call, you know, you identified the, you know, the late 1800s there, when Edison did the the light bulb, Alexander Graham Bell came up with, you know, the telephone. All of those adventures were coming about. But accessibility to people with disabilities, regardless of what their disability is, has always been a catalyst for innovation. That was actually supposed to be the last one I was going to make tonight. Now it's my first point because, because I think it is exactly as you said, Mike, I think that people are not aware. And when I say people, I mean the entire human population, I don't think that we are aware of the history of how, how, because of, I'm not sure if this is the best word, but accommodating users, accommodating people with disabilities, in whatever way, the science that goes behind that design architectural to the point of development and release, oftentimes, things that were done behalf of people with disabilities, or for People with disabilities, resulted in a fundamental, how's this for? For an interesting term, a fundamental alteration right to any other you know, common, and I apologize for the tech, tech, tech language, user interface, right, right? Anything that we interact with has been enhanced because of accessibility, because of people saying, hey, if we made this grip a little bit larger or stickier, we'll call it so I can hold on to it or softer for a person that's got fine motor dexterity disabilities, right? Or if we made a, you know, a web browser, which, of course, we have such that a blind individual, a low vision individual, can adjust the size of this, of the images and the fonts and things like that on a web page, they could do that unknown. Well, these things now. As we well know, help individuals without disabilities. Well, I'm not much, right, and I, again, I'm not speaking as a person beyond your characterization that, hey, look, we are all imperfect. We all have disabilities. And that is, that is absolutely true. But beyond that, I wear glasses. That's it. I do have a little hearing loss too. But you know, I'm finding myself more and more, for example, increasing the size of text. In fact, my note, yes, I increase them to, I don't know they're like, 18 point, just so that it's easier to see. But that is a common thing for every human being, just like you said.   Michael Hingson ** 15:36 Well, the reality is that so many tools that we use today come about. And came about because of people with disabilities. Peggy Chung Curtis Chung's wife, known as the blind history lady, and one of the stories that she told on her first visit to unstoppable mindset, which, by the way, is episode number five. I remember that Peggy tells the story of the invention of the typewriter, which was invented for a blind countist, because she wanted to be able to communicate with her lover without her husband knowing about it, and she didn't want to dictate things and so on. She wanted to be able to create a document and seal it, and that way it could be delivered to the lever directly. And the typewriter was the result of   Mike Paciello ** 16:20 that? I didn't know that. I will definitely go back. I just wrote it down. I wrote down a note that was episode number five, yeah, before with Curtis a couple of times, but obviously a good friend of ours, yeah, but I yeah, that's, that's, that's awesome.   Michael Hingson ** 16:37 Well, and look at, I'll tell you one of the things that really surprises me. So Apple was going to get sued because they weren't making any of their products accessible. And before the lawsuit was filed, they came along and they said, we'll fix it. And they did make and it all started to a degree with iTunes U but also was the iPhone and the iPod and so on. But they they, they did the work. Mostly. They embedded a screen reader called Voiceover in all of their operating systems. They did make iTunes you available. What really surprises me, though is that I don't tend to see perhaps some things that they could do to make voiceover more attractive to drivers so they don't have to look at the screen when a phone call comes in or whatever. And that they could be doing some things with VoiceOver to make it more usable for sighted people in a lot of instances. And I just don't, I don't see any emphasis on that, which is really surprising to me.   Mike Paciello ** 17:38 Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, there are a lot of use cases there that you go for. I think Mark Rico would certainly agree with you in terms of autonomous driving for the blind, right? Sure that too. But yeah, I definitely agree and, and I know the guy that the architect voiceover and develop voiceover for Apple and, boy, why can I think of his last name? I know his first name. First name is Mike. Is with Be My Eyes now and in doing things at that level. But I will just say one thing, not to correct you, but Apple had been in the accessibility business long before voice over Alan Brightman and Gary mulcher were instrumental towards convincing, you know, jobs of the importance of accessibility to people with disabilities,   Michael Hingson ** 18:31 right? But they weren't doing anything to make products accessible for blind people who needed screen readers until that lawsuit came along. Was   Mike Paciello ** 18:40 before screen readers? Yeah, that was before,   Michael Hingson ** 18:43 but they did it. Yeah. The only thing I wish Apple would do in that regard, that they haven't done yet, is Apple has mandates and requirements if you're going to put an app in the App Store. And I don't know whether it's quite still true, but it used to be that if your app had a desktop or it looked like a Windows desktop, they wouldn't accept it in the app store. And one of the things that surprises me is that they don't require that app developers make sure that their products are usable with with VoiceOver. And the reality is that's a it doesn't need to be a really significantly moving target. For example, let's say you have an app that is dealing with displaying star charts or maps. I can't see the map. I understand that, but at least voiceover ought to give me the ability to control what goes on the screen, so that I can have somebody describe it, and I don't have to spend 15 or 20 minutes describing my thought process, but rather, I can just move things around on the screen to get to where we need to go. And I wish Apple would do a little bit more in that regard.   Mike Paciello ** 19:52 Yeah, I think that's a great a great thought and a great challenge, if, between me and you. Yeah, I think it goes back to what I said before, even though we both see how accessibility or accommodating users with disabilities has led to some of the most incredible innovations. I mean, the Department of Defense, for years, would integrate people with disabilities in their user testing, they could better help, you know, military soldiers, things like that, assimilate situations where there was no hearing, there was they were immobile, they couldn't see all, you know, all of these things that were natural. You know, user environments or personas for people with disabilities. So they led to these kind of, you know, incredible innovations, I would tell you, Mike, I think you know this, it's because the business value proposition dictates otherwise.   Michael Hingson ** 20:55 Yeah, and, well, I guess I would change that slightly and say that people think that the business proposition does but it may very well be that they would find that there's a lot more value in doing it if they would really open up their minds to looking at it differently. It's   Mike Paciello ** 21:10 kind of, it's kind of like, it's tough. It's kind of like, if I could use this illustration, so to speak, for those who may not be religiously inclined, but you know, it's, it's like prophecy. Most people, you don't know whether or not prophecy is valid until years beyond, you know, years after. And then you could look back at time and say, See, it was all along. These things, you know, resulted in a, me, a major paradigm shift in the way that we do or don't do things. And I think that's exactly what you're saying. You know, if, if people would really look at the potential of what technologies like, you know, a voice over or, as you know, a good friend of mine said, Look, we it should be screen readers. It should be voice IO interfaces, right? That every human can use and interact with regardless. That's what we're really talking about. There's   Michael Hingson ** 22:10 a big discussion going on some of the lists now about the meta, Ray Ban, glasses, and some of the things that it doesn't do or that they don't do well, that they should like. It's really difficult to get the meta glasses to read completely a full page. I think there are ways that people have now found to get it to do that, but there are things like that that it that that don't happen. And again, I think it gets back to what you're saying is the attitude is, well, most people aren't going to need that. Well, the reality is, how do you know and how do you know what they'll need until you offer options. So one of my favorite stories is when I worked for Kurzweil a long time ago, some people called one day and they wanted to come and see a new talking computer terminal that that Ray and I and others developed, and they came up, and it turns out, they were with one of those initial organizations out of Langley, Virginia, the CIA. And what they wanted to do was to use the map the the terminal connected to their computers to allow them to move pointers on a map and not have to watch the map or the all of the map while they were doing it, but rather, the computer would verbalize where the pointer was, and then they could they could move it around and pin a spot without having to actually look at the screen, because the way their machine was designed, it was difficult to do that. You know, the reality is that most of the technologies that we need and that we use and can use could be used by so much, so many more people, if people would just really look at it and think about it, but, but you're right, they don't.   Mike Paciello ** 24:04 You know, it's, of course, raise a raise another good friend of mine. We both having in common. I work with him. I been down his office a few, more than few times, although his Boston office, anyway, I think he's, I'm not sure he's in Newton. He's in Newton. Yeah. Is he still in Newton? Okay. But anyway, it reminded me of something that happened in a similar vein, and that was several years ago. I was at a fast forward forward conference, future forward conference, and a company, EMC, who absorbed by Dell, I think, right, yes, where they all are. So there I was surprised that when that happened. But hey, yeah, yeah, I was surprised that compact bought depth, so that's okay, yeah, right. That HP bought count, right? That whole thing happened. But um, their chief science, chief scientist, I think he was a their CSO chief scientist, Doc. Came up and made this presentation. And basically the presentation was using voice recognition. They had been hired by the NSA. So it was a NSA right to use voice recognition in a way where they would recognize voices and then record those voices into it, out the output the transcript of that right text, text files, and feed them back to, you know, the NSA agents, right? So here's the funny part of that story goes up i i waited he gave his presentation. This is amazing technology, and what could it was like, 99% accurate in terms of not just recognizing American, English speaking people, but a number of different other languages, in dialects. And the guy who gave the presentation, I actually knew, because he had been a dec for many years. So in the Q and A Part I raised by hand. I got up there. He didn't recognize it a few years had gone by. And I said, you know, this is amazing technology. We could really use this in the field that I work in. And he said, Well, how's that? And I said, you know, voice recognition and outputting text would allow us to do now this is probably 2008 2009 somewhere in that area, would allow us to do real time, automated transcription for the Deaf, Captioning. And he looks at me and he he says, Do I know you? This is through a live audience. I said. I said, Yeah, Mark is it was. Mark said, So Mike gas yellow. He said, you're the only guy in town that I know that could turn a advanced, emerging technology into something for people with disabilities. I can't believe it. So that was, that was, but there was kind of the opposite. It was a technology they were focused on making this, you know, this technology available for, you know, government, obviously covert reasons that if they were using it and applying it in a good way for people with disabilities, man, we'd have been much faster, much further along or even today, right? I mean, it's being done, still not as good, not as good as that, as I saw. But that just goes to show you what, what commercial and government funding can do when it's applied properly?   Michael Hingson ** 27:41 Well, Dragon, naturally speaking, has certainly come a long way since the original Dragon Dictate. But there's still errors, there's still things, but it does get better, but I hear exactly what you're saying, and the reality is that we don't tend to think in broad enough strokes for a lot of the things that we do, which is so unfortunate,   Mike Paciello ** 28:03 yeah? I mean, I've had an old saying that I've walked around for a long time. I should have, I should make a baseball cap, whether something or T shirt. And it simply was, think accessibility, yeah, period. If, if, if we, organizations, people, designers, developers, architects, usability, people, QA, people. If everybody in the, you know, in the development life cycle was thinking about accessibility, or accessibility was integrated, when we say accessibility, we're talking about again, for users with disabilities, if that became part of, if not the functional catalyst, for technology. Man, we'd have been a lot further along in the quote, unquote value chains than we are today.   Michael Hingson ** 28:46 One of the big things at least, that Apple did do was they built voiceover into their operating system, so anybody who buys any Apple device today automatically has redundancy here, but access to accessibility, right? Which, which is really the way it ought to be. No offense to vispero and jaws, because they're they're able to fill the gap. But still, if Microsoft had truly devoted the time that they should have to narrate her at the beginning. We might see a different kind of an architecture today.   Mike Paciello ** 29:26 You know, I so I want to, by the way, the person that invented that wrote that code is Mike shabanik. That's his name I was thinking about. So Mike, if you're listening to this guy, just hi from two others. And if he's not, he should be, yeah, yeah, exactly right from two other mics. But so let me ask you this question, because I legitimately can't remember this, and have had a number of discussions with Mike about this. So VoiceOver is native to the US, right?   Michael Hingson ** 29:56 But no, well, no to to the to the to the. Products, but not just the US. No,   Mike Paciello ** 30:02 no, I said, OS, yes, it's native to OS, yeah, right. It's native that way, right? But doesn't it still use an off screen model for producing or, you know, translate the transformation of, you know, on screen to voice.   Michael Hingson ** 30:27 I'm not sure that's totally true. Go a little bit deeper into that for me.   Mike Paciello ** 30:34 Well, I mean, so NVDA and jaws use this off screen model, right, which is functionally, they grab, will they grab some content, or whatever it is, push it to this, you know, little black box, do all those translations, you know, do all the transformation, and then push it back so it's renderable to a screen reader. Okay, so that's this off screen model that is transparent to the users, although now you know you can get into it and and tweak it and work with it right, right? I recall when Mike was working on the original design of of nary, excuse me, a voiceover, and he had called me, and I said, Are you going to continue with the notion of an off screen model? And he said, Yeah, we are. And I said, Well, when you can build something that's more like what TV Raman has built into Emacs, and it works integral to the actual OS, purely native. Call me because then I'm interested in, but now that was, you know, 1520, years ago, right? I mean, how long has voiceover been around,   Michael Hingson ** 31:51 since 2007   Mike Paciello ** 31:54 right? So, yeah, 20 years ago, right? Just shy of 20 years, 18 years. So I don't know. I honestly don't know. I'm   Michael Hingson ** 32:02 not totally sure, but I believe that it is, but I can, you know, we'll have to, we'll have to look into that.   Mike Paciello ** 32:08 If anyone in the audience is out there looking at you, get to us before we find out. Let us we'll find out at the NFB   Michael Hingson ** 32:12 convention, because they're going to be a number of Apple people there. We can certainly ask, there   Mike Paciello ** 32:17 you go. That's right, for sure. James Craig is bound to be there. I can ask him and talk to him about that for sure. Yep, so anyway,   Michael Hingson ** 32:23 but I think, I think it's a very it's a valid point. And you know, the the issue is that, again, if done right and app developers are doing things right there, there needs to, there ought to be a way that every app has some level of accessibility that makes it more available. And the reality is, people, other than blind people use some of these technologies as well. So we're talking about voice input. You know, quadriplegics, for example, who can't operate a keyboard will use or a mouse can use, like a puff and zip stick to and and Dragon to interact with a computer and are successful at doing it. The reality is, there's a whole lot more opportunities out there than people think. Don't   Mike Paciello ** 33:11 I agree with that. I'm shaking my head up and down Mike and I'm telling you, there is, I mean, voice recognition alone. I can remember having a conversation with Tony vitality, one of the CO inventors of the deck talk. And that goes all the way back into the, you know, into the early 90s, about voice recognition and linguistics and what you know, and I know Kurzweil did a lot of working with Terry right on voice utterances and things like that. Yeah, yeah. There's, there's a wide open window of opportunity there for study and research that could easily be improved. And as you said, and this is the point, it doesn't just improve the lives of the blind or low vision. It improves the lives of a number of different types of Persona, disability persona types, but it would certainly create a pathway, a very wide path, for individuals, users without disabilities, in a number of different life scenarios.   Michael Hingson ** 34:10 Yeah, and it's amazing how little sometimes that's done. I had the pleasure a few years ago of driving a Tesla down Interstate 15 out here in California. Glad I wasn't there. You bigot, you know, the co pilot system worked. Yeah, you know, I just kept my hands on the wheel so I didn't very much, right? Not have any accidents. Back off now it worked out really well, but, but here's what's really interesting in that same vehicle, and it's something that that I find all too often is is the case if I were a passenger sitting in the front seat, there's so much that I as a passenger don't have access to that other passenger. Do radios now are mostly touchscreen right, which means and they don't build in the features that would make the touchscreen system, which they could do, accessible. The Tesla vehicle is incredibly inaccessible. And there's for a guy who's so innovative, there's no reason for that to be that way. And again, I submit that if they truly make the product so a blind person could use it. Think of how much more a sighted person who doesn't have to take their eyes off the road could use the same technologies.   Mike Paciello ** 35:35 You know, Mike, again, you and I are on the same page. I mean, imagine these guys are supposed to be creative and imaginative and forward thinking, right? Could you? Can you imagine a better tagline than something along the lines of Tesla, so user friendly that a blind person can drive it? Yeah? I mean this is, have you heard or seen, you know, metaphorically speaking, or that's okay, a an advertisement or PR done by any, any company, because they're all, all the way across the board, that hasn't featured what it can do to enhance lives of people with disabilities. Where it wasn't a hit. I mean, literally, it was, yeah, you see these commercials played over and over to Apple, Microsoft, Emma, I see McDonald's, Walmart. I mean, I could just name, name the one after another. Really, really outstanding. Salesforce has done it. Just incredible. They would do it, yeah. I mean, there is there any more human centric message than saying, Look what we've built and designed we're releasing to the masses and everyone, anyone, regardless of ability, can use it. Yeah, that, to me, is that's, I agree that's a good route, right for marketing and PR, good,   Michael Hingson ** 37:03 yeah. And yet they don't, you know, I see commercials like about one of the one of the eye injections, or whatever Bobby is, Mo or whatever it is. And at the beginning, the woman says, I think I'm losing sight of the world around me. You know that's all about, right? It's eyesight and nothing else. And I appreciate, I'm all for people keeping their eyesight and doing what's necessary. But unfortunately, all too often, we do that at the detriment of of other people, which is so unfortunate.   Mike Paciello ** 37:39 Yeah, you know again, not to, not to get off the subject, but one of my favorite books is rethinking competitive advantage, by Ram Sharon. I don't know if you know know him, but the guy is one of my heroes in terms of just vision and Business and Technology. And in this, this book, he wrote this a couple of years ago. He said this one this is his first rule of competition in the digital age. The number one rule was simply this, a personalized consumer experience, key to exponential growth. That's exactly you and I are talking about personally. I want to see interfaces adapt to users, rather than what we have today, which is users having to adapt to the interface.   Michael Hingson ** 38:32 Yeah, and it would make so much sense to do so. I hope somebody out there is listening and will maybe take some of this to heart, because if they do it right, they can have a huge market in no time at all, just because they show they care. You know, Nielsen Company did a survey back in 2016 where they looked at a variety of companies and consumers and so on. And if I recall the numbers right, they decided that people with disabilities are 35% more likely to continue to work with and shop, for example, at companies that really do what they can to make their websites and access to their products accessible, as opposed to not. And that's that's telling. It's so very telling. But we don't see people talking about that nearly like we should   Mike Paciello ** 39:20 you talk about a business value proposition. There is bullet proof that where you are leaving money on the table, yep, and a lot of it, yeah, exactly. We're not talking about 1000s or hundreds of 1000s. We're talking about billions and trillions, in some instances, not an exaggeration by any stretch of the imagination, very, very simple math. I had this conversation a couple years ago with the CEO of Pearson. At that time, he's retired, but, you know, I told him, if you spent $1 for every person that it was in the world with. Disability, you're, you're, you're talking about 1/4 of the population, right? It's simple math, simple math,   Michael Hingson ** 40:08 but people still won't do it. I mean, we taught you to mention section 508, before with the whole issue of web access, how much of the government has really made their websites accessible, even though it's the law?   Mike Paciello ** 40:19 Yeah, three years, three or four years ago, they did a study, and they found out that the good that every federal agency, most of the federal agencies, were not even keeping up thinking with reporting of the status, of where they were, and yet that was written right into the five way law. They were mandated to do it, and they still did do   Michael Hingson ** 40:37 it. We haven't, you know, the whole Americans with Disabilities Act. Finally, the Department of Justice said that the internet is a place of business, but still, it's not written in the law. And of course, we only see about 3% of all websites that tend to have any level of access. And there's no reason for that. It's not that magical. And again, I go back to what do we do to get schools and those who teach people how to code to understand the value of putting in accessibility right from the outset?   Mike Paciello ** 41:10 Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I think this is what Kate sanka is trying to do with with Teach access. In fact, you know, again, my company, TPG was one of the founding companies have teach access back again, 10 years ago, when it first started. But that's where it starts. I mean, they're, they're pretty much focused on post secondary, university education, but I could tell you on a personal level, I was speaking at my kids grade school, elementary school, because they were already using laptops and computers back then it starts. Then you've got to build a mindset. You've got to build it we you've heard about the accessibility, maturity models coming out of the W, 3c, and in I, double AP. What that speaks to fundamentally, is building a culture within your corporate organization that is think accessibility as a think accessibility mindset, that it is woven into the fiber of every business line, in every technology, software development life cycle, all of the contributors at that level, from A to Z. But if you don't build it into the culture, it's not going to happen. So I would love to see a lot more being done at that level. But yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a hero. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 42:34 we're, we're left out of the conversation so much. Yeah, yeah, totally. So you, you sold TPG, and you then formed, or you had web able and then able Docs.   Mike Paciello ** 42:48 So what web able came out was a carve out, one of two carve outs that I had from when I sold TPG. The other was open access technologies, which which eventually was sold to another accessibility company primarily focused on making documentation accessible to meet the WCAG and other standards requirements and web able I carved out. It's been a kind of a hobby of mine now, for since I sold TPG, I'm still working on the back end, ironically, from the get go, so we're talking, you know, again, eight years ago, I had built machine learning and AI into it. From then back then, I did so that what it does is it very simply, goes out and collects 1000s and 1000s of articles as it relates to technology, people with disabilities, and then cleans them up and post them to web able.com I've got a lot more playing for it, but that's in a nutshell. That's what it does. And I don't we do some we do some QA review to make sure that the cleanup in terms of accessibility and the articles are are properly formatted and are accessible. We use the web aim API, but yeah, works like magic. Works like clockwork, and that's got aI uses IBM Watson AI built into it. Yeah, enable docs was abledocs was, how should I say this in a nice way, abledocs was a slight excursion off of my main route. It can work out. I wish it had. It had a lot of potential, much like open access technologies, but they both suffered from owners who really, really not including myself, who just didn't have good vision and in lack humility,   Michael Hingson ** 44:43 yeah. How's that? There you go. Well, so not to go political or anything, but AI in general is interesting, and I know that there have been a lot of debates over the last few years about artificial. Intelligence and helping to make websites accessible. There are several companies like AudioEye, user way, accessibe and so on that to one degree or another, use AI. What? What? So in general, what do you think about AI and how it's going to help deal with or not, the whole issue of disabilities and web access,   Mike Paciello ** 45:22 yeah, and we're going to set aside Neil Jacobs thoughts on how he sees it in the future, right? Although I have to tell you, he gave me some things to think about, so we'll just set that to to the side. So I think what AI offers today is something that I thought right away when it started to see the, you know, the accessibes, the user ways, the audio, eyes, and all the other companies kind of delving into it, I always saw potential to how's this remediate a fundamental problem or challenge, let's not call it a problem, a challenge that we were otherwise seeing in the professional services side of that equation around web accessibility, right? So you get experts who use validation tools and other tools, who know about code. Could go in and they know and they use usability, they use user testing, and they go in and they can tell you what you need to do to make your digital properties right, usable and accessible. People with disabilities, all well and good. That's great. And believe me, I had some of the best people, if not the best people in the world, work for me at one time. However, there are a couple of things it could not do in it's never going to do. Number one, first and foremost, from my perspective, it can't scale. It cannot scale. You can do some things at, you know, in a large way. For example, if, if a company is using some sort of, you know, CMS content management system in which their entire sites, you know, all their sites, all their digital properties, you know, are woven into templates, and those templates are remediated. So that cuts down a little bit on the work. But if you go into companies now, it's not like they're limited to two or three templates. Now they've got, you know, department upon department upon department, everybody's got a different template. So even those are becoming very vos, very verbose and very plentiful. So accessibility as a manual effort doesn't really scale well. And if it does, even if it could, it's not fast enough, right? So that's what AI does, AI, coupled with automation, speeds up that process and delivers a much wider enterprise level solution. Now again, AI automation is not, is not a whole, is not a holistic science. You know, it's not a silver bullet. David Marathi likes to use the term, what is he? He likes the gold standard. Well, from his perspective, and by the way, David Marathi is CEO of audio. Eye is a combination of automation AI in expert analysis, along with the use of the integration of user testing and by user testing, it's not just personas, but it's also compatibility with the assistive technologies that people with disabilities use. Now, when you do that, you've got something that you could pattern after a standard software development life cycle, environment in which you integrate all of these things. So if you got a tool, you integrate it there. If you've got, you know, a digital accessibility platform which does all this automation, AI, right, which, again, this is the this is a forester foresters take on the the the daps, as they calls it. And not really crazy about that, but that's what they are. Digital Accessibility platforms. It allows us to scale and scale at costs that are much lower, at speeds that are much faster, and it's just a matter of like any QA, you've got to check your work, and you've got it, you can't count on that automation being absolute. We know for a fact that right now, at best, we're going to be able to get 35 to 40% accuracy, some claim, larger different areas. I'm still not convinced of that, but the fact of the matter is, it's like anything else. Technology gets better as it goes, and we'll see improvements over time periods.   Michael Hingson ** 49:49 So here's here's my thought, yeah, let's say you use AI in one of the products that's out there. And I. You go to a website and you include it, and it reasonably well makes the website 50% more usable and accessible than it was before. I'm just, I just threw out that number. I know it's random. Go ahead, Yep, yeah, but let's say it does that. The reality is that means that it's 50% that the web developers, the web coders, don't have to do because something else is dealing with it. But unfortunately, their mentality is not to want to deal with that because they also fear it. But, you know, I remember back in the mid 1980s I started a company because I went off and tried to find a job and couldn't find one. So I started a company with a couple of other people, where we sold early PC based CAD systems to architects, right? And we had AutoCAD versus CAD. Another one called point line, which was a three dimensional system using a y cap solid modeling board that took up two slots in your PC. So it didn't work with all PCs because we didn't have enough slots. But anyway, right, right, right. But anyway, when I brought architects in and we talked about what it did and we showed them, many of them said, I'll never use that. And I said, why? Well, it does work, and that's not the question. But the issue is, we charge by the time, and so we take months to sometimes create designs and projects, right? And so we can't lose that revenue. I said, you're looking at it all wrong. Think about it this way, somebody gives you a job, you come back and you put it in the CAD system. You go through all the iterations it takes, let's just say, two weeks. Then you call your customer in. You use point line, and you can do a three dimensional walk through and fly through. You can even let them look out the window and see what there is and all that they want to make changes. They tell you the changes. You go off and you make the changes. And two weeks later, now it's a month, you give them their finished product, all the designs, all the plots and all that, all done, and you charge them exactly the same price you were going to charge them before. Now you're not charging for your time, you're charging for your expertise, right? And I think that same model still holds true that the technology, I think most people will agree that it is not perfect, but there are a lot of things that it can do. Because the reality is, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, are all things that can be defined with computer code, whether it necessarily does it all well with AI or not, is another story. But if it does it to a decent fraction, it makes all the difference in terms of what you're able to do and how quickly you can do   Mike Paciello ** 52:52 it. Yeah, I can argue with that at all. I think any time that we can make our jobs a little bit easier so that we can focus where we should be focused. In this case, as you said, the expertise side of it, right to fix those complicated scenarios or situations that require a hands on surgical like Right? Expertise, you can do that now. You've got more hours more time because it's been saved. The only thing I would say, Mike, about what, what you just said, is that there with that, with that mindset, okay, comes responsibility. Oh, yeah, in this is where I think in everybody that knows anything about this environment, you and I have an intimate understanding of this. The whole overlay discussion is the biggest problem with what happened was less about the technology and more about what claims are being made. Yeah, the technology could do which you could not do in, in some cases, could never do, or would never, would never do, well, right? So if you create, and I would submit this is true in as a fundamental principle, if you create a technology of any kind, you must, in truth, inform your clients of of what it can and cannot do so they understand the absolute value to them, because the last thing you want, because, again, we live in a, unfortunately, a very litigious world. Right soon as there's   Michael Hingson ** 54:49 a mistake couldn't happen,   Mike Paciello ** 54:51 they'll go right after you. So now you know, and again, I don't I'm not necessarily just blaming the ambulance chasers of the world. World. I was talking to an NFP lawyer today. He referred to them in a different name, and I can't remember well, I never heard the expression before, but that's what he meant, right? Yeah, it's the salesman and the product managers and the marketing people themselves, who are were not themselves, to your point, properly trained, properly educated, right? It can't be done, what clearly could not be said, what should or should not be said, right? And then you got lawyers writing things all over the place. So, yeah, yeah. So, so I look people knew when I made the decision to come to audio eye that it was a make or break scenario for me, or at least that's what they thought in my mindset. It always, has always been, that I see incredible possibilities as you do or technology, it just has to be handled responsibly.   Michael Hingson ** 55:56 Do you think that the companies are getting better and smarter about what they portray about their products than they than they were three and four and five years ago.   Mike Paciello ** 56:08 Okay, look, I sat in and chaired a meeting with the NFB on this whole thing. And without a doubt, they're getting smarter. But it took not just a stick, you know, but, but these large lawsuits to get them to change their thinking, to see, you know, where they where they were wrong, and, yeah, things are much better. There's still some issues out there. I both know it that's going to happen, that happens in every industry,   Michael Hingson ** 56:42 but there are improvements. It is getting better, and people are getting smarter, and that's where an organization like the NFB really does need to become more involved than in a sense, they are. They took some pretty drastic steps with some of the companies, and I think that they cut off their nose, despite their face as well, and that didn't help. So I think there are things that need to be done all the way around, but I do see that progress is being made too. I totally   Mike Paciello ** 57:11 agree, and in fact, I'm working with them right now. We're going to start working on the California Accessibility Act again. I'm really looking forward to working with the NFB, the DRC and Imperato over there and his team in the disability rights consortium, consortium with disability rights. What DRC coalition, coalition in in California. I can't wait to do that. We tried last year. We got stopped short. It got tabled, but I feel very good about where we're going this year. So that's, that's my that's, that is my focus right now. And I'm glad I'm going to be able to work with the NFB to be able to do that. Yeah, well, I, I really do hope that it passes. We've seen other states. We've seen some states pass some good legislation, and hopefully we will continue to see some of that go on. Yeah, Colorado has done a great job. Colorado sent a great job. I think they've done it. I really like what's being done with the EAA, even though it's in Europe, and some of the things that are going there, Susanna, Lauren and I had some great discussions. I think she is has been a leader of a Yeoman effort at that level. So we'll see. Let's, let's, I mean, there's still time out here. I guess I really would like to retire,   Michael Hingson ** 58:28 but I know the feeling well, but I can't afford to yet, so I'll just keep speaking and all that well, Mike, this has been wonderful. I really appreciate you taking an hour and coming on, and at least neither of us is putting up with any kind of snow right now, but later in the year we'll see more of that.   Mike Paciello ** 58:45 Yeah, well, maybe you will. We don't get snow down. I have. We've gotten maybe 25 flakes in North Carolina since I've been here.   Michael Hingson ** 58:53 Yeah, you don't get a lot of snow. We don't hear we don't really get it here, around us, up in the mountains, the ski resorts get it, but I'm out in a valley, so we don't, yeah,   Mike Paciello ** 59:02 yeah, no. I love it. I love this is golfing weather.   Michael Hingson ** 59:05 There you go. If people want to reach out to you, how do they do that?   Mike Paciello ** 59:11 There's a couple of ways. Certainly get in touch with me at AudioEye. It's michael.paciello@audioeye.com   Michael Hingson ** 59:17 B, A, C, I, E, L, L, O,   Mike Paciello ** 59:18 that's correct. Thank you for that. You could send me personal email at Mike paciello@gmail.com and or you can send me email at web able. It's m passielo at web able.com, any one of those ways. And please feel free you get on all the social networks. So feel free to link, connect to me. Anyway, I try to respond. I don't think there's anyone I I've not responded to one form or another.   Michael Hingson ** 59:46 Yeah, I'm I'm the same way. If I get an email, I want to respond to it. Yeah, well, thanks again for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening. We really appreciate it. Love to hear your thoughts about this episode. Please feel free to email. Me, you can get me the email address I generally use is Michael h i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, or you can go to our podcast page, which is Michael hingson.com/podcast, and there's a contact form there. But love to hear from you. Love to hear your thoughts, and most of all, please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening. We value your ratings and your reviews a whole lot, so we really appreciate you doing that. And if any of you, and Mike, including you, can think of other people that you think ought to be guests on the podcast, we are always looking for more people, so fill us up, help us find more folks. And we would appreciate that a great deal. So again, Mike, thanks very much. This has been a lot of fun, and we'll have to do it again.   Mike Paciello ** 1:00:44 Thanks for the invitation. Mike, I really appreciate it. Don't forget to add 10 Nakata to your list,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:49 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

Welcome to a special four-part podcast series titled "Thomas Edison on Leadership." In this series, we'll explore the surprising and insightful leadership principles of one of history's most prolific inventors—principles that still speak powerfully to today's leaders in business, ministry, and innovation. Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) was not only the mind behind the electric light bulb, the phonograph, and motion pictures—he was also the founder of 14 companies, including General Electric. Over the course of his lifetime, he was granted 1,093 patents, a staggering achievement that speaks to both his creativity and his tenacity. But what often goes unnoticed is Edison's extraordinary ability to lead others, manage chaos, overcome failure, and build an enduring legacy of innovation. Edison was an incredible leader, a tireless experimenter, and a shrewd entrepreneur. His Menlo Park and later West Orange labs were some of the first true innovation hubs—long before that term became fashionable. In this first episode, we learn that Edison was a once-in-a-lifetime force, but he also left enduring lessons for those who want to learn growth principles for their own churches and organizations. The post Thomas Edison on Leadership – Part 1: Understanding the Mind of a Growth Leader appeared first on Church Answers.

Welcome to a special four-part podcast series titled "Thomas Edison on Leadership." In this series, we'll explore the surprising and insightful leadership principles of one of history's most prolific inventors—principles that still speak powerfully to today's leaders in business, ministry, and innovation. Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) was not only the mind behind the electric light bulb, the phonograph, and motion pictures—he was also the founder of 14 companies, including General Electric. Over the course of his lifetime, he was granted 1,093 patents, a staggering achievement that speaks to both his creativity and his tenacity. But what often goes unnoticed is Edison's extraordinary ability to lead others, manage chaos, overcome failure, and build an enduring legacy of innovation. Edison was an incredible leader, a tireless experimenter, and a shrewd entrepreneur. His Menlo Park and later West Orange labs were among the first true innovation hubs, long before the term became common. In this second episode, we delve into the failures of Edison, failures he considered essential to success. The post Thomas Edison on Leadership – Part 2: How Failures Succeed appeared first on Church Answers.

Send us a textIn this week's episode we discussed the surprising origins behind everyday innovations and the brilliant (and sometimes overlooked) minds who created them. Who really invented the telephone? Jason and I give you a fast-paced dive into the world of inventors, game-changers, and the ideas that shaped our lives.Our Links:Retrospect

Get your week started with some words of wisdom! Hear the weekly wrap of Amy and T.J.’s quotes of the day that will get your week started off with intention and purpose.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Get your week started with some words of wisdom! Hear the weekly wrap of Amy and T.J.’s quotes of the day that will get your week started off with intention and purpose.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Get your week started with some words of wisdom! Hear the weekly wrap of Amy and T.J.’s quotes of the day that will get your week started off with intention and purpose.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight's reading comes from Edison: His Life and Inventions. Written by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin, this story looks at the life of Thomas Edison and his inventions. My name is Teddy and I aim to help people everywhere get a good night's rest. Sleep is so important and my mission is to help you get the rest you need. The podcast is designed to play in the background while you slowly fall asleep.For those new to the podcast, it started from my own struggles with sleep. I wanted to create a resource for others facing similar challenges, and I'm so grateful for the amazing community we've built together.

You are in for a real treat on this episode. My guest this time is Greg Schwem. Greg is a corporate comedian. What is a corporate comedian? You probably can imagine that his work has to do with corporations, and you would be right. Greg will explain much better than I can. Mr. Schwem began his career as a TV journalist but eventually decided to take up what he really wanted to do, be a comedian. The story of how he evolved is quite fascinating by any standard. Greg has done comedy professionally since 1989. He speaks today mostly to corporate audiences. He will tell us how he does his work. It is quite interesting to hear how he has learned to relate to his audiences. As you will discover as Greg and I talk, we often work in the same way to learn about our audiences and thus how we get to relate to them. Greg has written three books. His latest one is entitled “Turning Gut Punches into Punch Lines: A Comedian's Journey Through Cancer, Divorce and Other Hilarious Stuff”. As Greg says, “Don't worry, it's not one of those whiny, ‘woe is me,' self- serving books. Instead, it's a hilarious account of me living the words I've been preaching to my audiences: You can always find humor in every situation, even the tough ones. Greg offers many interesting observations as he discusses his career and how he works. I think we all can find significant lessons we can use from his remarks. About the Guest: Hi! I'm Greg Schwem. a Chicago-based business humor speaker and MC who HuffPost calls “Your boss's favorite comedian.” I've traveled the world providing clean, customized laughs to clients such as Microsoft, IBM, McDonald's and even the CIA. I also write the bi-weekly Humor Hotel column for the Chicago Tribune syndicate. I believe every corporate event needs humor. As I often tell clients, “When times are good, people want to laugh. When times are bad, people need to laugh.” One Fortune 500 client summed things up perfectly, saying “You were fantastic and just what everybody needed during these times.” In September 2024 I released my third and most personal book, Turning Gut Punches into Punch Lines: A Comedian's Journey Through Cancer, Divorce and Other Hilarious Stuff. Don't worry, it's not one of those whiny, “woe is me,” self-serving books. Instead, it's a hilarious account of me living the words I've been preaching to my audiences: You can always find humor in every situation, even the tough ones. You can pick up a copy at Amazon or select book stores. Ways to connect with Greg: Website: www.gregschwem.com YouTube: www.youtube.com/gregschwem LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/gregschwem Instagram: www.instagram.com/gregschwem X: www.x.com/gregschwem About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:16 Hi everyone, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Today we are going to definitely have some fun. I'll tell you about our guests in a moment, but first, I want to tell you about me. That'll take an hour or so. I am Michael Hingson, your host, and you're listening to unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. And I don't know, we may get inclusion or diversity into this, but our guest is Greg Schwem. Greg used to be a TV reporter, now he's a comedian, not sure which is funnier, but given some of the reporters I've seen on TV, they really should go into tonight club business. But anyway, Greg, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here. I really appreciate you being here and taking the time   Greg Schwem ** 02:04 Well, Michael, it is an honor to be included on your show. I'm really looking forward to the next hour of conversation. I   Speaker 1 ** 02:10 told Greg a little while ago, one of my major life ambitions that I never got to do was to go to a Don Rickles concert and sit in the front row so that hopefully he would pick on me, so that I could say, Yeah, I saw you once on TV, and I haven't been able to see since. What do you think of that? You hockey puck, but I never got to do it. So very disappointed. But everybody has bucket list moments, everybody has, but they don't get around to I'm sorry. Yeah, I know. Well, the other one is, I love to pick on Mike Wallace. I did a radio show for six years opposite him in 60 minutes, and I always love to say that Wallace really had criminal tendencies, because he started out being an announcer in radio and he announced things like The Green Hornet and the Sky King and other shows where they had a lot of criminals. So I just figured he had to be associated with criminals somewhere in his life. Of course, everybody picked on him, and he had broad shoulders. And I again, I regret I never got to to meet him, which is sort of disappointing. But I did get to meet Peter Falk. That was kind of fun.   Greg Schwem ** 03:15 Mike Wallace to Peter Falk. Nice transition there. I know.   Michael Hingson ** 03:21 Well I am really glad you're with us. So why don't we start? We'll start with the serious part. Why don't you tell us, kind of about the early Greg schwim and growing up and all that sort of stuff, just to set the stage, as it were,   Greg Schwem ** 03:34 how far back you want to go? You want to go back to Little League, or you want to   Speaker 1 ** 03:37 just, oh, start at the beginning, a long time ago, right? I was a   Greg Schwem ** 03:41 very strange child. No, I you. You obviously introduced me as a as a comedian, and that is my full time job. And you also said that I was a former journalist, and that is my professional career. Yes, I went from, as I always like to say, I went from depressing people all day long, to making them laugh. And that's, that's kind of what I did. I always did want to be I majored in Journalism at Northwestern University, good journalism school. Originally, I always wanted to be a television reporter. That was as a professional career I was, I dabbled in comedy. Started when I was 16. That is the first time I ever got on stage at my school, my high school, and then at a comedy club. I was there one of the first comedy clubs in Chicago, a place called the comedy cottage. It was in the suburb of beautiful, beautiful suburb of Rosemont, Illinois, and they were one of the very, very first full time comedy clubs in the nation. And as a 16 year old kid, I actually got on stage and did five minutes here and five minutes there. And thought I was, I was hot stuff, but I never, ever thought I would do it for a living. I thought comedy would always be just a hobby. And I. Especially when I went to college, and I thought, okay, Northwestern is pretty good school, pretty expensive school. I should actually use my degree. And I did. I moved down to Florida, wrote for a newspaper called The Palm Beach post, which, don't let that title fool you. It's Palm Beach was a very small segment of of the area that it was, that it served, but I did comedy on the side, and just because I moved down there, I didn't know anybody, so I hung out at comedy clubs just to have something to do. And little by little, comedy in the late 80s, it exploded. Exploded. There were suddenly clubs popping up everywhere, and you were starting to get to know guys that were doing these clubs and were starting to get recognition for just being comedians. And one of them opened up a very, very good Club opened up about 10 minutes from my apartment in West Palm Beach, and I hung out there and started to get more stage time, and eventually started to realize at the same time that I was getting better as a comedian, I was becoming more disillusioned as a journalist in terms of what my bosses wanted me to report on and the tone they wanted me to use. And I just decided that I would I would just never be able to live with myself if I didn't try it, if I didn't take the the plunge into comedy, and that's what I did in 1989 and I've been doing it ever since. And my career has gone in multiple directions, as I think it needs to. If you're going to be in show business and sustain a career in show business, you have to wear a lot of different hats, which I feel like I've done.   Michael Hingson ** 06:40 So tell me more about that. What does that mean exactly?   Greg Schwem ** 06:43 Well, I mean, I started out as a what you would pretty much if somebody said, If you heard somebody say, I'm a comedian, they would envision some guy that just went to comedy clubs all the time, and that's what I did. I was just a guy that traveled by car all over the Midwest and the Southeast primarily, and did comedy clubs, but I quickly realized that was kind of a going nowhere way to attack it, to do comedy unless you were incredibly lucky, because there were so many guys doing it and so many clubs, and I just didn't see a future in it, and I felt like I had to separate myself from the pack a little bit. And I was living in Chicago, which is where I'm from, and still, still exist. Still reside in Chicago, and I started to get involved with a company that did live trade show presentations. So if you've ever been on a trade show floor and you see people, they're mostly actors and actresses that wear a headset and deliver a spiel, a pitch, like every, every twice an hour, about some company, some new product, and so forth. And I did that, and I started to write material about what I was seeing on trade show floors and putting it into my stand up act, stuff about business, stuff about technology, because I was Hawking a lot of new computers and things like that. This was the mid 90s when technology was exploding, and I started to put this into my stand up act. And then I'd have people come up to me afterwards and say, hey, you know those jokes you did about computers and tech support, if you could come down to our office, you know, we're having a golf tournament, we're having a Christmas party, we would love to hear that material. And little by little, I started transitioning my act into doing shows for the corporate market. I hooked up with a corporate agent, or the corporate agent heard about me, and started to open a lot of doors for me in terms of working for very large corporations, and that's pretty much what I've been doing. I stopped working clubs, and I transitioned, instead of being a comedian, I became a corporate humor speaker. And that's what I do, primarily to this day, is to speak at business conferences. Just kind of get people to loosen up, get them to laugh about what they do all day without without making it sound like I'm belittling what they do. And also when I'm not doing that, I work about eight to 10 weeks a year on cruise ships, performing for cruise audiences. So that's a nice getaway.   Speaker 1 ** 09:18 It's interesting since I mentioned Don Rickles earlier, years ago, I saw an interview that he did with Donahue, and one of the things that Don Rickles said, and after he said it, I thought about it. He said, I really don't want to pick on anyone who's going to be offended by me picking on them. He said, I try to watch really carefully, so that if it looks like somebody's getting offended, I'll leave them alone, because that's not what this is all about. It isn't about abusing people. It's about trying to get people to have fun, and if somebody's offended, I don't want to to pick on them, and I've heard a number of albums and other things with him and just. Noticed that that was really true. He wouldn't pick on someone unless they could take it and had a lot of fun with it. And I thought that was absolutely interesting, because that certainly wasn't, of course, the rep that he had and no, but it was   Greg Schwem ** 10:16 true. It is, and it doesn't take long to see as a as a comedian, when you're looking at an audience member and you're talking to them, it, you can tell very quickly, Are they enjoying this? Are they enjoying being the center of attention? A lot of people are, or are they uncomfortable with it? Now, I don't know that going in. I mean, I you know, of course. And again, that's a very small portion of my show is to talk to the audience, but it is something particularly today. I think audiences want to be more involved. I think they enjoy you talk you. Some of these, the new comedians in their 20s and 30s and so forth. Them, some of them are doing nothing, but what they call crowd work. So they're just doing 45 minutes of talking to the audience, which can be good and can be rough too, because you're working without a net. But I'm happy to give an audience a little bit of that. But I also have a lot of stuff that I want to say too. I mean, I work very hard coming up with material and and refining it, and I want to talk about what's going on in my life, too. So I don't want the audience to be the entire show, right?   Speaker 1 ** 11:26 And and they shouldn't be, because it isn't about that. But at the same time, it is nice to involve them. I find that as a keynote and public speaker, I find that true as well, though, is that audiences do like to be involved. And I do some things right at the outset of most talks to involve people, and also in involving them. I want to get them to last so that I start to draw them in, because later, when I tell the September 11 story, which isn't really a humorous thing. Directly,   Greg Schwem ** 12:04 i know i Good luck. I'm spinning 911 to make it I don't think I've ever heard anybody say, by the way, I was trapped in a building. Stick with me. It's kind of cute. It's got a funny ending. And   Speaker 1 ** 12:20 that's right, and it is hard I can, I can say humorous things along the way in telling the story, but, sure, right, but, but clearly it's not a story that, in of itself, is humorous. But what I realized over the years, and it's really dawned on me in the last four or five years is we now have a whole generation of people who have absolutely no memory of September 11 because they were children or they weren't even born yet. And I believe that my job is to not only talk about it, but literally to draw them into the building and have them walk down the stairs with me, and I have to be descriptive in a very positive way, so that they really are part of what's going on. And the reality is that I do hear people or people come up and say, we were with you when you were going down the stairs. And I think that's my job, because the reality is that we've got to get people to understand there are lessons to be learned from September 11, right? And the only real way to do that is to attract the audience and bring them in. And I think probably mostly, I'm in a better position to do that than most people, because I'm kind of a curious soul, being blind and all that, but it allows me to to draw them in and and it's fun to do that, actually. And I, and   Greg Schwem ** 13:52 I gotta believe, I mean, obviously I wasn't there, Michael, but I gotta believe there were moments of humor in people, a bunch of people going down the stairs. Sure, me, you put people get it's like, it's like when a bunch of people are in an elevator together, you know, I mean, there's I, when I look around and I try to find something humorous in a crowded and it's probably the same thing now, obviously it, you know, you got out in time. But I and, you know, don't that's the hotel phone, which I just hung up so but I think that I can totally see where you're going from, where, if you're if you're talking to people who have no recollection of this, have no memory where you're basically educating them on the whole event. I think you then you have the opportunity to tell the story in whatever way you see fit. And I think that however you choose to do it is there's no wrong way to do it, I guess is what I'm trying to get at.   Speaker 1 ** 14:55 Well, yeah, I think the wrong way is to be two. Graphic and morbid and morbid, but one of the things that I talk about, for example, is that a colleague of mine who was with me, David Frank, at about the 50th floor, suddenly said, Mike, we're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. And as as I tell the audience, typically, I as as you heard my introduction at the beginning, I have a secondary teaching credential. And one of the things that you probably don't know about teachers is that there's a secret course that every teacher takes called Voice 101, how to yell at students and and so what I tell people is that when David said that, I just said in my best teacher voice, stop it, David, if Roselle and I can go down these stairs, so can you. And he told me later that that brought him out of his funk, and he ended up walking a floor below me and shouting up to me everything he saw. And it was just mainly, everything is clear, like I'm on floor 48 he's on 47/47 floor. Everything is good here, and what I have done for the past several years in telling that part of the story is to say David, in reality, probably did more to keep people calm and focused as we went down the stairs than anyone else, because anyone within the sound of his voice heard someone who was focused and sounded okay. You know, hey, I'm on the 44th floor. This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is not stopping. And it it helps people understand that we all had to do what we could to keep everyone from not panicking. And it almost happened a few times that people did, but we worked at it. But the i The idea is that it helps draw people in, and I think that's so important to do for my particular story is to draw them in and have them walk down the stairs with me, which is what I do, absolutely, yeah, yeah. Now I'm curious about something that keeps coming up. I hear it every so often, public speaker, Speaker experts and people who are supposedly the great gurus of public speaking say you shouldn't really start out with a joke. And I've heard that so often, and I'm going give me a break. Well, I think, I think it depends, yeah, I think   Greg Schwem ** 17:33 there's two schools of thought to that. I think if you're going to start out with a joke, it better be a really good one, or something that you either has been battle tested, because if it doesn't work now, you, you know, if you're hoping for a big laugh, now you're saying, Well, you're a comedian, what do you do? You know, I mean, I, I even, I just sort of work my way into it a little bit. Yeah, and I'm a comedian, so, and, you know, it's funny, Michael, I will get, I will get. I've had CEOs before say to me, Hey, you know, I've got to give this presentation next week. Give me a joke I can tell to everybody. And I always decline. I always it's like, I don't need that kind of pressure. And it's like, I can, I can, I can tell you a funny joke, but,   Michael Hingson ** 18:22 but you telling the   Greg Schwem ** 18:23 work? Yeah, deliver it. You know, I can't deliver it for you. Yeah? And I think that's what I also, you know, on that note, I've never been a big fan of Stand Up Comedy classes, and you see them all popping up all over the place. Now, a lot of comedy clubs will have them, and usually the you take the class, and the carrot at the end is you get to do five minutes at a comedy club right now, if that is your goal, if you're somebody who always like, Gosh, I wonder what it would like be like to stand up on stage and and be a comedian for five minutes. That's something I really like to try. By all means, take the class, all right. But if you think that you're going to take this class and you're going to emerge a much funnier person, like all of a sudden you you weren't funny, but now you are, don't take the class, yeah? And I think, sadly, I think that a lot of people sign up for these classes thinking the latter, thinking that they will all of a sudden become, you know, a comedian. And it doesn't work that way. I'm sorry you cannot teach unfunny people to be funny. Yeah, some of us have the gift of it, and some of us don't. Some of us are really good with our hands, and just know how to build stuff and how to look at things and say, I can do that. And some of us, myself included, definitely do not. You know, I think you can teach people to be more comfortable, more comfortable in front of an audience and. Correct. I think that is definitely a teachable thing, but I don't think that you can teach people to be funnier   Speaker 1 ** 20:10 and funnier, and I agree with that. I tend to be amazed when I keep hearing that one of the top fears in our world is getting up in front of an audience and talking with them, because people really don't understand that audiences, whatever you're doing, want you to succeed, and they're not against you, but we have just conditioned ourselves collectively that speaking is something to be afraid of?   Greg Schwem ** 20:41 Yes, I think, though it's, I'm sure, that fear, though, of getting up in front of people has only probably been exacerbated and been made more intense because now everybody in the audience has a cell phone and to and to be looking out at people and to see them on their phones. Yeah, you're and yet, you prepped all day long. You've been nervous. You've been you probably didn't sleep the night before. If you're one of these people who are afraid of speaking in public, yeah, and then to see people on their phones. You know, it used to bother me. It doesn't anymore, because it's just the society we live in. I just, I wish, I wish people could put their phones down and just enjoy laughing for 45 minutes. But unfortunately, our society can't do that anymore, so I just hope that I can get most of them to stop looking at it.   Speaker 1 ** 21:32 I don't make any comments about it at the beginning, but I have, on a number of occasions, been delivering a speech, and I hear a cell phone ring, and I'll stop and go, Hello. And I don't know for sure what the person with the cell phone does, but by the same token, you know they really shouldn't be on their phone and and it works out, okay, nobody's ever complained about it. And when I just say hello, or I'll go Hello, you don't say, you know, and things like that, but, but I don't, I don't prolong it. I'll just go back to what I was talking about. But I remember, when I lived in New Jersey, Sandy Duncan was Peter Pan in New York. One night she was flying over the audience, and there was somebody on his cell phone, and she happened to be going near him, and she just kicked the phone out of his hand. And I think that's one of the things that started Broadway in saying, if you have a cell phone, turn it off. And those are the announcements that you hear at the beginning of any Broadway performance today.   Greg Schwem ** 22:39 Unfortunately, people don't abide by that. I know you're still hearing cell phones go off, yeah, you know, in Broadway productions at the opera or wherever, so people just can't and there you go. There that just shows you're fighting a losing battle.   Speaker 1 ** 22:53 Yeah, it's just one of those things, and you got to cope with it.   Greg Schwem ** 22:58 What on that note, though, there was, I will say, if I can interrupt real quick, there was one show I did where nobody had their phone. It was a few years ago. I spoke at the CIA. I spoke for some employees of the CIA. And this might, this might freak people out, because you think, how is it that America's covert intelligence agency, you think they would be on their phones all the time. No, if you work there, you cannot have your phone on you. And so I had an audience of about 300 people who I had their total attention because there was no other way to they had no choice but to listen to me, and it was wonderful. It was just a great show, and I it was just so refreshing. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 23:52 and mostly I don't hear cell phones, but they do come up from time to time. And if they do, then you know it happens. Now my one of my favorite stories is I once spoke in Maryland at the Department of Defense, which anybody who knows anything knows that's the National Security Agency, but they call it the Department of Defense, as if we don't know. And my favorite story is that I had, at the time, a micro cassette recorder, and it died that morning before I traveled to Fort Meade, and I forgot to just throw it away, and it was in my briefcase. So I got to the fort, they searched, apparently, didn't find it, but on the way out, someone found it. They had to get a bird Colonel to come to decide what to do with it. I said, throw it away. And they said, No, we can't do that. It's yours. And they they decided it didn't work, and they let me take it and I threw it away. But it was so, so funny to to be at the fort and see everybody running around crazy. See, what do we do with this micro cassette recorder? This guy's been here for an hour. Yeah. So it's it. You know, all sorts of things happen. What do you think about you know, there's a lot of discussion about comedians who use a lot of foul language in their shows, and then there are those who don't, and people seem to like the shock value of that.   Greg Schwem ** 25:25 Yeah, I'm very old school in that. I guess my short answer is, No, I've never, ever been one of those comedians. Ever I do a clean show, I actually learned my lesson very early on. I think I think that I think comedians tend to swear because when they first start out, out of nerves, because I will tell you that profanity does get laughter. And I've always said, if you want to, if you want to experiment on that, have a comedian write a joke, and let's say he's got two shows that night. Let's say he's got an eight o'clock show and a 10 o'clock show. So let's say he does the joke in the eight o'clock and it's, you know, the cadence is bumper, bump up, bump up, bump up, punch line. Okay, now let's and let's see how that plays. Now let's now he does the 10 o'clock show and it's bumper, bump up, bump up F and Okay, yeah, I pretty much guarantee you the 10 o'clock show will get a bigger laugh. Okay? Because he's sort of, it's like the audience is programmed like, oh, okay, we're supposed to laugh at that now. And I think a lot of comedians think, Aha, I have just discovered how to be successful as a comedian. I will just insert the F word in front of every punch line, and you can kind of tell what comedians do that and what comedians I mean. I am fine with foul language, but have some jokes in there too. Don't make them. Don't make the foul word, the joke, the joke, right? And I can say another thing nobody has ever said to me, I cannot hire you because you're too clean. I've never gotten that. And all the years I've been doing this, and I know there's lots of comedians who who do work blue, who have said, you know, who have been turned down for that very reason. So I believe, if you're a comedian, the only way to get better is to work any place that will have you. Yeah, and you can't, so you might as well work clean so you can work any place that will have you, as opposed to being turned away.   Speaker 1 ** 27:30 Well, and I, and I know what, what happened to him and all that, but at the same time, I grew up listening to Bill Cosby and the fact that he was always clean. And, yeah, I understand everything that happened, but you can't deny and you can't forget so many years of humor and all the things that that he brought to the world, and the joy he brought to the world in so many ways.   Greg Schwem ** 27:57 Oh, yeah, no, I agree. I agree. And he Yeah, he worked everywhere. Jay Leno is another one. I mean, Jay Leno is kind of on the same wavelength as me, as far as don't let the profanity become the joke. You know, Eddie Murphy was, you know, was very foul. Richard Pryor, extremely foul. I but they also, prior, especially, had very intelligent material. I mean, you can tell and then if you want to insert your F bombs and so forth, that's fine, but at least show me that you're trying. At least show me that you came in with material in addition to the   Speaker 1 ** 28:36 foul language. The only thing I really have to say about all that is it? Jay Leno should just stay away from cars, but that's another story.   Greg Schwem ** 28:43 Oh, yeah, it's starting to   Greg Schwem ** 28:47 look that way. Yeah, it   Michael Hingson ** 28:49 was. It was fun for a while, Jay, but yeah, there's just two. It's like, Harrison Ford and plains. Yeah, same concept. At some point you're like, this isn't working out. Now I submit that living here in Victorville and just being out on the streets and being driven around and all that, I am firmly convinced, given the way most people drive here, that the bigoted DMV should let me have a license, because I am sure I can drive as well as most of the clowns around here. Yeah, so when they drive, I have no doubt. Oh, gosh. Well, you know, you switched from being a TV journalist and so on to to comedy. Was it a hard choice? Was it really difficult to do, or did it just seem like this is the time and this is the right thing to do. I was   Greg Schwem ** 29:41 both, you know, it was hard, because I really did enjoy my job and I liked, I liked being a TV news reporter. I liked, I liked a job that was different every day once you got in there, because you didn't know what they were going to send you out to do. Yes, you had. To get up and go to work every day and so forth. So there's a little bit of, you know, there's a little bit of the mundane, just like there is in any job, but once you were there, I liked, just never known what the day would bring, right? And and I, I think if I'd stayed with it, I think I think I could have gone pretty far, particularly now, because the now it's more people on TV are becoming more entertainers news people are becoming, yeah, they are. A lot of would be, want to be comedians and so forth. And I don't particularly think that's appropriate, but I agree. But so it was hard to leave, but it gets back to what I said earlier. At some point, you got to say, I was seeing comedians making money, and I was thinking, gosh, you know, if they're making money at this I I'm not hilarious, but I know I'm funnier than that guy. Yeah, I'm funnier than her, so why not? And I was young, and I was single, and I thought, if I if I don't try it now, I never will. And, and I'll bet there's just some hilarious people out there, yeah, who who didn't ever, who just were afraid   Michael Hingson ** 31:14 to take that chance, and they wouldn't take the leap, yeah,   Greg Schwem ** 31:16 right. And now they're probably kicking themselves, and I'm sure maybe they're very successful at what they do, but they're always going to say, what if, if I only done this? I don't ever, I don't, ever, I never, ever wanted to say that. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 31:31 well, and there's, there's something to be said for being brave and stepping out and doing something that you don't expect, or that you didn't expect, or that you weren't sure how it was going to go, but if you don't try, then you're never going to know just how, how much you could really accomplish and how much you can really do. And I think that the creative people, whatever they're being creative about, are the people who do step out and are willing to take a chance.   Greg Schwem ** 31:59 Yeah, yeah. And I told my kids that too. You know, it's just like, if it's something that you're passionate about, do it. Just try it. If it doesn't work out, then at least you can say I tried   Speaker 1 ** 32:09 it and and if it doesn't work out, then you can decide, what do I need to do to figure out why it didn't work out, or is it just not me? I want   Greg Schwem ** 32:18 to keep going? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.   Speaker 1 ** 32:21 So what is the difference between being a nightclub comedian and a corporate comedian? Because they are somewhat different. I think I know the answer. But what would you say that the differences between them? I think   Greg Schwem ** 32:33 the biggest thing is the audiences. I think when you when you are a nightclub comedian, you are working in front of people who are there to be entertained. Yeah, they, they paid money for that. That's what they're expecting. They, they, at some point during the day, they said, Hey, let's, let's go laugh tonight. That's what we really want to do when you're working in front of a corporate audiences. That's not necessarily the case. They are there. I primarily do business conferences and, you know, association meetings and so forth. And I'm just one cog in the wheel of a whole day's worth of meetings are, for the most part, very dry and boring, maybe certainly necessary educational. They're learning how to do their job better or something. And then you have a guy like me come in, and people aren't always ready to laugh, yeah, despite the fact that they probably need to, but they just they're not always in that mindset. And also the time of day. I mean, I do a lot of shows at nine in the morning. I do shows after lunch, right before lunch. I actually do very few shows in the evening, believe it or not. And so then you you have to, you kind of have to, in the while you're doing your act or your presentation or your speech, as I call it, you kind of have to let them know that it is okay. What you're doing is okay, and they should be okay with laughing. They shouldn't be looking around the whole time wondering if other people are laughing. You know, can I, can I? Can I tell you a quick story about how I drive that point home. Why not? Yeah, it's, I'll condense it into like five minutes. I mentioned that I worked on that I work on cruise ships occasionally, and I one night I was performing, and it was the first night of the cruise. And if anybody's ever been on a cruise, note, the first night, first night entertainers don't like the first night because people are tired. You know, they're they're a little edgy because they've been traveling all day. They're they're confused because they're not really sure where they're going on a ship. And the ones that have got it figured out usually over serve themselves because they're on vacation. So you put all that, so I'm doing my show on the first. Night, and it's going very well. And about five, six minutes in, I do a joke. Everybody laughs. Everybody shuts up. And from the back of the room in total darkness, I hear hat just like that. And I'm like, All right, you know, probably over served. So the rule of comedy is that everybody gets like. I was like, I'll let it go once, yeah. So I just kind of looked off in that direction, didn't say anything. Kept going with my active going with my act. About 10 minutes later, same thing happens. I tell a joke. Everybody laughs. Everybody shuts up. Hat now I'm like, Okay, I have got to, I've got to address the elephant in the room. So I think I just made some comment, like, you know, I didn't know Roseanne Barr was on this cruise, you know, because that was like the sound of the Yeah. Okay, everybody laugh. Nothing happened about five minutes later. It happens a third time. And now I'm just like, this is gonna stop. I'm going to put a stop to this. And I just fired off. I can't remember, like, three just like, hey man, you know you're you're just a little behind everybody else in this show and probably in life too, that, you know, things like that, and it never happened again. So I'm like, okay, mission accomplished on my part. Comedians love it when we can shut up somebody like that. Anyway. Show's over, I am out doing a meet and greet. Some guy comes up to me and he goes, hey, hey, you know that kid you were making fun of is mentally handicapped. And now, of course, I don't know this, but out of the corner of my eye, I see from the other exit a man pushing a son, his son in a wheelchair out of the showroom. And I'm just like, Oh, what have I done? And yeah. And of course, when you're on a cruise, you're you're on a cruise. When you're a cruise ship entertainer, you have to live with your audience. So I couldn't hide. I spent like the next three days, and it seemed like wherever I was, the man and his son in the wheelchair were nearby. And finally, on the fourth day, I think was, I was waiting for an elevator. Again, 3500 people on this ship, okay, I'm waiting for an elevator. The elevator door opens. Guess who are the only two people the elevator, the man and his son. And I can't really say I'll wait for the next one. So I get on, and I said to this the father, I said, I just want you to know I had no idea. You know, I'm so sorry. I can't see back there, this kind of thing. And the dad looks at me. He puts his hand up to stop me, and he points to me, and he goes, I thought you were hysterical. And it was, not only was it relief, but it kind of, it's sort of a lesson that if you think something is funny, you should laugh at it. Yeah. And I think sometimes in corporate America, my point in this. I think sometimes when you do these corporate shows, I think that audience members forget that. I think very busy looking around to see if their immediate boss thinks it's funny, and eventually everybody's looking at the CEO to see if they're like, you know, I think if you're doing it that way, if that's the way you're you're approaching humor. You're doing yourself a disservice, if right, stopping yourself from laughing at something that you think is funny.   Speaker 1 ** 38:09 I do think that that all too often the problem with meetings is that we as a as a country, we in corporations, don't do meetings, right anyway, for example, early on, I heard someone at a convention of the National Federation of the Blind say he was the new executive director of the American Foundation for the Blind, and he said, I have instituted a policy, no Braille, no meetings. And what that was all about was to say, if you're going to have a meeting, you need to make sure that all the documentation is accessible to those who aren't going to read the print. I take it further and say you shouldn't be giving out documentation during the meeting. And you can use the excuse, well, I got to get the latest numbers and all that. And my point is, you shouldn't be giving out documentation at a meeting, because the meeting is for people to communicate and interact with each other. And if you're giving out papers and so on, what are people going to do? They're going to read that, and they're not going to listen to the speakers. They're not going to listen to the other people. And we do so many things like that, we've gotten into a habit of doing things that become so predictable, but also make meetings very boring, because who wants to look at the papers where you can be listening to people who have a lot more constructive and interesting things to say anyway?   Greg Schwem ** 39:36 Yeah, yeah. I think, I think COVID definitely changed, some for the some for the better and some for the worse. I think that a lot of things that were done at meetings COVID and made us realize a lot of that stuff could be done virtually, that you didn't have to just have everybody sit and listen to people over and over and over again.   Speaker 1 ** 39:58 But unless you're Donald Trump. Up. Yeah, that's another story.   Greg Schwem ** 40:02 Yes, exactly another podcast episode. But, yeah, I do think also that. I think COVID changed audiences. I think, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about crowd work, right, and audiences wanting to be more involved. I think COVID precipitated that, because, if you think about it, Michael, for two and a half years during COVID, our sole source of entertainment was our phone, right? Which meant that we were in charge of the entertainment experience. You don't like something, swipe left, scroll down, scroll, scroll, scroll, find something else. You know, that kind of thing. I'm not I'm not entertained in the next four or five seconds. So I'm going to do this. And I think when live entertainment returned, audiences kind of had to be retrained a little bit, where they had to learn to sit and listen and wait for the entertainment to come to them. And granted, it might not happen immediately. It might not happen in the first five seconds, but you have to just give give people like me a chance. It will come to you. It will happen, but it might not be on your timetable,   Speaker 1 ** 41:13 right? Well, and I think that is all too true for me. I didn't find didn't find COVID to be a great inconvenience, because I don't look at the screen anyway, right? So in a sense, for me, COVID wasn't that much of a change, other than not being in an office or not being physically at a meeting, and so I was listening to the meeting on the computer, and that has its nuances. Like you don't necessarily get the same information about how everyone around you is reacting, but, but it didn't bother me, I think, nearly as much as it did everyone else who has to look at everyone. Of course, I have no problems picking on all those people as well, because what I point out is that that disabilities has to be redefined, because every one of you guys has your own disability. You're light dependent, and you don't do well when there's dark, when, when the dark shows up and and we now have an environment where Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb, and we've spent the last 147 years doing everything we can to make sure that light is pretty ubiquitous, but it doesn't change a thing when suddenly the power goes out and you don't have immediate access to light. So that's as much a disability as us light, independent people who don't   Greg Schwem ** 42:36 care about that, right? Right? I hear, I agree, but it is but   Speaker 1 ** 42:41 it is interesting and and it is also important that we all understand each other and are willing to tolerate the fact that there are differences in people, and we need to recognize that with whatever we're doing.   42:53 Yeah, I agree.   Speaker 1 ** 42:57 What do you think about so today, we have obviously a really fractured environment and fractured country, and everyone's got their own opinions, and nobody wants to talk about anything, especially politics wise. How do you think that's all affecting comedy and what you get to do and what other people are doing?   Greg Schwem ** 43:18 Well, I think Pete, I think there's, there's multiple answers to that question too. I think, I think it makes people nervous, wondering what the minute a comedian on stage brings up politics, the minute he starts talking about a politician, whether it's our president, whether it's somebody else, you can sense a tension in the room a little bit, and it's, it's, I mean, it's funny. I, one of my best friends in comedy, got to open for another comedian at Carnegie Hall a couple of years ago, and I went to see him, and I'm sitting way up in the top, and he is just crushing it. And then at one point he he brought up, he decided to do an impression of Mitch McConnell, which he does very well. However, the minute he said, Mitch McConnell, I you could just sense this is Carnegie freaking Hall, and after the show, you know, he and I always like to dissect each other's shows. That's what comedians do. And I just said to him, I go. Why did you decide to insert Mitch McConnell in there? And I, and I didn't say it like, you moron, that was stupid, yeah, but I was genuinely curious. And he just goes, well, I just really like doing that bit, and I like doing that voice and so forth, but, and it's not like the show crashed and burned afterwards. No, he did the joke, and then he got out of it, and he went on to other stuff, and it was fine, but I think that people are just so on their guard now, yeah, and, and that's why, you know, you know Jay Leno always said he was an equal opportunity offender. I think you will do better with politics if you really want. Insert politics into your act. I think he would be better making fun of both sides. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. And I think too often comedians now use the the stage as kind of a Bully, bully pulpit, like I have microphone and you don't. I am now going to give you my take on Donald Trump or the Democrats or whatever, and I've always said, talk about anything you want on stage, but just remember, you're at a comedy club. People came to laugh. So is there a joke in here? Yeah, or are you just ranting because you gotta be careful. You have to get this off your chest, and your way is right. It's, it's, you know, I hate to say it, but that's, that's why podcast, no offense, Michael, yours, is not like this. But I think one of the reasons podcasters have gotten so popular is a lot of people, just a lot of podcast hosts see a podcast is a chance to just rant about whatever's on their mind. And it's amazing to me how many podcast hosts that are hosted by comedians have a second guy have a sidekick to basically laugh and agree with whatever that person says. I think Joe Rogan is a classic example, and he's one of the most popular ones. But, and I don't quite understand that, because you know, if you're a comedian, you you made the choice to work solo, right? So why do you need somebody else with you?   Speaker 1 ** 46:33 I'm I'm fairly close to Leno. My remark is a little bit different. I'm not so much an equal opportunity offender as I am an equal opportunity abuser. I'll pick on both sides if politics comes into it at all, and it's and it's fun, and I remember when George W Bush was leaving the White House, Letterman said, Now we're not going to have anybody to joke about anymore. And everyone loved it. But still, I recognize that in the world today, people don't want to hear anything else. Don't confuse me with the facts or any of that, and it's so unfortunate, but it is the way it is, and so it's wiser to stay away from a lot of that, unless you can really break through the barrier,   Greg Schwem ** 47:21 I think so. And I also think that people, one thing you have to remember, I think, is when people come to a comedy show, they are coming to be entertained. Yeah, they are coming to kind of escape from the gloom and doom that unfortunately permeates our world right now. You know? I mean, I've always said that if you, if you walked up to a comedy club on a Saturday night, and let's say there were 50 people waiting outside, waiting to get in, and you asked all 50 of them, what do you hope happens tonight? Or or, Why are you here? All right, I think from all 50 you would get I would just like to laugh, yeah, I don't think one of them is going to say, you know, I really hope that my opinions on what's happening in the Middle East get challenged right now, but he's a comedian. No one is going to say that. No, no. It's like, I hope I get into it with the comedian on stage, because he thinks this way about a woman's right to choose, and I think the other way. And I really, really hope that he and I will get into an argument about to the middle of the   Speaker 1 ** 48:37 show. Yeah, yeah. That's not why people come?   Greg Schwem ** 48:40 No, it's not. And I, unfortunately, I think again, I think that there's a lot of comedians that don't understand that. Yeah, again, talk about whatever you want on stage, but just remember that your your surroundings, you if you build yourself as a comedian,   48:56 make it funny. Yeah, be funny.   Speaker 1 ** 49:00 Well, and nowadays, especially for for you, for me and so on, we're we're growing older and and I think you point out audiences are getting younger. How do you deal with that?   Greg Schwem ** 49:12 Well, what I try to do is I a couple of things. I try to talk as much as I can about topics that are relevant to a younger generation. Ai being one, I, one of the things I do in my my show is I say, oh, you know, I I really wasn't sure how to start off. And when you're confused these days, you you turn to answer your questions. You turn to chat GPT, and I've actually written, you know, said to chat GPT, you know, I'm doing a show tonight for a group of construction workers who work in the Midwest. It's a $350 million company, and it says, try to be very specific. Give me a funny opening line. And of course, chat GPT always comes up with some. Something kind of stupid, which I then relate to the audience, and they love that, you know, they love that concept. So I think there's, obviously, there's a lot of material that you can do on generational differences, but I, I will say I am very, very aware that my audience is, for the most part, younger than me now, unless I want to spend the rest of my career doing you know, over 55 communities, not that they're not great laughers, but I also think there's a real challenge in being older than your audience and still being able to make them laugh. But I think you have to remember, like you said, there's there's people now that don't remember 911 that have no concept of it, yeah, so don't be doing references from, say, the 1980s or the early 1990s and then come off stage and go, Man, nobody that didn't hit at all. No one, no one. They're stupid. They don't get it. Well, no, they, they, it sounds they don't get it. It's just that they weren't around. They weren't around, right? So that's on you.   Speaker 1 ** 51:01 One of the things that you know people ask me is if I will do virtual events, and I'll do virtual events, but I also tell people, the reason I prefer to do in person events is that I can sense what the audience is doing, how they're reacting and what they feel. If I'm in a room speaking to people, and I don't have that same sense if I'm doing something virtually, agreed same way. Now for me, at the same time, I've been doing this now for 23 years, so I have a pretty good idea in general, how to interact with an audience, to draw them in, even in a virtual environment, but I still tend to be a little bit more careful about it, and it's just kind of the way it is, you know, and you and you learn to deal with it well for you, have you ever had writer's block, and how did you deal with it?   Greg Schwem ** 51:57 Yes, I have had writer's block. I don't I can't think of a single comedian who's never had writer's block, and if they say they haven't, I think they're lying when I have writer's block, the best way for me to deal with this and just so you know, I'm not the kind of comedian that can go that can sit down and write jokes. I can write stories. I've written three books, but I can't sit down and just be funny for an hour all by myself. I need interaction. I need communication. And I think when I have writer's block, I tend to go out and try and meet strangers and can engage them in conversation and find out what's going on with them. I mean, you mentioned about dealing with the younger audience. I am a big believer right now in talking to people who are half my age. I like doing that in social settings, because I just, I'm curious. I'm curious as to how they think. I'm curious as to, you know, how they spend money, how they save money, how what their hopes and dreams are for the future, what that kind of thing, and that's the kind of stuff that then I'll take back and try and write material about. And I think that, I think it's fun for me, and it's really fun to meet somebody who I'll give you a great example just last night. Last night, I was I there's a there's a bar that I have that's about 10 a stone's throw from my condo, and I love to stop in there and and every now and then, sometimes I'll sit there and I won't meet anybody, and sometimes different. So there was a guy, I'd say he's probably in his early 30s, sitting too over, and he was reading, which I find intriguing, that people come to a bar and read, yeah, people do it, I mean. And I just said to him, I go, and he was getting ready to pay his bill, and I just said, if you don't mind me asking, What are you reading? And he's like, Oh, it's by Ezra Klein. And I go, you know, I've listened to Ezra Klein before. And he goes, Yeah, you know? He says, I'm a big fan. And debt to debt to dad. Next thing, you know, we're just, we're just riffing back and forth. And I ended up staying. He put it this way, Michael, it took him a very long time to pay his bill because we had a conversation, and it was just such a pleasure to to people like that, and I think that, and it's a hard thing. It's a hard thing for me to do, because I think people are on their guard, a little bit like, why is this guy who's twice my age talking to me at a bar? That's that seems a little weird. And I would get that. I can see that. But as I mentioned in my latest book, I don't mean because I don't a whole chapter to this, and I I say in the book, I don't mean you any harm. I'm not trying to hit on you, or I'm not creepy old guy at the bar. I am genuinely interested in your story. And. In your life, and and I just, I want to be the least interesting guy in the room, and that's kind of how I go about my writing, too. Is just you, you drive the story. And even though I'm the comedian, I'll just fill in the gaps and make them funny.   Speaker 1 ** 55:15 Well, I know that I have often been invited to speak at places, and I wondered, What am I going to say to this particular audience? How am I going to deal with them? They're they're different than what I'm used to. What I found, I guess you could call that writer's block, but what I found is, if I can go early and interact with them, even if I'm the very first speaker, if I can interact with them beforehand, or if there are other people speaking before me, invariably, I will hear things that will allow me to be able to move on and give a relevant presentation specifically to that group, which is what it's really all about. And so I'm with you, and I appreciate it, and it's good to get to the point where you don't worry about the block, but rather you look at ways to move forward and interact with people and make it fun, right,   Greg Schwem ** 56:13 right? And I do think people, I think COVID, took that away from us a little bit, yeah, obviously, but I but, and I do think people missed that. I think that people, once you get them talking, are more inclined to not think that you're you have ulterior motives. I think people do enjoy putting their phones down a little bit, but it's, it's kind of a two way street when I, when I do meet people, if it's if it's only me asking the questions, eventually I'm going to get tired of that. Yeah, I think there's a, there has to be a reciprocity thing a little bit. And one thing I find is, is with the Gen Z's and maybe millennials. They're not, they're not as good at that as I think they could be. They're more they're they're happy to talk about themselves, but they're not really good at saying so what do you do for a living? Or what you know, tell me about you. And I mean, that's how you learn about other people. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 57:19 tell me about your your latest book, Turning gut punches into punchlines. That's a interesting title, yeah, well, the more   Greg Schwem ** 57:26 interesting is the subtitle. So it's turning gut punches into punch punch lines, A Comedian's journey through cancer, divorce and other hilarious stuff.   Speaker 1 ** 57:35 No, like you haven't done anything in the world. Okay, right? So   Greg Schwem ** 57:38 other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln. Yeah, exactly. See, now you get that reference. I don't know if I could use that on stage, but anyway, depend on your audience. But yeah, they're like, What's he talking   Speaker 1 ** 57:50 who's Lincoln? And I've been to Ford theater too, so that's okay, yes, as have I. So it was much later than, than, well, than Lincoln, but that's okay.   Greg Schwem ** 57:58 You're not that old, right? No. Well, okay, so as the title, as the title implies, I did have sort of a double, double gut punch, it just in the last two years. So I, I got divorced late in life, after 29 years of marriage. And while that was going on, I got a colon cancer diagnosis and and at this end, I was dealing with all this while also continuing work as a humor speaker, okay, as a comedian. And I just decided I got it. First of all, I got a very clean bill of health. I'm cancer free. I am finally divorced so and I, I started to think, I wonder if there's some humor in this. I I would, I would, you know, Michael, I've been on stage for like, 25 years telling people that, you know, you can find something funny to laugh at. You can find humor in any situation. It's kind of like what you're talking about all the people going down the stairs in the building in the world trade center. All right, if you look around enough, you know, maybe there's something funny, and I've been preaching that, but I never really had to live that until now. And I thought, you know, maybe there's something here. Maybe I can this is my chance now to embrace new experiences. It was kind of when I got divorced, when you've been married half your life and all of a sudden you get divorced, everything's new to you, yeah, you're, you're, you're living alone, you you're doing things that your spouse did, oh, so many years. And you're having to do those, and you're having to make new friends, yeah, and all of that, I think, is very humorous. So the more I saw a book in there that I started writing before the cancer diagnosis, and I thought was there enough here? Just like, okay, a guy at 60 years old gets divorced now what's going to happen to him? The diagnosis? Kind. Made it just added another wrinkle to the book, because now I have to deal with this, and I have to find another subject to to make light of a little bit. So the book is not a memoir, you know, I don't start it off. And, you know, when I was seven, you know, I played, you know, I was, I went to this school night. It's not that. It's more just about reinvention and just seeing that you can be happy later in life, even though you have to kind of rewrite your your story a little   Speaker 1 ** 1:00:33 bit. And I would assume, and I would assume, you bring some of that into your ACT every so   Greg Schwem ** 1:00:38 very much. So yeah, I created a whole new speech called Turning gut punches into punchlines. And I some of the stuff that I, that I did, but, you know, there's a chapter in the book about, I about gig work, actually three chapters I, you know, I went to work for Amazon during the Christmas holiday rush, just scanning packages. I wanted to see what that was like. I drove for Uber I which I did for a while. And to tell you the truth, I miss it. I ended up selling my car, but I miss it because of the what we just talked about. It was a great way to communicate with people. It was a great way to talk to people, find out about them, be the least interesting person in the car, anyway. And there's a chapter about dating and online dating, which I had not had to do in 30 years. There's a lot of humor in that. I went to therapy. I'd never gone to therapy before. I wrote a chapter about that. So I think people really respond to this book, because they I think they see a lot of themselves in it. You know, lots of people have been divorced. There's lots of cancer survivors out there, and there's lots of people who just suddenly have hit a speed bump in their life, and they're not really sure how to deal with it, right? And my way, this book is just about deal with it through laughter. And I'm the perfect example.   Speaker 1 ** 1:01:56 I hear you, Oh, I I know, and I've been through the same sort of thing as you not a divorce, but my wife and I were married for 40 years, and she passed away in November of 2022 after 40 years of marriage. And as I tell people, as I tell people, I got to be really careful, because she's monitoring me from somewhere, and if I misbehave, I'm going to hear about it, so I got to be a good kid, and I don't even chase the women so. But I also point out that none of them have been chasing me either, so I guess I just do what we got to do. But the reality is, I think there are always ways to find some sort of a connection with other people, and then, of course, that's what what you do. It's all about creating a connection, creating a relationship, even if it's only for a couple of hours or an hour or 45 minutes, but, but you do it, which is what it's all about?   Greg Schwem ** 1:02:49 Yeah, exactly. And I think the funniest stuff is real life experience. Oh, absolutely, you know. And if people can see themselves in in what I've written, then I've done my job as a writer.   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:03 So do you have any plans to retire?   Greg Schwem ** 1:03:06 Never. I mean, good for you retire from what   1:03:09 I know right, making fun of people   Greg Schwem ** 1:03:12 and making them laugh. I mean, I don't know what I would do with myself, and even if I there's always going to be I don't care how technology, technologically advanced our society gets. People will always want and need to laugh. Yeah, they're always going to want to do that. And if they're want, if they're wanting to do that, then I will find, I will find a way to get to them. And that's why I, as I said, That's why, like working on cruise ships has become, like a new, sort of a new avenue for me to make people laugh. And so, yeah, I don't I there's, there's no way. I don't know what else I would do with   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:53 myself, well and from my perspective, as long as I can inspire people, yes, I can make people think a little bit and feel better about themselves. I'm going to do it right. And, and, and I do. And I wrote a book during COVID that was published last August called Live like a guide dog. And it's all about helping people learn to control fear. And I use lessons I learned from eight guide dogs and my wife service dog to do that. My wife was in a wheelchair her whole life. Great marriage. She read, I pushed worked out well, but, but the but the but the bottom line is that dogs can teach us so many lessons, and there's so much that we can learn from them. So I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to create this book and and get it out there. And I think that again, as long as I can continue to inspire people, I'm going to do it. Because   Greg Schwem ** 1:04:47 why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't I exactly right? Yeah, yeah. So,   Speaker 1 ** 1:04:51 I mean, I think if I, if I stopped, I think my wife would beat up on me, so I gotta be nice exactly. She's monitoring from somewhere

“O Lord, why do you stand so far away? Why do you hide when I am in trouble?” (Psalm 10:1 NLT) A Sunday school teacher gave the kids in her class an assignment to write down any questions they had for God. Here are some of the questions, comments, and suggestions they came up with: Dear God, did You mean for the giraffe to look like that, or was it an accident? Dear God, I like the Lord’s Prayer best of all. Did You have to write it a lot, or did You get it right the first time? I have to write everything over and over again. Dear God, thank You for my baby brother You gave to us, but what I prayed for was a puppy. Dear God, how come You haven’t invented any new animals lately? We still have just the old ones. Dear God, I bet it is very hard for You to love everybody in the whole world. There are only four people in my family, and I just can’t do it. Dear God, in school we read that Thomas Edison made light, but in Sunday school, they said that You made it. I bet he stole Your idea. If you’re new to the Christian faith, you may have your own questions, comments, or suggestions for God. (And if you’ve been a Christian for most of your life, you probably still have questions, comments, or suggestions for God.) The questions may be tough. They may seem impolite. They may suggest a lack of faith on your part. Ask them anyway. That’s what the psalmists did. Look at Psalm 10:1 above. Those pointed questions are heartfelt cries. And God responds to our heartfelt cries—not with anger or punishment for questioning Him, but with compassion and understanding. He gives us wisdom and peace. He opens our eyes to spiritual truths we can’t see on our own. Few people in Scripture were closer to God than David, the shepherd who killed Goliath and later became king of Israel. First Samuel 13:14 describes David as “a man after God’s own heart.” Yet look what he wrote in Psalm 13:1–2: “O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand?” (NLT). He poured out his soul to God because he knew God would see his questions for what they were: genuine attempts to understand God and His will. The apostle James offered this advice: “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:5–6 NLT). God welcomes your questions because the more answers you receive, the stronger your faith will grow. Reflection question: What questions would you like to ask God? Discuss Today's Devo in Harvest Discipleship! — The audio production of the podcast "Daily Devotions from Greg Laurie" utilizes Generative AI technology. This allows us to deliver consistent, high-quality content while preserving Harvest's mission to "know God and make Him known."All devotional content is written and owned by Pastor Greg Laurie. Listen to the Greg Laurie Podcast Become a Harvest PartnerSupport the show: https://harvest.org/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sign up for our Substack! Arthur Schopenhauer said, “Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.” Thomas Edison famously claimed, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Helen Lewis has a different take entirely. To her, the term genius licenses noxious eccentricities, exasperating ego trips, and downright bad behavior. Sure, plenty of things qualify as acts of genius — Shakespeare's sonnets, penicillin — but when we pin the genius badge on a person instead of an achievement, we grant them membership in a supposedly superior class. That, Helen says, is the genius myth. She wants to demolish it and, in its place, tell the real story of how breakthroughs happen and who deserves credit.

Most people don't recognize opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work - Thomas Edison Check out John Lee Dumas' award winning Podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire on your favorite podcast directory. For world class free courses and resources to help you on your Entrepreneurial journey visit EOFire.com

What if the words you use every day are the biggest barrier to your success? Learn how shifting your language can transform your mindset, your habits—and your future.In this thought-provoking Monday Mindset Training episode, Barry dives into the transformational power of language and how your internal dialogue directly shapes your outcomes in life and business.From simple phrases like “I can't” and “I'll try” to deep mindset rituals inspired by icons like Michael Jordan and Thomas Edison, Barry explores how to rewire your thoughts and create forward momentum—even when the path feels unclear.

Biografia e invenzioni di Thomas Edison, l'imprenditore americano che nel 1879 brevettò la lampadina a incandescenza.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Ohio Mysteries Backroads. In tonight's episode we are joined by friend of the show Wendy Koile, author of 4 fantastic books. We discuss the mysterious Toledo Speedboat disaster of 1930. On a hot Saturday morning in June, 1930, eight Toledoans set out on a speedboat to attend an Elks picnic on Pelee Island and never made it. Their boat would be found spinning in circles without a soul onboard. The well to do men would be found dead a few days later and rumors began to circulate about what happened and who was responsible. In our next story, we explore the long history of the Ghost Ship of the Ohio River, the Sachem. This luxury liner has a very long history of entertaining many well to do of the East Coast elite as well as serving the military where Thomas Edison conducted experiements to bootlegging, to fishing charters to sight seeing touring and a wild journey through the middle of the country to where it sits today, at a tributary off of the Ohio River. Join us and learn all about these crazy stories! Author Wendy Koile is a friend of the show and you can find out more about her and her fantastic books at: ⁠https://wendykoile.com/⁠ Check out Ohio Mysteries Backwoods Facebook page!: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558042082494¬if_id=1717202186351620¬if_t=page_user_activity&ref=notif⁠ Please check other podcast episodes like this at: ⁠https://www.ohiomysteries.com/⁠ Dan hosts a Youtube Channel called: Ohio History and Haunts where he explores historical and dark places around Ohio: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj5x1eJjHhfyV8fomkaVzsA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textIn this solo episode of Your Child Is Normal, pediatrician and mom of three Dr. Jessica Hochman explores a summer parenting dilemma almost all families face: what to do when kids say, “I'm bored.”Rather than seeing boredom as a problem to fix, in episode makes the case that it's actually a gift. Drawing on developmental psychology and research, she explains how boredom helps children develop creativity, autonomy, and emotional regulation. You'll hear stories about J.K. Rowling, Albert Einstein, and Thomas Edison—all of whom had major breakthroughs during moments of stillness—and learn why screens might be getting in the way of your child's imagination.Dr Jessica Hochman  shares practical tips on how to reset your child's attention, protect downtime, and welcome boredom into your family's summer.If you're feeling pressure to overschedule your child, or if you're hearing a lot of “I'm bored!” this summer, this episode will help you reframe those moments as opportunities for growth.Credited StudiesEastwood et al – The unengaged mind: Defining boredom in terms of attention. Journal: Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2012  https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612456044Mann & Cadman –  Does being bored make us more creative?  Creativity Research Journal, 2014.  https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2014.901073Hunter, Dyer & Eastwood – Feeling Bored, Feeling Blue: Depression, boredom, and the default mode network. Emotion, 2016 https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000146Dr. Teresa Belton – Interviews with Creative Professionals"Boredom is good for children – and adults", BBC News, 2013Book title: Happier People Healthier PlanetDr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner. For more content from Dr Jessica Hochman:Instagram: @AskDrJessicaYouTube channel: Ask Dr JessicaWebsite: www.askdrjessicamd.com-For a plant-based, USDA Organic certified vitamin supplement, check out : Llama Naturals Vitamin and use discount code: DRJESSICA20-To test your child's microbiome and get recommendations, check out: Tiny Health using code: DRJESSICA Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss? Email Dr Jessica Hochman askdrjessicamd@gmail.com.The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Homer kommt in die Midlife Crisis. Er fragt sich, was er nach seinem Tod hinterlassen wird, und weil ihm 75 Staffeln der Simpsons nicht ausreichen, entscheidet er sich in die Fußstapfen von Thomas Edison zu treten und Ideen zu klau... Ich meine, Dinge zu erfinden. Wird Homer es schaffen, ein Produkt zu erfinden, das die Massen begeistert? Schaut rein!Viel Spaß und Vielen Dank an Karlsongruner für den Folgenwunsch!

We always celebrate at our museums the rich history of American innovation, but we're putting a special spotlight on that history as we approach the nation's semiquincentennial in 2026. To help us with that, we spoke on our podcast, AMSEcast, with Kathleen Carlucci, the Director of the Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park. Thanks to his host of revolutionary innovations and inventions, Thomas Edison changed our world with technologies like the phonograph, motion pictures, electric light, and the list truly goes on and on. Altogether he obtained 1,093 US patents, and 1,250 patents in 34 other countries. At Menlo Park in New Jersey, Edison gathered an incredible team in one place to conceive and create these inventions, starting the whole concept of research and development and what we call today “Big Science.”

Ready to save $10k-$50k in taxes this year? Book a call here:► https://taxstrategy365.com/pod-appIn this episode, after leaving Deloitte at 23, I set out to help people who were the first in their families to build wealth. Three years later, I'm running two CPA firms with nearly 800 clients and reflecting on how much can change in just one trip around the sun. In this episode, I talk about the lessons that made me feel ten years wiser—lessons I picked up from mentors, clients, and experiences that pushed me to grow. I get into why urgency, focus, and being able to see both sides of an argument have been game changers for me.Timestamps:00:00:00 Intro and why I left Deloitte at 2300:00:32 From quitting corporate to owning two CPA firms00:01:25 Why I feel 10 years wiser in one year00:01:58 The meaning of “standing on the shoulders of giants”00:03:20 Investing in mentors and what it's really worth00:04:24 Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and learning from the top 0.3%00:06:32 Why in-person learning beats Zoom00:07:26 Joining Perry Belcher's mastermind and doubling my business00:08:10 Acquiring a Beverly Hills CPA firm00:09:07 Traits of high-net-worth individuals00:10:43 The power of urgency and Parkinson's Law00:12:16 Doing one thing exceptionally well00:13:32 The value of seeing both sides of an argument00:17:47 Overpriced vs. overkill: a pricing misconception00:20:38 What I learned from Robert Greene about storytelling00:23:32 Final reflection on growing wiser year over yearWant me to answer your real estate questions? Come to my next Ask Me Anything Q&A:► https://taxstrategy365.com/pod-amaLet's connect!► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanbakkecpa/► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanbakkecpa/► Twitter: https://twitter.com/RyanBakkeCPA► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ryanbakkecpa► TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanbakkecpa⁠*None of this is meant to be specific investment advice, it's for entertainment purposes only.

Tonight, we unravel a forgotten chapter of history that blurs the lines between science and the supernatural. Visionary inventors—Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, and Nikola Tesla—all giants of innovation, spent their final years chasing one extraordinary goal: building machines to communicate with the dead.Were they madmen… or did they uncover something we're still not ready to understand?In this episode, we explore the mystery of spirit communication technology, the hidden experiments of the early 20th century, and why some believe the veil between worlds was almost pierced by electricity itself. We'll dive into paranormal science, EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena), psychic technology, afterlife experiments, and the chilling possibility that contact with the other side was closer than anyone imagined.If you're fascinated by hauntings, spiritualism, forbidden inventions, and the hidden obsessions of history's greatest minds, you won't want to miss this electrifying deep dive.The truth is stranger than fiction—and some messages never die.

Você sabia que Thomas Edison fracassou mais de mil vezes antes de inventar a lâmpada elétrica?

Ryan Phelan is a partner and patent attorney at Marshall Gerstein. He discusses his journey from a background in computer science and fintech to becoming a prominent IP attorney serving clients in the MedTech industry and beyond. He shares insights on the importance of protecting intellectual property, especially for startups, and the burgeoning role of AI in medical technology. This succinct yet fascinating conversation highlights the critical intersection of law, technology, and medical innovation. Guest links: https://www.marshallip.com | https://www.patentnext.com/  Charity supported: Sleep in Heavenly Peace Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at theleadingdifference@velentium.com.  PRODUCTION CREDITS Host: Lindsey Dinneen Editing: Marketing Wise Producer: Velentium   EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Episode 058 - Ryan Phelan [00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world. [00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them. [00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives. [00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives. [00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives. [00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and I am so looking forward to my conversation today with Ryan Phelan. Ryan is a partner and patent attorney at the Chicago based intellectual property law firm, Marshall Gerstein, where he counsels medtech companies on protecting their valuable IP. Ryan ultimately believes that AI is an important technology to embrace, but cautions medical device and related companies to approach it pragmatically, developing a policy to govern and protect intangible assets and innovation. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here, Ryan. I'm so excited to speak with you today. [00:01:29] Ryan Phelan: Yeah. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Lindsey. [00:01:31] Lindsey Dinneen: Of course. Well, I'd love if you'd start off by sharing a little bit about your background and what led you to medtech. [00:01:39] Ryan Phelan: Sure, absolutely. So I'm an attorney by trade. And I started off in probably a different place than most people in MedTech, but I have a computer science degree and I worked in industry first for Accenture, doing a lot of programming and consulting in the FinTech world. So, high frequency trading and programming some pretty complicated data algorithms in order to trade stocks and bonds and securities, and things like this. That let me see aspects of intellectual property that people were doing with respect to the code I was writing. So I got curious with IP and law, and that led me to law school, Northwestern Law, in pursuing a joint JD, MBA program, which I finished in 2010. And I went into IP law with a passion for technology, pretty much in the computing space. And then in the last decade or so, IP practitioners, not unlike doctors, like to practice in specific areas and one of the ones that I focused on is software medical devices. And so that, that kind of led me into the realm of medtech. [00:02:48] Lindsey Dinneen: Very nice. Okay. So you have had such an interesting career trajectory and I'm wondering, back in the day, say you're a six year old Ryan, could six year old Ryan have predicted that you would be a lawyer and particularly intellectual property? [00:03:04] Ryan Phelan: Absolutely not. I mean, first of all nobody in my family, at least immediate family, was a lawyer. And so going to law school was not on the radar. I grew up in Louisiana in a small town, basically farm life, so certainly technology and stuff like that wasn't available in the city. But I did have a passion for things that were tech. I was certainly a kid that loved to take things apart and put them back together and build all kinds of Legos and stuff like that. So that basic kind of STEM acumen or desire was always there from the beginning. And so, as I, I grew up and got exposed to more things, certainly in college, it became kind of a passion. And so, I ended up doing that. We did have some medical issues in my family, including cardiac and cancer and stuff like that. So, those types of things always hit home with me and you're getting to a chance to kind of lean into medtech, at least on the software side, with medtech devices that include or incorporate medical technology became very interesting to me personally. [00:04:07] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, of course. And so going back just a smidgen when you decided to go into law and you know, you've come from this background that was the software engineering and you've got this fintech background and you have all of these amazing skill sets already, what led you specifically to say, "Okay, I want to focus on intellectual property, and so this is going to be my, my sweet spot." [00:04:33] Ryan Phelan: Yeah. So when you go to law school, you get exposed to a lot of different classes. In fact, in your first year law school, you're required to take a bunch of baseline courses like criminal law and all these things. And so you quickly figure out what you like and what you don't like. And so for me, a computer science degree is always kind of the beating heart of what I loved. And so I wanted to, I tended to like, classes that were up that alley, so to speak. And the IP course that I took was definitely there because it was all about technology, inventions, people making things, and how those inventions played out in court. So I found my greatest joy in law school to be in those classes. So I spoke up the most in class and did the best. There's common saying that "you should do things that you love because you never have to work a day in your life" kind of thing. So I always try to think about that, and certainly fun today because I practice in IP and picked that direction. [00:05:27] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. So, in addition to all of the other credentials you have, you are also a published author and you are a speaker. And I would love if you would share maybe a little bit more about how you got into being a thought leader as well in your industry and how that path has taken you. [00:05:51] Ryan Phelan: Yeah, for sure. It's the same kind of thing. I've always liked to write as well. And I feel that when I write about something, I really get to understand it. And so in my field, there's a lot of stuff happening all the time. Like a court will come out with a new case, an IP and medtech or AI or something like this, and I really like to dig into it to figure out how can I use this court decision as a tool for clients, or how does this change things up? What will clients ask me questions going forward, or how can this be an interesting topic to either write about or to speak about? And so, I try to learn when I'm reading, and then I write it, and that teaches me, and I think and hope that others get a benefit from that too when I publish, so. [00:06:34] Lindsey Dinneen: Yes, of course. Of course. And you are also, if I'm not mistaken, an adjunct professor. So, first of all, do you sleep? And second of all, tell me more about this as well, please. [00:06:47] Ryan Phelan: Yeah, so I'm an adjunct professor at Northwestern Law. I teach a course on patenting software inventions. I do sleep because it's only once a year for a power week. You know, I think it's like three days out of the year. There's the long classes, they're like a few hours each, but we pack in several 30 minute core sessions into a day. So one day, maybe we'll go for three hours or two hours. And, you know, we will get the benefit of several weeks of coursework by doing all of that at once in those three days. And so, I teach on that. We teach fundamentals of patenting softwares and inventions, which includes medtech software devices. For example, the FDA classifies software, medical inventions in, in, in certain ways, like their software as a medical device where you have the software only such as, you have database with medical data and you're either formatting it or storing it or processing in some unique way, or you have software in a medical device where you actually have a physical device. It's a cardiac device where the software is running or at least partially running that device. And so we talk about ways to, to patent those inventions primarily with US law. So. [00:07:59] Lindsey Dinneen: Very nice. So specifically thinking about your medtech clients, because I know you probably have clients in many industries, but specifically in medtech, what are some of the common mistakes you see medtech companies making? Especially say, you know, an earlier startup or something like that, when maybe they haven't thought through an aspect that really should be thought through a little bit earlier in the process. What are some common things that you see that people should be aware of? [00:08:27] Ryan Phelan: Yeah, I mean, easily one of them is not filing a patent application early. And if they are a startup company and they have their biggest selling product, or what they think will be their biggest selling product, and they don't file a patent application on it, that could be bad because you have one year to get to the patent office with that, at least in the U. S. to file something once it's been publicly disclosed. And if you miss that deadline, then effectively you're allowing your competitors to copy it. And if you're a startup company, the last thing you want is for your product to become extremely successful and then a big Fortune 500 company gets wind of it, figures out you don't have a patent, and then just starts making it themselves and it takes away your market share. So that would be, you know, I think that's every inventor of startups like worst nightmare, right? So, getting that patent on file before the deadline is pretty important. [00:09:22] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, of course. Now, I noticed you had recently written an article on LinkedIn about when to file this patent. And I know part of maybe some concerns that might arise are, "Well, we don't necessarily want this to be in public awareness yet." So how do you walk that line between "This is our IP, we're really trying to keep it very tight," versus, "But I also need this protection, this legal protection." So how do you navigate things like that? [00:09:54] Ryan Phelan: Yeah, so the point at which you need to make your invention publicly available or to disclose it because you need to, you know, maybe you're going to pitch competition and you need to show your invention on like a PowerPoint deck in front of hundreds of people. Then that's probably a good point to start thinking about filing a patent application if you're still developing it, and it's like in your basement, so to speak, and nobody's seen it. It's still secret then. You don't need to necessarily file a patent application at that point. Although, there's a funny thing in patent law where, if you have an idea, sometimes there's somebody else thinking about it too, and the first one to get the patent office, wins, and so, you certainly don't want to wait around too long and find out years later that you filed your patent application the day after somebody else. This actually happened with Thomas Edison and the light bulb and he had lots of fights about the other person that was claiming the same thing that lost, and we don't remember his name today because of that. So anyway, so that's one thing to keep in mind when you're starting out. [00:10:54] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Well, and speaking of those kinds of stories, are there any that particularly stand out to you as you've worked with all of these incredible clients who have seriously life changing products they're creating. Are there any that really stand out to you in your memory as affirming, "Oh my goodness, this is why I'm here. This is why I'm doing what I'm doing." [00:11:17] Ryan Phelan: Yeah, for sure. One that stands out is one in the opioid or the narcotics market. In my family, we have an individual who is unfortunately affected by this. And so, I had a client that reached out to me to create a VR program that helps to eliminate or to reduce cravings in this field. And that one was really impactful because using technology and non pharmaceutical way in order to reduce cravings for people that are struggling with addiction of some type, I felt to be very important. So I thoroughly enjoyed working with that inventor and helping to, to create that patent application for that invention. [00:11:59] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, of course. Yeah. Thank you for sharing about that. I think sometimes those really personal connection kinds of stories are the ones that really stick in your mind because it, it helps to have this moment of realization, like you know that what you do matters, of course, but then having that extra layer of confirmation that "Yes, this is helping somebody who could literally be a family member or a close friend or relative" is really impactful. [00:12:25] Ryan Phelan: Exactly. [00:12:26] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. So considering all of the industries that you currently serve, and of course, you have this incredibly varied background, which can only be wonderful to draw on from this rich history and experience of yours. What are some interesting crossovers you see between industries that can be useful in terms of, maybe one industry approaches something in a way that you've seen could actually really benefit folks in medtech or vice versa. Are you seeing trends like that? [00:12:59] Ryan Phelan: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the biggest ones that I can think of now is artificial intelligence coming into play with medtech. I mean, certainly, medtech kind of runs the gamut of, you know, like, like we mentioned before software only to physical devices that incorporate software. And so AI is interesting because you can load it and AI model onto one of these physical devices, or you can have an AI model that's medtech based sitting on a server somewhere that can help doctors look or find particular cause or whatnot like that, based on symptoms that a patient may walk into, or maybe there's a device, like a needle, that allows that has an AI model on it that helps with injection or something like this. And so, these AI tools are becoming smarter. And I think that they help in the field of medtech and they require a different level of expertise with these inventions to not only create them because they're complex, but also to bring them to market because they require specific FDA regulations. Even the FDA right now is trying to figure out AI. They have approved several AI devices, but it usually comes down to, you know, is your AI device going to change in the near future because you're going to update the model? And if so, does that change it enough to require like a new submission? So the fact that AI moves so rapidly doesn't really mix well with the FDA's process of approving the device and having it set in stone at that approval state. [00:14:30] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. So where do you anticipate that this will take medical devices? Do you think it'll become so naturally ingrained in many of them that it's just sort of part of our reality, or do you think we'll still have those --what do we want to call them-- not AI functionality devices? [00:14:48] Ryan Phelan: Yeah, I think both will exist. You know, certainly a spectrum of these devices, right? Certainly there's surgical tools that exist now that have hundreds of years, or a hundred years, just in different, maybe better forms. So, those will stay, stick around. The AI assisted ones, I'm sure will find their niche, and live alongside the the existing tools. [00:15:10] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. If you could narrow it down, what would be maybe your top piece of advice for a MedTech startup founder from your perspective, in your role? [00:15:23] Ryan Phelan: Yeah, I guess the number one would be again to, you know, make sure you're not giving away your crown jewels. Have your patent filed before you step out. If you're trying to raise money, just be careful that you're not sharing information publicly. You have to share with a potential investor, consider an NDA or if they won't sign an NDA, you can file a provisional patent application with the patent office. That shows that you have something on file before you talk to others. And as long as you describe the invention sufficiently in the four corners of your provisional application, then that's often the best way to protect yourself going out. So I think, as an IP attorney, that, that would be the number one advice that I would give a startup company in the medtech space. [00:16:10] Lindsey Dinneen: That's incredible. Thank you for that. That's really appreciated advice. So, it's so interesting because when I was looking at your LinkedIn profile, of course you have all of this incredible experience, and one thing actually really stood out to me, and that was that at least at some point you have been a and --I'm sure you've done this throughout your career multiple times-- but a pro bono lawyer for Lawyers for the Creative Arts. And I was curious about that and how you got involved, and can you share a little bit about that journey? [00:16:40] Ryan Phelan: Yeah. So LCA or Lawyers for the Creative Arts is an organization here in Chicago that deals with artists of limited means. You know, usually they have some type of basic issue that they want handled and it mainly deals with IP. Typically, I work on a different capacity for these because I see them as like kind of fun learning opportunities. I usually work in the copyright space and the clients that I work with need help either filing a copyright for maybe a piece of art that they've created, or maybe have a question about how their IP is being used or sold in some way, and they need to figure out if their IP has been infringed. And so, we'll work with them in a pro bono capacity to help write a letter to a company or to file a copyright registration and things like that. [00:17:28] Lindsey Dinneen: Well, as a, as my side thing as also an artist, I just want to say thank you because it is so great that you're doing things like that for the artist community. It is not always easy. So, oh, that's great, appreciate it. Yeah. So as you look towards your own future, what are you excited about say in the next year or two? [00:17:50] Ryan Phelan: Very excited to see how, I guess, AI is playing out with medtech. You're seeing regulations and guidelines coming out that The United States Patent and Trademark Office and also the Copyright Office about how these laws will impact artists. I've sat on a panel with the Copyright Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office as they're thinking through these decisions and putting out these guidelines. There is questions about, is the new administration going to change things up with respect to guidance and guidelines that have come out. So, you know, artists are looking at AI is like a tool, like a paintbrush. And the law is kind of looking at it, obviously from the legal perspective and it doesn't seem like those two things are aligned yet. There's common in, in history that the law typically lags the technology by, you know, a decade or two or more. And so that's certainly the case with AI. For example, there is a famous -- I wouldn't call it a case-- but a denial of a copyright registration at the copyright office for a gentleman that had created an AI piece of artwork, won the Colorado state fair, I think in 2022, and tried to file a copyright registration, but was denied. And he told the copyright office, basically he had entered in 500 plus prompts in order to generate, or at least partially generate, this work of art, but was still denied . Not because of his effort, just because of the way the law is written under current copyright statutes. And so, things like that seem to be, at least from a policy perspective, incorrect. And so it'd be great to see exciting how this plays out. Will Congress care enough to change it or how will artists be impacted under these types of laws and policy considerations going forward? [00:19:35] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. So pivoting the conversation a little bit just for fun, imagine that you were to be offered a million dollars masterclass on anything you want. It can be within your industry or part of your amazing background, or it could be about something entirely different. What would you choose to teach? [00:19:55] Ryan Phelan: Yeah. Wow. You know, I guess I would teach what I'm currently teaching. Cause I, I do enjoy the class I teach now. I'm at Northwestern, my alma mater, which I love. It's down the street from the office, get to go in same place where I went to school and teach the law and things that I do every day, which is patenting software inventions, including the medtech space. If I could get a million dollars to teach what I do now, that would be wonderful, in this hypothetical, so. [00:20:22] Lindsey Dinneen: Right. I love it. Excellent. And how do you wish to be remembered after you leave this world? [00:20:30] Ryan Phelan: Wow. I hope people remember me as someone who was fun loving and enjoyed tech and hopefully brought some information to the world that helped them in some way. [00:20:42] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, of course. And final question, what is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it? [00:20:51] Ryan Phelan: Oh, wow. I guess there's a lot of stuff. I also like to do some type of sports. Currently, the ski season is ending, so I certainly enjoy skiing, so when I see or think about that's one of those things, and now coming is the golf season, so I transitioned into that. We're looking forward to some good weather here, finally, in Chicago. It was 80 degrees last week, and it snowed yesterday, so things are changing from golf to ski season, but one of those is always fun, so. [00:21:17] Lindsey Dinneen: That's awesome. That's fantastic. Yeah. If folks who are listening are in a position, would there be a way for them to get in contact with you and then how early should they do that actually? [00:21:31] Ryan Phelan: Yeah. There's multiple stages. They can get in touch with me anytime they want. You can always find me at our firm's website, Marshall Gerstein. Or if you want to, you can go to patentnext.com, just patent and the word next. com. That's my blog that I write on typically, and it has my contact information there, including my email address. [00:21:51] Lindsey Dinneen: Perfect. Well, thank you so much. Well, Ryan, it has been a joy to speak with you today. I really appreciate you sharing a little bit about your career and your insights, your advice, especially appreciate that for MedTech founders who might, you know, not quite know where to start with this whole legal element that they really need to consider. So I really appreciate you sharing kind of when and how to do that. And we're excited to be making a donation on your behalf, as a thank you for your time today, to Sleep in Heavenly Peace, which provides beds for children who don't have any in the United States. So thank you for choosing that charity to support. And thank you again so much for being here. This has been a wonderful conversation, and I just wish you the most continued success as you work to change lives for a better world. [00:22:41] Ryan Phelan: Thank you, Lindsey. My pleasure. Happy to be here too. Thank you for having me. [00:22:44] Lindsey Dinneen: Of course. And for our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. If you're feeling as inspired as I am, I'd love it if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two, and we'll catch you next time. [00:22:56] Ben Trombold: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium. Velentium is a full-service CDMO with 100% in-house capability to design, develop, and manufacture medical devices from class two wearables to class three active implantable medical devices. Velentium specializes in active implantables, leads, programmers, and accessories across a wide range of indications, such as neuromodulation, deep brain stimulation, cardiac management, and diabetes management. Velentium's core competencies include electrical, firmware, and mechanical design, mobile apps, embedded cybersecurity, human factors and usability, automated test systems, systems engineering, and contract manufacturing. Velentium works with clients worldwide, from startups seeking funding to established Fortune 100 companies. Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.

Today's episode marks a day that was significant to the entire world. It was the day Thomas Edison patented his lightbulb, forever changing the way people light their homes. How did it all go down? And, what additional history stories were being printed in newspapers the same day?SOURCES“Adelaide Herrmann.” Magicana. Accessed January 28, 2025.https://www.magicana.com/exhibition/adelaide-herrmann. “Advertisement: Excelsior Ironing Table (Page 2).” The Newnan Herald (Newnan, Georgia), January 27, 1880. www.newspapers.com.“Alexander Herrmann.” Wikipedia, August 17, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Herrmann. “Compars Herrmann.” Wikipedia, November 29, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compars_Herrmann. “Edison's Light.” Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee), January 27, 1880. www.newspapers.com.“The Electric Light System.” National Parks Service. Accessed January 19, 2025. https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/kidsyouth/the-electric-light-system-phonograph-motion pictures.htm#:~:text=In%201882%20Edison%20helped%20form,the%20U.S.%20have%20electric%20power.“The Harpurhey Murder: Fac-Simile of the Decoy Letter.” The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England), January 17, 1880. www.newspapers.com.“The Harpurhey Murder: History of the Man Haild.” Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, Merseyside, England), January 26, 1880. www.newspapers.com.“The Harpurhey Murder: The Inquest and Verdict.” The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England), January 24, 1880. www.newspapers.com.“Hermann The Magician.” The Oakland Times (Oakland, California), January 27, 1880. www.newspapers.com.Higgs, Michelle. “The Mystery of the Murdered Maid.” THE MYSTERY OF THE MURDERED MAID, January 1, 1970. https://servantsstories.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-mystery-of-murdered-maid.html.“Life of Thomas Alva Edison: Biography: Articles and Essays: Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies: Digital Collections: Library of Congress.” The Library of Congress. Accessed January 19, 2025. https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/articles-and-essays/biography/life-of-thomas-alva-edison/.“The Manchester Murder.” Sheffield and Rothenham Independent (Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England), January 27, 1880. www.newspapers.com.“Marshal Ney in North Carolina.” New York Daily Herald (New York, New York), February 10, 1879. www.newspapers.com.“Michel Ney.” Encyclopædia Britannica, January 6, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michel-Ney. “Michel Ney.” Wikipedia, January 27, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Ney. “The Mystery of Marshal Ney.” The Southland Times (Invercargill, Southland, New Zealand), January 27, 1880. www.newspapers.com.“The Plot Thickens: Did DNA Settle a Centuries-Old Conspiracy?” Davidson, September 18, 2023. https://www.davidson.edu/news/2023/09/18/plot-thickens-did-dna-settle-centuries-old conspiracy#:~:text=The%20crew%20from%20a%20French,was%20from%20Switzerland%20or%20Germany.%E2%80%9D.“Voice of a Veteran.” St. Joseph Gazette (St. Joseph, Missouri), December 15, 1880. www.newspapers.com.“Was It Marshall Ney?” The Buffalo Sunday Morning News (Buffalo, New York), May 29, 1887. www.newspapers.com.Whisenant, David. “French Researchers Conclude That Napoleon's Famed Marshal Ney Is Not the Peter Stuart Ney Buried in Rowan Co. Church Cemetery.” https://www.wbtv.com, September 9, 2023. https://www.wbtv.com/2023/09/09/french-researchers-conclude-that-napoleons-famed-marshal-ney-is-not-peter-stuart-ney-buried-rowan-co-church-cemetery/.SOUND SOURCESAl Jolson. “I'll Say She Does.” www.pixabay.com/music.Lucille Hegamin and The Dixie Daisies. “Cold Winter Blues.” www.pixabay.com/music.Sophie Tucker. “Reuben Rag.” www.pixabay.com/music.

In 1914, Thomas Edison—already 67 years old—watched as his laboratory burned to the ground. Ten buildings, destroyed. Years of work, up in flames. Millions of dollars in today's money, gone. But instead of collapsing in despair, Edison did something remarkable. He told his son: "Go get your mother and all her friends. They'll never see a fire like this again." The next morning, standing in the ruins, he simply said: "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew."Within just three weeks, Edison had created his first phonograph. And within a year, he delivered products worth nearly $10 million. Today, I'm going to show you exactly how to activate "The Advantage Shift"—the same perspective that allowed Edison to transform catastrophe into opportunity. By the end of our time together, you'll begin experiencing a profound shift where everything—yes, everything—starts working to your advantage.  

The electric system is undergoing rapid and instrumental change on a scale not experienced since 1892 when Thomas Edison first electrified the Pearl Street station in lower Manhattan. In the NYISO's latest podcast, President & CEO Rich Dewey, and Executive Vice President & COO Emilie Nelson discuss how these changes are impacting grid reliability, supply resources and planning the electric system for the future. Diving into the NYISO's recently released Power Trends report with Kevin Lanahan, podcast host and Vice President of External Affairs and Corporate Communications, they highlight how every plausible option and opportunity to bolster reliability and resource needs should be on the table.The conversation includes discussion of the following Power Trends 2025 key messages: Generator deactivations are outpacing new supply additions. Electrification programs and new large-load customers associated with economic development initiatives are pushing projected demand higher. Together, these forces are also narrowing reliability margins across New York and increasing the risk of future reliability needs.As public policy goals seek to decarbonize the grid, fossil-fired generation will be needed for reliable power system operations until the capabilities it offers can be supplied by other resources. Energy efficiency and Demand-Side Management (DSM) will continue to play a key role in reducing energy consumption, lowering costs, and mitigating environmental impacts.Repowering aging power plants can lower emissions, meet rising consumer demand, and provide reliability benefits to the grid that are needed to integrate additional clean energy resources.New York is projected to become a winter-peaking electric system by the 2040s, driven primarily by electrification of space heating and transportation. On the coldest days, the availability of natural gas for power generation can be limited, and interruptions to natural gas supply will introduce further challenges for reliable electric grid operations.Driven by public policies, new supply, load, and transmission projects are seeking to interconnect to the grid at record levels. NYISO's interconnection processes continue to evolve to balance developer flexibility with the need to manage the process to more stringent timeframes. New processes have been implemented to accelerate the process while protecting grid reliability.The competitive wholesale electricity markets administered by the NYISO support reliability while minimizing costs to consumers. Competitive wholesale markets are essential to a reliable, affordable and cleaner grid of the future. Listen now to gain a better understanding of the complex challenges facing New York's grid.Learn More Follow us on Twitter @NewYorkISO and LinkedIn @NYISO Read our blogs and watch our videos Check out our 2040 grid page

Founder of the Raising Capitalists Foundation and previous co-host of The Real Estate Guys Radio show, Russell Gray, joins Keith to discuss the historical and current devaluation of the U.S. dollar, its impact on investors, and the broader economic implications. Gray highlights how the significant increase in interest rates has trapped equity in properties and affected development. He explains the shift from gold-backed currency to paper money, the role of the Federal Reserve, and the impact of the Bretton Woods Agreement.  Gray emphasizes the importance of understanding macroeconomic trends and advocates for Main Street capitalism to decentralize power and promote productivity. He also criticizes the idea of housing as a human right, arguing it leads to inflation and shortages. Resources: Connect with Russell Gray to learn more about his "Raising Capitalists" project and his plans for a new show. Follow up with Russell Gray to get a copy of the Beardsley Rummel speech transcript from 1946. follow@russellgray.com Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/558 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”.  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai  Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, what's the real backstory on why we have this thing called the dollar? Why it keeps getting debased? What you can do about it and when the dollar will die? It's a lesson in monetary history. And our distinguished guest is a familiar voice that you haven't heard in a while. Today on get rich education.   Mid south home buyers, I mean, they're total pros, with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider, their empathetic property managers use your ROI as their North Star. So it's no wonder that smart investors just keep lining up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone. They're headquartered in Memphis and have globally attractive cash flows and A plus rating with a better business bureau and now over 5000 houses renovated. There's zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate, while their average renter stays more than three and a half years. Every home they offer has brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter. Remember that part and in an astounding price range, 100 to 180k I've personally toured their office and their properties in person in Memphis, get to know Mid South. Enjoy cash flow from day one. Start yourself right now at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid south homebuyers.com   Russell Gray  1:54   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  2:10   Welcome to GRE from St John's Newfoundland to St Augustine, Florida and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith weinholden. You are inside get rich education. It's 2025. The real estate market is changing. We'll get into that in future. Weeks today. Over the past 100 years plus, we've gone from sound money to Monopoly money, and we're talking about America's currency collapse. What comes next and how it affects you as both an investor and a citizen.   I'd like to welcome in longtime friend of the show and someone that I've personally learned from over the years, because he's a brilliant teacher, real estate investors probably haven't heard his voice as much lately, because until last year, he had been the co host of the terrific real estate guys radio show for nearly 20 years. Before we're done today, you'll learn more about what he's doing now, as he runs the Main Street capitalist platform and is also founder of the raising capitalists foundation. Hey, it's been a few years. Welcome back to GRE Russell Gray.   Russell Gray  3:19   yeah, it's fun. I actually think it's been maybe 10 years when I think about it, I remember I was at a little resort in Mexico recording with you, I think in the gym. It was just audio back then, no video.    Keith Weinhold  3:24   Yeah, I remember we're trying to get the audio right. Then I think you've been here more recently than 10 years ago. But yeah, now there's this video component. I actually have to sit up straight and comb my hair. It's ridiculous. Well, Russ, you're also a buff of monetary history. And before we discuss that, talk about the state of the real estate market today, just briefly, from your vantage point.   Russell Gray 1  3:55    I think the big story, and I'm probably not telling anybody anything they don't know, but the interest rate hike cycle that we went through this last round was quite a bit more substantial, I think, than a lot of people really appreciated, you know. And I started talking about that many years ago, because when you hit the zero bound and you have 6,7,8, years of interest rates below half a point, the change when they started that interest rate cycle from point two, 525 basis points all the way up to five and a quarter? That's a 20x move. And people might say, well, oh, you know, I go back to what Paul Volcker did way back in the day, when he took interest rates from eight or nine to 18. That was only a little bit more than double. Double is a far cry from 20x so we've never seen anything like that. Part of the fallout of that, as you know, is a lot of people wisely, and I was on the front end of cheerleading This is go get those loans refinanced and lock in that cheap money for as long as possible, because a loan will actually become an asset. The problem is, when you do that, you're kind of married to that property. Now it's not quite as bad. As being upside down in a property and you can't get out of it, but it's really hard to walk away from a two or 3% loan in a Six 7% market, because you really can't take your same payment and end up getting more house. And so that equity is kind of a little bit trapped, and that creates some opportunities, but I think that's been the big story, and then kind of the byproduct of the story. Second tier of the story was the impact it had on development, because it made it a lot harder for developers to develop, because their cost of funds and everything in that supply chain, food chain, you marry that to the 2020, COVID Supply Chain lockdown and that disruption, which, you know, you don't shut an economy down and just flick a switch and have it come back on. And so there's all of that. And then the third thing is just this tremendous uncertainty everybody has, because we just went from one extreme to another. And I think people, you know, they don't want to, like, rock the boat, they're going to kind of stay status quo for a little bit, whether they're businesses, whether they're homeowners, whether they're anybody out there that's thinking about moving them, unless life forces you to do it, you're going to try to stay status quo until things calm down. And I don't know how close we are to things calming down.   Keith Weinhold  6:13   One word I use is normalized. Both the 30 year fixed rate mortgage and the Fed funds rate are pretty close to their long term historic average. It just doesn't feel that way, because it was that rate of increase in 2022 that caught a lot of people off guard, like you touched on Well, Russ, now that we've talked about the present day, let's go back in time, and then we'll slowly bring things up to the present day. The dollar is troubled. It's worth perhaps 3% of what it was 100 years ago, but it's still around since it was established in the Coinage Act of 1792 and it's still the world reserve currency. In fact, only three currencies have survived longer than the dollar, the British pound, the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc. So talk to us about this really relentless debasement of the dollar over time, including the creation of the Fed and the Bretton Woods Agreement and all that.   Russell Gray 7:09   That's a big story, as you know, and I always like to try to break it down a little bit. One of my specialties I'd like to believe, is I speak macro and I speak Main Street. And so when I try to break macroeconomics down, I start out with, why do I even care? I mean, if I'm a main street investor, why do I even care? In 2008 as you know, is a wipeout for me. Why? Because I didn't think anything had happened in the macro I didn't think Wall Street bond market. I didn't think that affected me. One thing I really cared about was interest rates. And I had a cursory interest in the bond market. We just try to figure out where interest rates were going. But for the most part, I thought, as a main street real estate investor, I was 100% insulated. I couldn't have been more wrong, because it really does matter, because the value of the dollar, in other words, the purchasing power of the dollar, and usually you refer to that as inflation, right? If inflation is there, the dollar is losing its purchasing power, and so the higher the inflation rate, the faster you're losing that purchasing power. And you might say, well, maybe that matters to me. Maybe it does. But the people who make the money available to the mortgage community, right to the real estate community to borrow that comes out of the bond market. And so when people go to buy a bond, which is an IOU, they're going to get paid back in the currency that they lent in, in this case, dollars. And if they know, if they're making a long term investment in a long term bond, and they're going to get paid back in dollars, they're going to be worth a whole lot less when they get them back. One of the things they're going to want is compensation for that time risk, and that's called higher interest rates. Okay, so now, if you're a main street investor, and higher interest rates impact you, now you understand why you want to pay attention. Okay, so let's just start with that. And so once you understand that the currency is a derivative of money, and money used to be you mentioned the Coinage Act Keith money, which is gold, used to be synonymous with the dollar. The dollar was only a unit of measure of gold, 1/20 of an ounce. It was a unit of measure. So it's like, the way I teach people is, like, if you had a gallon of milk and you traded, I'm a farmer, and I had a lot of milk, and so everybody decided they were going to use gallons of milk as their currency. Hey, where there's a lot of gallons of milk. He's got a big refrigerator. We'll just trade gallons of milk. Hey, Keith, I really like your beef. I you know, will you sell me some, a side of beef, and I'll give you, you know, 100 gallons of milk, you know, like, Oh, that's great. Well, I can't drink all this milk, so I'm going to leave the milk on deposit at the dairy, and then later on, when I decide I want a suit of clothes, I'll say, well, that's 10 gallons of milk. So I'll give the guy 10 gallons of milk. So I just give him a coupon, a claim, a piece of paper for that gallon of milk, or 20 gallons of milk, and he can go to the dairy and pick it up, right? And so that's kind of the way the monetary system evolved, except it wasn't milk, it was gold. So now you got the dollar. Well, after a while, nobody's going to get the milk. They don't care about the milk. And so now. Now, instead of just saying, I'll give you a gallon of milk, you just say, well, I'll give you a gallon. And somebody says, Okay, that's great. I'll take a gallon. They never opened the jug up. They never realized the jug is empty. They're just trading these empty jugs that used to have milk in them. Well, that's what the paper dollar is today. It went from being a gold certificate payable to bearer on demand, a certain amount of gold, a $20 gold certificate, what looks exactly like a $20 FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE. Today they look exactly the same, except one says FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE, which is an IOU backed by nothing, and the other one said gold certificate, which was payable to bearer on demand, real money. So my point is, is he got money which is a derivative of the productivity, the beef, the soot, the milk, whatever, right? That's the real capital. The real capital is the goods and services we all want. Money is where we store the value of whatever it is we created until we want to trade it for something somebody else created later. And it used to be money and currency were one in the same, but now we've separated that. So now all we do is trade empty gallons, which are empty pieces of paper, and that's currency. So those are derivatives, and the last derivative of that chain is credit. And you had Richard Duncan on your show more than once, and he is famous for kind of having this term. We don't normally have capitalism. We have creditism, right? Everything is credit. Everything is claims on wealth, but it's not real wealth, and it's just when we look at what's going on with our current administration and the drive to become a productive rather than a financialized society, again, as part of this uncertainty that everybody has. Because this is not just a subtle little adjustment on the same course. This is like, No, we're we're going down a completely different path. But fundamentally, your system operates on this currency that is flowing through it, like the blood flowing through your body. And if the blood is bad, your body's sick. And right now, our currency is bad, and so it creates problems, not just for us, but all around the world. And now we're exacerbating that. And I'm not saying it's bad. In fact, I think it's actually it's actually good, but change is what it is, right? I mean, it can be really good to go to the gym and work out before we started recording, you talked about your commitment to fitness, and that if you stop working out, you get unfit, and it's hard to start up again. Well, we've allowed our economy to get very unfit. Now we're trying to get fit again, and it's going to be painful. We're going to be sore, but if we stick with it, I think we can actually kind of save this thing. So I don't know what that's going to mean for the dollar ultimately, or if we end up going to something else, but right now, to your point, the dollar is definitely the big dog still, but I think it's probably even more under attack today than it's ever been, and so it's just something I think every Main Street investor needs to pay attention to.    Keith Weinhold  12:46   And it was really that 1913 creation of the Fed, where the Fed's mandates really didn't begin to take effect until 1914 that accelerated this slide in the dollar. Prior to that, it was really just periods of war, like, for example, the Civil War, where we had inflation rise, but then after wars abated, the dollar's strength returned, but that ceased to happen last century.   Russell Gray  13:11   I think there's a much bigger story there. So when we founded the country, we established legal money in the Coinage Act of 1792 we got gold and silver and a specific unit of measure of gold, a specific unit, measure of silver was $1 and that's what money was constitutionally. Alexander Hamilton advocated for the first central bank and got it, but it was issued by Charter, which meant that it was operated by the permission of the Congress. It wasn't institutionalized. It wasn't embedded in the Constitution. It was just something that was granted, like a license. You have a charter to be able to run a bank. When that initial charter came up for renewal, Congress goes, now we're not going to renew it. Well, of course, that made the bankers really upset, because bankers have a pretty good gig, right? They get to just loan people money. They don't have to do any real work, and then they make money on just kind of arbitraging, you know, other people's money. Savers put their money in, and they borrowed the money out, and then they with fractional reserve, they're able to magnify that. So it's, it's kind of a cool gig. And so what happened? Then he had the first central bank, so then they got the second central bank, and the second central bank was also issued by charter this time when it came up for renewal, Congress goes, Yeah, let's renew it, right? Because the bankers knew we got to go buy a few congressmen if we want to keep this thing going. But President Andrew Jackson said, No, not going to happen. And it was a big battle. Is a famous quote of him just calling these bankers a brood of vipers. And I'm going to put you down. And God help me, I will, right? I mean, it was like intense fact, I do believe he got shot at one point. I think he died from lead poisoning, because he never got the bullet out. So, you know, when you go to up against the bankers, it's not pretty, but he succeeded. He was the last president that paid off all the debt, balanced budget, paid off all the debt, and we got kind of back on sound money. Well, then a little while later, said, Okay, we're going to need, like, something major, and this would. I should put on. I got my, this is my hat, right now, I'll kind of put it on. This is my, my tin foil hat. Okay? And so I put this on when I kind of go down the rabbit trail a little bit. No, I'm not saying this is what happened, but it wouldn't surprise me, right? Because I know that war is profitable, and so sometimes, you know, your comment was, hey, there's the bank, and then there was, you know, the war, or there's the war, then there's a bank, which comes first the chicken or the egg. I think there's an article where Henry Ford and Thomas Edison went to Congress. I think it was December. The article was published New York Tribune, December 4. I think 1921 you can look it up, New York Tribune, front page article   Keith Weinhold  15:38   fo those of you in the audio only. Russ started donning a tin foil looking hat here about one minute ago.    Russell Gray  15:45   I did, yeah, so I put it on. Just so fair warning. You know, I may go a little conspiratorial, but the reason I do that is I just, I think we've seen enough, just in current, modern history and politics, in the age of AI and software and freedom of speech and new media, there's a lot of weird stuff going on out there, but a lot of stuff that we thought was really weird a little while ago has turned out to be more true than we thought. When you look back in history, and you kind of read the official narrative and you wonder, you kind of read between the lines. You go, oh, maybe some stuff went on here. So anyway, the allegation that Ford made, smart guy, Thomas Edison, smart guy. And they go to Congress, and they go, Hey, we need to get the gold out of the banker's hands, because gold is money, and we need money not to revolve around gold, because the bankers control gold. They control the money, and they make profits, his words, not mine, by starting wars, because he was very upset about World War One, which happened. We got involved right after Fed gets formed in 1913 World War One starts in 1914 the United States sits off in the background and sells everybody, everything. It collects a bunch of gold, and then enters at the end and ends it all. And that big influx created the roaring 20s, as we all know, which ended big boom to big bust. And that cycle, which then a crisis that created, potentially a argument for why the government should have more control, right? So you kind of go down this path. So we ended up in 1865 with President Lincoln suppressing states rights and eventually creating an unconstitutional income tax and then creating an unconstitutional currency. That's what Abraham Lincoln did. And then on the back end of that, you know, it didn't end well for him, and I don't know why, but all I know is that we had a financial crisis in 1907 and the solution to that was the Aldrich plan, which was basically a monopoly on money. It's called a money trust. And Charles Lindbergh, SR was railing against it, as were many people at the time, going, No, this is terrible. So they renamed the Aldrich plan the Federal Reserve Act. And instead of going for a bank charter, they went for a constitutional amendment, and they got it in the 16th Amendment, and that's where we got the IRS. That's where we got the income tax, which was only supposed to be 7% only affect like the top one or 2% of earners, right? And that's where we got, you know, the Federal Reserve. That's where all that was born. Since that happened, to your point, the dollar has been on with a slight little rise up in the 20s, which, you know, there's a whole thing about whether that caused the crash or not. But at the end of the day, if you go look at St Louis Fed, which you go look at all the time, and you just look at the long term trend of the dollar, it's terrible. And the barometer, that's gold, right? $20 of gold in 1913 and 1933 and then 42 in 1971 or two, whatever it was, three, and then eventually as high as 850 but at the turn of the century, this century, it was $250 so at $2,500 it would have lost 90% in the 21st Century. The dollars lost 90% in the 21st Century, just to 2500 that's profound to go. That's right, it already lost more than 90% from $20 to 250 so it lost 90% and then 90% of the 10% that was left. And that's where we're at. We're worse than that. Today, no currency, as far as I understand, I've been told this. Haven't done the homework, but it's my understanding, no currency in the history of the world has ever survived that kind of debasement. So I think a lot of people who are watching are like, okay, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And then the big question is, is when that when comes? What does the transition look like? What rises in its place? And then you look at things like a central bank digital currency, which is not like Bitcoin, it's not a crypto, it's a centrally controlled currency run by the central bank. If we get that, I would argue that's not good for privacy and security. Could be Bitcoin would be better. I would argue, could go back to gold backing, which I would say is better than what we have, or we could get something nobody's even thought of. I don't know. We don't know, but I do think we're at the end of the life cycle. Historically, all things being equal. And I think all the indication with a big run up of gold, gold is screaming something's broken. It's just screaming it right now, not just because the price is up, but who's buying it. It's just central banks.   Keith Weinhold  20:12   Central banks are doing most of the buying, right? It's not individual investors going to a coin shop. So that's really screaming, telling you that people are concerned. People are losing their faith in giving loans to the United States for sure. And Russ, as we talk about gold, and it's important link to the dollar over time, you mentioned how they wanted it, to get it out of the bank's hands for a while. Of course, there was also a period of time where it was illegal for Americans to own gold. And then we had this Bretton Woods Agreement, which was really important as well, where we ended up violating promises that had to do with gold again. So can you speak to us some more about that? Because a lot of people just don't understand what happened at Bretton Woods.   Russell Gray  20:56   What happened is we had the big crash in 1929 and the net result of that was, in 1933 we got executive order 6102 In fact, I have a picture of it framed, and that was in the wake of that in 1933 and so what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in signing that document, which was empowered by a previous act of Congress, basically let him confiscate all The money. It'd be like right now if, right now, you know, President Trump signed an executive order and said, You have to take all your cash, every all the cash that you have out of your wallet. You have to send it all, take it into the bank, and they're going to give you a Chuck E Cheese token, right? And if you don't do it, if you do it, it's a $500,000 fine in 10 years in prison. Right? Back then it was a $10,000 fine, which was twice the price of the average Home huge fine, plus jail time. That's how severe it was, okay? So they confiscated all the money. That happened in 33 okay? Now we go off to war, and we enter the war late again. And so we have the big manufacturing operation. We're selling munitions and all kinds of supplies to everybody, all over the world, right? And we're just raking the gold and 20,000 tons of gold. We got all the gold. We got the biggest army now, we got the biggest bomb, we got the biggest economy. We got the strongest balance sheet. Well, I mean, you know, we went into debt for the war, but, I mean, we had a lot of gold. So now everybody else is decimated. We're the big dog. Everybody knows we're the big dog. Nine states shows up in New Hampshire Bretton Woods, and they have this big meeting with the world, and they say, Hey guys, new sheriff in town. Britain used to be the world's reserve currency, but today we're going to be the world's reserve currency. And so this was the new setup. But it's okay. It's okay because our dollar is as good as gold. It's backed by gold, and so anytime you want foreign nations, you can just bring your dollars to us and we'll give you the gold, no problem. And everyone's like, okay, great. What are you going to say? Right? You got the big bomb, you got the big army. Everybody needs you for everything to live like you're not going to say no. So they said, Yes, of course, the United States immediately. I've got a speech that a guy named Beardsley Rummel did. Have you ever heard me talk about this before? Keith, No, I've never heard about this. So Beardsley Rummel was the New York Fed chair when all this was happening. And so he gave a speech to the American Bar Association in 1945 and I got a transcript of it, a PDF transcript of it from 1946 and basically he goes, Look, income taxes are obsolete. We don't need income tax anymore because we can print money, because we're off the gold standard and we have no accountability. We just admitted it, just totally admitted it, and said the only reason we have income tax is to manipulate behavior, is to redistribute wealth, is to force people to do what we want them to do, punish things and reward others, right? Just set it plain language. I have a transcript of the speech. You can get a copy of you send an email to Rummel R U, M, L@mainstreetcapitalist.com I'll get it to you. So it's really, really interesting. So he admitted it. So we went along in the 40s and the 50s, and, you know, we had the only big manufacturing you know, because everybody else is still recovering from the war. Everything been bombed to smithereens, and we're spending money and doing all kinds of stuff. And having the 50s, it was great, right, right up until the mid 60s. So the mid 60s, it's like, Okay, we got a problem. And Charles de Gaulle, who was the president of France at the time, went to a meeting. And there's a YouTube video, but you can see it, he basically told the world, hey, I don't think the United States is doing a good job managing this world's reserve currency. I don't think they've got the gold. I think they printed too much money. I think that we should start to go redeem our dollars and get the gold. That was pretty forward thinking. And he created a run on the bank. And at the same time, we passed the Coinage Act in 1965 and took all the silver out of the people's money. So we took the gold in 33 and then we took the silver in 65 right? Because we got Vietnam and the Great Society, welfare, all these things were going on in the 60s. We're just going broke. Meanwhile, our gold supply went from 20,000 tons down to eight and Richard. Nixon is like, whoa, time out. Like, this is bad. And so we had inflation in 1970 August 15, 1971 year before August 15, 1971 1970 Nixon writes an executive order and freezes all prices and all wages. It became illegal by presidential edict for a private business to give their employee a raise or to raise their prices to the customers.    Keith Weinhold  25:30   It's almost if that could happen price in theUnited States of America, right?    Russell Gray  25:36   And inflation was 4.4% and it was a national emergency like today. I mean, you know, a few years ago, like three or four years ago, we if we could get it down 4.4% it'd be Holly. I'd be like a celebration. That was bad. And so that's what happened. So a year later, that didn't work. It was a 90 day thing. It was a disaster. And so in a year later, August 15, 1971 Nixon came on live TV after Gunsmoke. I think it was, and I was old enough I'm watching TV on a Sunday night I watched it. Wow. So I live, that's how old I am. So it's a lot of this history, not the Bretton Woods stuff, but from like 1960 2,3,4, forward. I remember I was there.    Keith Weinhold  26:13   Yeah, that you remember the whole Nixon address on television. We should say it for the listener that doesn't know. Basically the announcement Nixon made, he said, was a temporary measure, is that foreign nations can no longer redeem their dollars for gold. He broke the promise that was made at Bretton Woods in about 1945   Russell Gray  26:32   Yeah. And then gold went from $42 up to 850 and a whole series of events that have led to where we're at today were put in place to cover up the fact that the dollar was failing. We had climate emergency. We were headed towards the next global Ice Age. We had an existential threat in two different diseases that hit one right after the other. First one was the h1 n1 flu, swine flu, and then the next thing was AIDS. And so we had existential pandemic, two of them. We also had a oil shortage crisis. We were going to run out of fossil fuel by the year 2000 we had to do all kinds of very public, visible, visceral things that we would all see. You could only buy gas odd even days, like, if your license plate ended in an odd number, you could go on these days, and if it ended on an even number, you could go on the other days. And so we had that. We lowered our national speed limit down to 55 miles an hour. We created the EPA and all these different agencies under Jimmy Carter to try to regulate and manage all of this crisis. Prior to that, Nixon sent Kissinger over to China, and we opened up trade relations. And we'd been in Vietnam to protect the world from communism because it was so horrible. And then in the wake of that, we go over to Communist China, Chairman Mao and open up trade relations. Why we needed access to their cheap labor to suck up all the inflation. And we went over to the Saudis, and we cut the petro dollar deal. Why? Because we needed the float. We needed some place for all these excess dollars that we had created to get sucked up. And so they got sucked up in trading the largest commodity in the world, energy. And the deal was, hey, Saudis, here's the deal. You like your kingdom? Well, we got the big bomb. We got the big army. You're going to rule the roost in the in the Middle East, and we'll protect you. All you got to do is make sure you sell all your oil in dollars and dollars only. And they're like, Well, what if we're selling oil to China, or what if we're selling oil to Japan? Can they pay in yen? Nope, they got to sell yen. Buy dollars. Well, what do we do with all these dollars? Buy our treasuries. Okay, so what if I got this? Yeah, and so that was the petrodollar system. And the world looked at everything went on, and the world is like, Hmm, the United States coming back to Europe, and Charles de Gaulle, they're like, the United States is not handling this whole dollar thing real well. We need an alternative. What if all of us independent nations in Europe got together and created a common currency? We don't want to be like one country, like the United States, but we want to be like an economic union. So let's create a current let's call it the euro. And they started that process in the 70s, but they didn't get it done till 99 and so they get it done in 99 as soon as they get it done, this guy named Saddam Hussein goes, Hey, I'm now the big dog here. I got the fourth largest army in the world. I'm here in, you know, big oil producing nation. Let's trade in the euro. Let's get off the dollar. Let's do oil in the euro. And he's gone. I'm not sure I should put my hat back on. I'm not sure, but somehow we went into Afghanistan and took a hard left and took this guy out.   Keith Weinhold  29:44   Some credence to this. Yes, yeah, so. But with that said,   Russell Gray  29:47   you know, we ended up with the Euro taking about 20% of the global trade market from the United States, which is about where it sits today. And the United States used to be up over 80% and now we're down below 60% still. The Big Dog by triple and the euro is not in a position to supplant the US, but I think China, whose claim to fame is looking at other people's technology and models and copying it, looked at what the United States did to become the dominant economic force, and I think they've systematically been copying it. I wrote a report on this way back in 2013 when I started really paying attention to it and began to chronicle all the things that they were doing, this big D dollarization movement that I think still has legs. It's the BRICS movement. It's all the central banks buying gold. It's the bilateral trade agreements where people are doing business outside the dollar. There's been not just that, but also putting together the infrastructure, right? The Asian Infrastructure Bank is an alternative to the IMF looking, if you have you read Confessions of an economic hitman. No. Okay, so this is a guy that used to work in the government, I think, CIA or something, and he would go down and he'd cut deals with leaders of countries to get them to borrow from the United States to put in key infrastructure so they could trade with the US. And then, of course, if they defaulted, then the US owned that in the infrastructure. You can look it up. His name is Perkins, right. Look it up confessions of economic hit now, but you see China doing the same thing. China's got their Belt and Road Initiative. And you go through, and if you want to trade with China on that route, you have traded, you're gonna have to have infrastructure. You can eat ports. You're gonna need terminals for distribution. But you, Oh, you don't have the money. We'll loan it to you, and we'll loan it to you and you want. Now we're creating demand for you want, and we also are enslaving borrower servant to the lender. We're beginning to enslave these other nations under the guise of helping them by financing their growth so they can do business with us. It's the same thing the United States did and Shanghai Gold Exchange, as opposed to the London Bullion exchange. So all of the key pieces of infrastructure that were put in place to facilitate Western hegemony in the financial markets the Chinese have been systematically putting in place with bricks, and so there's a reason we're in this big trade war right now. We recognize that they had started to get in a position where they were actually a real threat, and we got to cut their legs out from underneath them before they get any stronger. Again, I should put my hat back on. Nobody's calling me up and telling me, I'm just reading between the lines. Sure,   Keith Weinhold  32:23   there certainly are more competitors to the dollar now. And can you imagine what rate of inflation that we would have had if we had not outsourced our labor and productivity over to a low wage place like China in the east? Russ and I have been talking about the long term debasement of the dollar and why. More on that when we come back, including what Russ is up to today. You're listening to get rich education. Our guest is Russell Gray. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your pre qual and even chat with President Chaley Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com that's Ridge lendinggroup.com. You know what's crazy? Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns, and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time, in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back. No weird lockups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing. Check it out. Text family, 266, 866, to learn about freedom family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family, 266, 866,   Garrett Sutton  34:36   hi. This is Rich Dad advisor, Garrett Sutton. You're listening to the always valuable. Get rich education with Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.    Keith Weinhold  34:52   Welcome back to get rich education. We're talking with the main street capitalists Russell gray about this long term debasement of the dollar. It's an. Inevitable. It's one of the things we actually can forecast with pretty good predictability that the dollar will continue to debase. It's one of the few almost guarantees that we have in investing. So we can think about how we want to play that Russ one thing I wonder about is, did we have to completely de peg the dollar from gold? Couldn't we have just diluted it where we could instead say, Well, hey, now, instead of just completely depegging the dollar from gold, we could say, well, now it takes 10 times as many dollars as it used to to redeem it for an ounce of gold. Did it make it more powerful that we just completely de pegged it 100%   Russell Gray  35:36   it would disempower the monopoly. Right? In other words, I think that the thing from the very beginning, was scripted to disconnect from the accountability of gold, which is what sound money advocates want. They want some form of independent Accountability. Gold is like an audit to a financial system. If you're the bankers and you're running the program, the last thing in the world you want is a gold standard, because it limits your ability to print money out of thin air and profit from that. So I don't think the people who are behind all of this are, in no way, shape or form, interested in doing anything that's going to limit their power or hold them accountable. They want just the opposite. I think if they could wave a magic wand and pick their solution to the problem, it would be central bank digital currency, which would give them ultimate control. Yeah. And it wouldn't surprise me if we maybe, perhaps, were on a path where some crises were going to converge, whether it's opportunistic, meaning that the crisis happened on its own, and quote Rahm Emanuel and whoever he was quoting, you know, never let a good crisis go to waste, and you're just opportunistic, or, you know, put the conspiracy theory hat on, and maybe these crises get created in order to facilitate the power grab. I don't know. It really doesn't matter what the motives are or how it happens at the end of the day, it's what happens. It happened in 33 it happened in 60. In 71 it's what happens. And so it's been a systematic de pegging of any form of accountability. I mean, we used to have a budget ceiling. We used to talk about now it's just like, it's routine. You blow right through it, right, right. There's you balance. I mean, when's the last time you even had a budget? Less, less, you know, much less anything that looked like a valid balanced budget amendment. So I think there's just no accountability other than the voting booth. And, you know, I think maybe you could make the argument that whether you like Trump or not, the public's apparent embrace of him, show you that the main street and have a lot of faith in Main Street. I think Main Street is like, you know what? This is broken. I don't know what's how to fix it, but somebody just needs to go in and just tear this thing down and figure out a new plant. Because I think if you anybody paying attention, knows that this perpetual debasement, which is kind of the theme of the show is it creates haves and have nots. Guys like you who understand how to use real estate to short the dollar, especially when you marry it to gold, which is one of my favorite strategies to double short the dollar, can really magnify the power of inflation to pull more wealth onto your balance sheet. Problem is the people who aren't on that side of the coin are on the other side of the coin, and so the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. Well, the first order of business in a system we can't control is help as many people be on the rich get richer. That's why we had the get rich show, right? Let's help other people get rich. Because if I'm the only rich guy in the room, all the guns are pointed at me, right? I wanted everybody as rich as possible. I think Trump and Kiyosaki wrote about that in their book. Why we want you to be rich, right? When everybody's prospering, it's it's better, it's safer, you have people to trade with and whatnot, but we have eviscerated the middle class because industry has had to go access cheap labor markets in order to compensate for this inflation. And you know, you talk about the Fed mandate, which is 2% inflation, price inflation, 2% so if you say something that costs $1 today, a year from now, is going to cost $1 too, you think, well, maybe that's not that bad. But here's the problem, the natural progression of Business and Technology is to lower the cost, right? So you have something cost $1 today, and because somebody's using AI and internet and automation and robots and all this technology, right? And the cost, they could really sell it for 80 cents. And so the Fed looks at and goes, Let's inflate to $1.02 that's not two cents of inflation. That's 22 cents of inflation. And so there's hidden inflation. The benefits of the gains in productivity don't show up in the CPI, but it's like deferred maintenance on an apartment building. You can make your cash flow look great if you're not setting anything aside for the inevitable day when that roof is going to go out and that parking lot is going to need to be repaved, right? And you don't know how far out you are until you get there and you're like, wow, I'm really short, and I think that we have been experiencing for decades. The theft of the benefit of our productivity gains, and we're not just a little bit out of position. We're way out of position. That's   Keith Weinhold  40:07   a great point. Like I had said earlier, imagine what the rate of inflation would be if we hadn't outsourced so much of our labor and productivity to low cost China. And then imagine what the rate of inflation would be as well, if you would factor in all of this increased productivity and efficiency, the natural tendencies of which are to make prices go lower as society gets more productive, but instead they've gone higher. So when you adjust for some of these factors, you just can't imagine what the true debased purchasing power of the dollar is. It's been happening for a long time. It's inevitable that it's going to continue to happen in the future. So this has been a great chat about the history and us understanding what the powers that be have done to debase our dollar. It's only at what rate we don't know. Russ, tell us more about what you're doing today. You're really out there more as a champion for Main Street in capitalism.   Russell Gray  41:04   I mean, 20 years with Robert and the real estate guys, and it was fantastic. I loved it. I went through a lot, obviously, in 2008 and that changed me a little bit. Took me from kind of being a blocking and tackling, here's how you do real estate, and to really understanding macro and going, you know, it doesn't matter. You can do like I did, and you build this big collection. Big collection of properties and you lose it all in a moment because you don't understand macro. So I said, Okay, I want to champion that cause. And so we did that. And then we saw in the 2012 JOBS Act, the opportunity for capital raisers to go mainstream and advertise for credit investors. And I wrote a report then called the new law breaks Wall Street monopoly. And I felt like that was going to be a huge opportunity, and we pioneered that. But then after my late wife died, and I had a chance to spend some time alone during COVID, and I thought, life is short. What do I really want to accomplish before I go? And then I began looking at what was going on in the world. I see now a couple of things that are both opportunities and challenges or causes to be championed. And one is the mega trend that I believe the world is going you know, some people call it a fourth turning whatever. I don't consider that kind of we have to fall off a cliff as Destiny type of thing to be like cast in stone. But what I do see is that people are sick and tired of monopolies. We're sick and tired of big tech, we're sick and tired of big media, we're sick and tired of big government. We're sick and tired of big corporations, we don't want it, and big banks, right? So you got the rise of Bitcoin, you got people trying to get out from underneath the Western hegemony, as we've been talking about decentralization of everything. Our country was founded on the concept of decentralization, and so people don't understand that, right? It used to be everything was centralized. All powers in the king. Real Estate meant royal property. That's what real estate it's not like real asset, like tangible it's royal estate. It's royal property. Everything belonged to the king, and you just got to work it like a serf. And then you got to keep 75% in your produce, and you sent 25% you sent 25% through all the landlords, the land barons, and all the people in the hierarchy that fed on running things for the king, but you didn't own anything. Our founder set that on, turn that upside down, and said, No, no, no, no, no, it's not the king that's sovereign. It's the individual. The individual is sovereign. It isn't the monarchy, it's the individual states. And so we're going to bring the government, small. The central government small has only got a couple of obligations, like protect the borders, facilitate interstate commerce, and let's just have one common currency so that we can do business together. Other than that, like, the state's just going to run the show. Of course, Lincoln kind of blew that up, and it's gotten a lot worse after FDR, so I feel like we're under this big decentralization movement, and I think Main Street capitalism is the manifestation of that. If you want to decentralize capitalism, the gig economy, if you want to be a guy like you, and you can run your whole business off your laptop with a microphone and a camera, you know, in today's day and age with technology, people have tasted the freedom of decentralization. So I think the rise of the entrepreneur, I think the ability to go build a real asset portfolio and get out of the casinos of Wall Street. I think right now, if we are successful in bringing back these huge amounts of investment, Trump's already announced like two and a half or $3 trillion of investment, people are complaining, oh, the world is selling us. Well, they're selling stocks and they're selling but they're putting the money actually into creating businesses here in the United States that's going to create that primary driver, as you well know, in real estate, that's going to create the secondary and tertiary businesses, and the properties they're going to use all kinds of Main Street opportunity are going to grow around that. I lived in Silicon Valley, when a company would get funded, it wasn't just a company that prospered, it was everything around that company, right? All these companies. I remember when Apple started. I remember when Hewlett Packard, it was big, but it got a lot bigger, right there. I watched all that happen in Silicon Valley. I think that's going to happen again. I think we're at the front end of that. And so that's super exciting. Wave. The second thing that is super important is this raising capitalist project. And the reason I'm doing it is because if we don't train our next generation in the principles of capitalism and the freedom that it how it decentralizes Their personal economy, and they get excited about Bitcoin, but that's not productive. I'm not putting it down. I'm just saying it's not productive. You have to be productive. You want to have a decentralized currency. Yes, you want to decentralize productivity. That's Main Street capitalism. If kids who never get a chance to be in the productive economy get to vote at 1819, 2021, 22 before they've ever earned a paycheck, before they have any idea, never run a business. Somebody tells them, hey, those guys that have all that money and property, they cheated. It's not fair. We need to take from them. We need to limit them, not thinking, Oh, well, if I do that, when I get to be there, that what I'm voting for is going to get on me. Right now, Keith, there are kids in ninth grade who are going to vote for your next president, right?   Keith Weinhold  45:56   And they think capitalism is evil. This is part of what you're doing with the raising capitalists project, helping younger people think differently. Russ, I have one last thing to ask you. This has to do with the capitalism that you're championing on your platforms now. And real estate, I continue to see sometimes I get comments on my YouTube channel, especially maybe it's more and more people increasingly saying, Hey, I think housing should be a human right. So talk to us about that. And maybe it's interesting, Russ, if I take the other side of it and play devil's advocate, people who think housing is a human right, they say something like, the idea is that housing, you know, it's a fundamental need, just like food and clean water and health care are without stable housing. It's incredibly hard for a person to access opportunities like work and education or health care or participate meaningfully in society at all. So government ought to provide housing for everybody. What are your thoughts there?   Russell Gray  46:54   Well, it's inherently inflationary, which is the root cause of the entire problem. So anytime you create consumption without production, you're going to have more consumers than producers, and so you're going to have more competition for those goods. The net, net truth of what happens in that scenario are shortages everywhere. Every civilization that's ever tried any form of system where people just get things for free because they need them, end up with shortages in poverty. It doesn't lift everybody. It ruins everything. I mean, that's not conjecture. That's history, and so that's just the way it works. And if you just were to land somebody on a desert island and you had an economy of one, they're going to learn really quick the basic principles of capitalism, which is production always precedes consumption, always 100% of the time, right? If you're there on that desert island and you don't hunt fish or gather, you don't eat, right? You don't get it because, oh, it's a human right to have food. Nope, it's a human right to have the right to go get food. Otherwise, you're incarcerated, you have to have the freedom of movement to go do something to provide for yourself, but you cannot allow people to consume without production. So everybody has to produce. And you know, if you go back to the Plymouth Rock experiment, if you're familiar with that at all, yeah, yeah. So you know, just for anybody who doesn't know, when the Pilgrims came over here in the 1600s William Bradford was governor, and they tried it. They said, Hey, we're here. Let's Stick Together All for one and one for all. Here's the land. Everybody get up every day and work. Everybody works, and everybody eats. They starved. And so he goes, Okay, guys, new plan. All right, you wine holds. See this little plot of land, that's yours. You work it. You can eat whatever you produce. Over there, you grace. You're going to do yours and Johnson's, you're going to do yours, right? Well, what happened is now everybody got up and worked, and they created more than enough for their own family, and they had an abundance. And the abundance was created out of their hunger. When they went to serve their own needs, they created abundance forever others. That's the premise of capitalism. It's not the perfect system. There is no perfect system. We live in a world where human beings have to work before they get to eat. When I say eat, it could be having a roof over their head. It could be having clothes. It could be going on vacation. It could be having a nice car. It could be getting health care. It doesn't matter what it is, whatever it is you need. You have the right, or should have, the right, in a free system to go earn that by being productive, but the minute somebody comes and says, Oh, you worked, and I'm going to take what you produced and give it to somebody else who didn't, that's patently unfair, but economically, it's disastrous, because it incentivizes people not to work, which creates less production, more consumption. I have another analogy with sandwich makers, but you can imagine that if you got a group if you got a group of people making sandwiches, one guy starts creating coupons for sandwiches. Well then if somebody says, Okay, well now we got 19 people providing for 20. That's okay, but then all the guys making sandwiches. Why making sandwiches? I'm gonna get the coupon business pretty soon. You got 18 guys doing coupons, only two making sandwiches. Not. Have sandwiches to go around all the sandwiches cost tons of coupons because we got way more financialization than productivity, right? That's the American economy. We have to fix that. We can't have people making money by just trading on other people's productivity. We have to have people actually being productive. This is what I believe the administration is trying to do, rebuild the middle class, rebuild that manufacturing base, make us a truly productive economy, and then you don't have to worry about these things, right? We're going to create abundance. And if you don't have the inflation is which is coming from printing money out of thin air and giving to people who don't produce, then housing, all sudden, becomes affordable. It's not a problem. Health care becomes affordable. Everything becomes affordable because you create abundance, because everybody's producing the system is fundamentally broken. Now we have to learn how to profit in it in its current state, which is what you teach people how to do. We also have to realize that it's not sustainable. We're on an unsustainable path, and we're probably nearing that event horizon, the path of no return, where the system is going to break. And the question is, is, how are you going to be prepared for it when it happens? Number two, are you going to be wise enough to advocate when you get a chance to cast a vote or make your voice heard for something that's actually going to create prosperity and freedom versus something that's going to create scarcity and oppression? And that's the fundamental thing that we have to master as a society. We got to get to our youth, because they're the biggest demographic that can blow the thing up, and they're the ones that have been being indoctrinated the worst.   Keith Weinhold  51:29   Yes, Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself said that we live in a economic system today that is unsustainable. Yes, the collectivism we touched on quickly descends into the tyranny of the majority. And in my experience, historically, the success of public housing projects has been or to mixed at best, residents often don't respect the property when they don't have an equity stake in it or even a security deposit tied up in it, and blight and high crime rates have often followed with these public housing projects. When you go down that path of making housing as a human right, like you said earlier, you have a right to go procure housing for yourself, just not to ask others to pay for it for you. Well, Russ, this has been great. It's good to have your voice back on the show. Here again, here on a real estate show. If people want to connect with you, continue to see what you've been up to and the good projects that you're working on, promoting the virtues of capitalism. What's the best way for them to do that?   Russell Gray  52:31   I think just send an email to follow at Russell Gray, R, U, S, S, E, L, L, G, R, A, y.com, let you know where I am on social media. I'll let you know when I put out new content. I'll let you know when I'm a guest on somebody somebody's show and I'm on the cusp of getting my own show finally launched. I've been doing a lot of planning to get that out, but I'm excited about it because I do think, like I said, The time is now, and I think the marketplace is ripe, and I do speak Main Street and macro, and I hope I can add a nuance to the conversation that will add value to people.   Keith Weinhold  53:00   Russ, it's been valuable as always. Thanks so much for coming back onto the show. Thanks, Keith.   Yeah, terrific, historic outline from Russ about the long term decline of the dollar. It's really a fresh reminder and motivator to keep being that savvy borrower. Of course, real estate investors have access to borrow giant sums of dollars and short the currency that lay people do not. In fact, lay people don't even understand that it's a viable strategy at all. Like he touched on, Russ has really been bringing an awareness about how decentralization is such a powerful force that reshapes society. In fact, he was talking about that the last time that I saw him in person a few months ago. Notably, he touched on Nixon era wage and price controls. Don't you find it interesting? Fascinating, really, how a few weeks ago, Trump told Walmart not to pass tariff induced price increases onto their customers. Well, that's a form of price control that we're seeing today to our point, when we had the father of Reaganomics, David Stockman here on the show, five weeks ago, tariffs are already government intervention into the free market, and then a president telling private companies how to set their prices, that is really strong government overreach. I mean, I can't believe that more people aren't talking about this. Maybe that's just because this cycle started with Walmart, and that's just doesn't happen to be a company that people feel sorry for. Hey, well, I look forward to meeting you in person in Miami in just four days, as I'll be a faculty member for when we kick off the terrific real estate guys Investor Summit and see and really getting to know you, because we're going to spend nine days together. Teaching, learning and having a great time on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Speaker 3  55:13   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  55:36   You know whatever you want, the best written real estate and finance info. Oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access and it's got pay walls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers. It's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters, and I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read. And when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text. GRE to 66866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text, GRE to 66866   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com.

Send us a textWhat happens when an eight-year-old girl from communist Bulgaria decides she's going to be a poet? Katerina Stoykova joins us to share her remarkable journey from the shores of the Black Sea to becoming a published author, publisher, and literary community builder in Kentucky.Katerina's story begins with a pivotal childhood moment when a visiting poet sparked an unshakable desire to write poetry. With disarming honesty, she recounts telling her mother about her dream and immediately writing her first poem, determined to prove herself. This early conviction carried her through years of honing her craft, from publishing in magazines as a teenager to finally releasing her first book in her thirties.Drawing from her fifteen years of experience as founder of Accents Publishing, Katerina offers invaluable guidance for writers navigating the publishing landscape. She breaks down exactly what to look for in a publisher (longevity, fair contracts, good distribution), how to scrutinize publishing contracts, and the factors to consider when choosing between traditional and self-publishing paths. Her practical advice demystifies the often-confusing publishing process with refreshing clarity.Perhaps most valuable is Katerina's wisdom on handling rejection—an inevitable companion to creative work. Rather than being crushed by rejection or wearing it as a badge of honor, she advocates for emotional neutrality: "Take every rejection as a data point, just like Thomas Edison said about finding ways not to make a light bulb." This perspective, coupled with her three non-negotiables for writers (reading, writing, and workshopping), provides a sustainable framework for creative growth.Subscribe to hear more conversations with fascinating creators who are living their dreams and building meaningful careers through passion and persistence. How might your own creative journey benefit from Katerina's insights? https://a.co/d/0Fry5XjWant to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600

How did Trump win two elections? Marketing himself to a hungry audience. Why does everybody think Elon is a mad genius? Marketing. He aint Thomas Edison. Elon is running around collecting dollars and baby mamas. Marketing Genius sure. Ron Killings was out of a job. Marketing brought him back. R-Truth might not main event a WrestleMania but hes beloved. He is the real People's champ. Forget the RockToday's episode I discuss how marketing is king of the nation.Get on the Email List

Explaining how Musk tanked his reputation has many ways: First, he alienated environmentalists by teaming up with Trump, and then he alienated Trump fans by insulting their hero. Another way is clear by looking at American culture's historical relationship with “genius,” and how it tends to go wrong.  In this episode, we talk with Helen Lewis, author of The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea, about what Musk has in common with Thomas Edison, how psychedelics fit into the archetype, and what the possible paths are for Musk moving forward. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You'll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at theAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this powerful episode, Kevin takes you on a deep dive into the true nature of reality and the fundamental rules of the game we call life. Most people live trapped inside what Kevin calls the “Matrix” — the small, visible portion of reality that we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. But this matrix makes up less than 1% of all that exists. The other 99% is the endless realm — an invisible energetic dimension of consciousness, thought, and spiritual DNA that governs the cause behind every effect we experience in the physical world.Kevin explains the concept of cause and effect through the famous butterfly effect: how the flap of a butterfly's wings on one side of the world can set off a chain of events leading to a tornado thousands of miles away. This illustrates how everything is connected energetically, even if we cannot perceive it directly. Our everyday actions, even as small as slamming a car door, ripple through this unseen realm to create effects far beyond what we imagine.The challenge for most of us is that we live focusing only on the matrix — the shadows on the wall — trying to change our lives by adjusting surface-level events. But true, lasting transformation can only happen when we connect to the endless realm, the spiritual source where the root causes lie. Kevin uses the analogy of a shadow on the sidewalk: you cannot move a person's arm by touching their shadow; you must reach the arm itself to create real change.Throughout history, great minds like Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and spiritual leaders such as Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, and Siddhartha have tapped into this endless realm to bring forth life-altering inventions, ideas, and teachings. They accessed the alpha state — the true source of power and creation — enabling them to shape reality beyond the physical.Kevin invites listeners to recognize the two basic realities we live within: the matrix (the limited physical world) and the endless realm (the vast energetic dimension). To win the game of life, you must learn to live fully in the world without being trapped of the matrix. By expanding your awareness beyond the less than 1% and stepping into your alpha state — your true spiritual DNA — you gain the ability to see clearly, act consciously, and create meaningful change.This episode is a call to awaken from the illusion of limited perception and to elevate your consciousness. It offers a foundational understanding of why most people feel stuck, powerless, or disconnected, and shows how connecting with the endless realm is the key to breaking free and mastering the game of life.Join Kevin on this journey as he guides you to lift the fog, find clarity, and harness the unseen forces shaping your reality. Elevate your alpha — your true power lies beyond the matrix.

Send us a textTrying to leave their troubled lives behind, podcast hosts return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back - copyright takedowns. On Episode 671 of Trick or Treat Radio we discuss Sinners from director Ryan Coogler! We also reminisce about the nostalgia of going to the mall, why Thomas Edison is such a dick, and culture vampires! So grab a bottle of your favorite Irish beer, make sure to wear your mojo bag, and strap on for the world's most dangerous podcast!Stuff we talk about: Patreon, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Organic Intelligence, Eric Roberts, Werewolves in a Girls' Dormitory, Final Exam, Split Second, Harry and the Hendersons, Man with the Screaming Brain, Chicago Massacre, Land of the Lost, Bruce Campbell, After Last Season, The Commune, Mark Wahlberg, Night of the Living Dead, Return of the Living Dead, 4-D Man, Star Trek, Cry of the Werewolf, Charles Ogle, Thomas Edison's Frankenstein, Monroeville Mall, Twin Pines Mall, Back to the Future, House of Pain, Outsiders, Family Guy, York's Steak House, Steak Knives, reminiscing about going to malls and movie theaters, Suncoast Video, Best Buy, Ricky Coogan, Sam Goody, Strawberries, RIP Peter David, Sinners, Ryan Coogler, Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, Ludwig Goransson, Eden Lake, Angelina Jolie, Michael B. Jordan, movie stars, Al Capone, Juke Joints, BBC, Pipes of Pan, the lineage of culture, cultural appropriation, Clown in a Cornfield, Fruitvale Station, Black Panther, Creed, Rocky, the divided states of embarrassment, Tucker and Dale vs Evil, Thomas Edison Created the Blues, Putting the Smackdown on Intelligence, and Vampire Cunnilingus.Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/trickortreatradioJoin our Discord Community: discord.trickortreatradio.comSend Email/Voicemail: mailto:podcast@trickortreatradio.comVisit our website: http://trickortreatradio.comStart your own podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=386Use our Amazon link: http://amzn.to/2CTdZzKFB Group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/trickortreatradioTwitter: http://twitter.com/TrickTreatRadioFacebook: http://facebook.com/TrickOrTreatRadioYouTube: http://youtube.com/TrickOrTreatRadioInstagram: http://instagram.com/TrickorTreatRadioSupport the show

BIO:Dr. Neel Bulchandani is an intra- and inter-disciplinary healer specializing in solving complex problems related to sleep, airway, feeding, and mobility. He uses systems thinking and a kaleidoscopic approach (nod to Thomas Edison) in order to help all ages -- babies to adults. He began as a chiropractor 17 years ago, and then 9 years ago, when his daughter was born with a tongue tie, he went down the rabbit hole of tethered oral tissues and airway/feeding centered health. Already curious and delving into fascia and visceral work (organs), Neel dove even deeper in order to help figure out the surrounding issues related to his daughter's feeding issues. He developed a Floor of the Mouth Protocol, and has online courses for both practitioners and patients where he aids them in freeing tongue and mouth tension. He has created an Airway Map comprised of 70 areas in the body that are often restricted when there are issues with the mouth, like tongue tie, narrow palates, etc. He's begun a tour across many cities in 2025 to teach other practitioners his method, and will be in Phoenix in June, Boise in July, Chicago in August, Minnesota in September, and Sarasota and Dallas in November. He's married to Dawn, and dad to 3 (Serenity, Cypress, and Zephyr). He does in-person and virtual appointments, and is based in Santa Barbara. He also sees patients in Agoura Hills, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area.SHOWNOTES:

Have you ever found yourself endlessly planning but never actually launching? This episode explores the common trap of over-planning and perfectionism that keeps business owners stuck. Drawing lessons from Thomas Edison's relentless experimentation, it contrasts “dwelling” with “doing” and emphasizes the power of messy, iterative action. It unpacks how fear of failure and the sunk cost fallacy often prevent entrepreneurs from testing ideas, and why feedback—not perfection—should guide the next move. With practical tools and real-world examples, the episode encourages you to take action and grow through experience.  Main Topics Planning vs. taking action Fear of failure and judgment Iteration and experimentation Marketing and project feedback loops Setting deadlines and accountability Main takeaway: “Dwelling doesn't grow your business—doing does.” We've all been there: rewriting flyers, tweaking a logo, or perfecting an email campaign for weeks. But at some point, planning becomes a comfort zone—and it stops you from growing. This week on Pet Sitter Confessional, we're reminding ourselves (and you!) that progress requires putting things out into the world, messy or not. Done is better than perfect. Take that step—you can always revise it later. Links: Check out our Starter Packs See all of our discounts! Check out ProTrainings Code: CPR-petsitterconfessional for 10% off

Quirky brought down his Gretsch G2420T for this episode as Carey had a song he wanted to try out with a guitar that had a "Whammy" bar.Moving on from that, the question of which sound was the first ever to be recorded was on Carey's mind and he had a bit of research done.It was captured in Paris by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in the late 1850s, nearly two decades before Thomas Edison's phonograph (1877) and Carey gives some explanation as to how he managed it back in the mid 1800's and how it was recreated by some Audio Archaeologists 150 years later. Fair play Ed Lad!Loads of chat about gear, some stories, laughs & craic throughout.From Carey, Henny & Quirky @ IT'S ALL MUSIC - THANKS FOR LISTENING Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who is the best Tom? Welcome to VOLUME 175 of The Bracket. Kenjac is host alongside Gooch, Marty, Big Ev, Tommy Smokes and Clem Follow The Bracket ►TWITTER - https://twitter.com/BracketPod ►INSTAGRAM - https://www.instagram.com/thebracket/ Follow Kenjac ►TWITTER - https://twitter.com/JackKennedy ►INSTAGRAM - https://www.instagram.com/jackennedy/ ►TIKTOK - https://www.tiktok.com/@ken_jac Preview - (0:00) Intro - (0:19) Tom Cat vs Tom Holland - (4:12) Tom Hanks vs Tom Sawyer - (15:00) Tommy Lee Jones vs Tom Petty - (19:53) Cheah in - (24:24) Cheah in Winner vs Tom Cruise - (28:26) Tommy Lee vs Tom Hardy - (34:40) Thomas Edison vs Tom Clancy - (38:53) Tom Selleck vs Tommy Callahan - (45:08) Tom Wambsgans vs Tom Brady - (49:41) Playoffs - (56:06) Finals - (1:12:51) Download the Gametime app today and use code BRACKET for $20 off your first purchase #TomCruise #TomHanks #barstoolsportsYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/lightscamerabarstool

Episode: 2463 Serendipity and the Inventive Mind.  Today, not-so-dumb luck.

Bobby and Eddie talk about things that we were possibly misled on and not told the entire truth about. They are stories that all feel like facts but we may not know the whole story including Betsy Ross sewing the first American Flag, Thomas Edison inventing the lightbulb and the Wright Brothers being the first to fly. Bobby also had A.I. tell him his strengths and weaknesses and shared his notes from behind the scenes of the 60th ACM Awards last weekend. Follow on Instagram: @TheBobbyCast Follow on TikTok: @TheBobbyCast Watch this Episode on Youtube See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dans les années 1880, l'électricité est encore une technologie nouvelle… et un champ de bataille industriel féroce. Deux camps s'affrontent : le courant continu, défendu par Thomas Edison, et le courant alternatif, promu par Nikola Tesla et George Westinghouse.Ce conflit portera un nom : la "guerre des courants".Et au cœur de cette guerre, Edison va prendre une décision aussi spectaculaire que cynique : financer la création de la chaise électrique, un dispositif de mise à mort… pour démontrer la dangerosité du courant alternatif.Au départ, Edison croit fermement au courant continu, ou DC (direct current), qu'il développe pour alimenter les premières installations électriques à New York. Mais le courant continu est limité : il ne peut pas voyager sur de longues distances sans perte de puissance. Le courant alternatif, ou AC (alternating current), que développe Tesla et que Westinghouse finance, permet une distribution plus large et plus souple.Edison le sait : sur le plan technique, l'AC est plus efficace. Mais il ne veut pas perdre la bataille commerciale. Alors il change de stratégie : il s'attaque à l'image du courant alternatif. Il veut que le public l'associe à la mort. En 1888, un comité de l'État de New York cherche un nouveau mode d'exécution, considéré plus "humain" que la pendaison. Edison y voit une opportunité. Il soutient dans l'ombre un ancien employé mécontent, Harold Brown, qui propose l'utilisation… du courant alternatif.Edison ne veut pas apparaître publiquement dans l'affaire, mais il fournit du matériel, des conseils, et même des cobayes : des chiens, des chevaux… et même un éléphant, Topsy, électrocuté en public en 1903, bien après les débuts du projet. Le but : prouver que l'AC est mortel, imprévisible, dangereux.Le 6 août 1890, à la prison d'Auburn, William Kemmler devient le premier homme exécuté sur une chaise électrique. L'appareil utilise du courant alternatif fourni… par une machine Westinghouse.L'exécution est un désastre. La première décharge ne le tue pas. Une deuxième est nécessaire. Des témoins décrivent une scène atroce. Westinghouse s'indigne : « Ils auraient mieux fait d'utiliser une hache. »Malgré tout, le mal est fait : le courant alternatif a été associé à la mort. L'expression "westinghousé" entre même dans le langage courant pour dire "électrocuté".Mais ironie du sort : c'est bien le courant alternatif qui finira par s'imposer partout dans le monde… y compris pour alimenter les maisons d'Edison. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Kathleen Carlucci, director of the Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park, joins AMSEcast to discuss Edison's lasting impact on American innovation. From his early love of telegraphy to his system-wide inventions in sound, light, and film, Edison redefined how ideas were developed and assembled skilled teams in the world's first “invention factory.” Carlucci highlights his resilience, collaborative spirit, and ability to turn failure into progress. Visitors to the Center can explore original artifacts, interactive exhibits, and hands-on demonstrations that bring Edison's legacy to life, reminding us that with perseverance, innovation is within anyone's reach.     Guest Bio Kathleen Carlucci is the Director of the Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park, where she leads efforts to preserve and share the legacy of one of America's greatest inventors. With degrees in history and secondary education, she combines her passion for storytelling with a strong background in management and customer service. Kathleen has played a key role in enhancing the museum experience through engaging tours, educational programs, and community outreach. Her work ensures that visitors of all ages connect with Thomas Edison's innovations and are inspired by his enduring message of curiosity, perseverance, and the power of hands-on learning.     Show Highlights (1:14) Edison's process for thinking up ideas and bringing them to fruition (2:40) How Edison overcame hearing loss to accomplish so much (3:42) Edison's improvements to the telegraph and telephone (6:36) How Edison organized and staffed his Menlo Park lab (9:51) Why he moved to West Orange, NJ, and what became of Menlo Park (12:28) Edison's work with light bulbs, motion picture technology, and batteries (19:03) What Edison would do when he hit a wall on a project (20:39) Lessons from Menlo Park that future innovators should learn (22:43) What a tour of the Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park includes     Links Referenced Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park: https://www.menloparkmuseum.org/

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Dr Elizabeth Abbott, writer, historian and author of the book, "Sugar: A Bittersweet History".First, we confront the dark history of sugar. We hear how a researcher in the 1990s uncovered the unethical aspects of Sweden's Vipeholm experiments in the 1940 which led to new recommendations for children to eat sweets just once a week.And, how Mexico, a country which had one of the highest rates of fizzy drink consumption in the world, approved a tax on sugary soft drinks in 2013. Then an event which shaped the second half of the last century - On 14 May 1955, the leader of the Soviet Union and Heads of State from seven European countries met to sign the Warsaw Pact.Plus, the story of how two rival electricity pioneers, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison brought electricity to the world. Finally, we hear from Finnish singer Marion Rung on winning the 1980 Intervision Song Contest, the USSR's answer to Eurovision. Contributors: Dr Elin Bommenel - academic Dr Simon Barquera - director of health and nutrition research at The Institute for Public Health of Mexico Dr Elizabeth Abbott - writer and historian Otto Grotewohl - German politician Mark Seifer - biographer of Nikola Tesla William Terbo - relative of Nikola Tesla Marion Rung - Finnish winner of Intervision song contest 1980(Photo: sugar cubes and fizzy drinks, Credit: Anthony Devlin/Press Association)

การแข่งขันของ 2 สุดยอดนักประดิษฐ์ ที่พลิกโฉมวงการไฟฟ้าโลก...พาทุกคนไปย้อนตำนานสงครามกระแสไฟฟ้า ระหว่าง ‘Edison นักประดิษฐ์ผู้ยิ่งใหญ่' และ ‘Tesla พ่อมดแห่งวงการไฟฟ้า' จากเพื่อนร่วมงานสู่คู่ปรับ และนำไปสู่วิวัฒนาการของกระแสไฟฟ้า ต้อง นนทพงศ์ มาร่วมพูดคุยกับ ดร.โก้ พงศกร สายเพ็ชร์ อาจารย์พิเศษ Scientific Research and Presentation มหาวิทยาลัยมหิดล หลักสูตรนานาชาติ ในรายการ ‘SCI x FI' 0:00 Intro 1:12 เปิดรายการ 3:24 จากยุคที่ไม่มีไฟฟ้าใช้ สู่ยุคปัจจุบัน 9:58 Thomas Edison นักประดิษฐ์ผู้ยิ่งใหญ่ 17:26 Nikola Tesla พ่อมดแห่งไฟฟ้า 24:33 สงครามกระแสไฟฟ้า Tesla vs. Edison 42:55 เรื่องจริงที่คุณอาจไม่เคยรู้เกี่ยวกับบริษัท Tesla 51:38 จุดจบของสงครามกระแสไฟฟ้า 1:02:42 อะไร? คือบทเรียนจากเรื่องนี้ #WealthMeUp #ใช้แรงทำเงิน #ให้เงินทำงาน #Tesla #Edison 

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By 1915, the two great rivals, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, had brought electricity to the world. It was reported that they were set to share the Nobel Prize for Physics, but it never happened. In 2011, Claire Bowes spoke to Tesla's biographer Mark Seifer and relative William Terbo.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic' and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy's Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they've had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America's occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.(Photo: Nikola Tesla in c.1896 and Thomas Edison in 1893. Credit: Bettmann and SSPL/Getty Images)

Is it true that one person's junk could actually be a treasure? If you're an ANTIQUES ROADSHOW fan you might know our Junk in the Trunk specials – loving tributes to the left-over appraisals from the cities we visit each year. But what happened when an odd-looking pen was discovered during ROADSHOW's 2023 visit to Akron, OH? Join host Adam Monahan as he picks through the junkpile of history to rediscover a forgotten invention by Thomas Edison and rescued an appraisal from the cutting room floor to fulfill the TV dreams of the guest who owns it.

Unlock the Wealth-Building Secrets of Real Estate Investing! Learn how strategic real estate investing can dramatically transform your financial future. Discover the Revolutionary "5 Ways You Get Paid" Strategy, updated for today's times: Appreciation: Turn a 5% property value increase into a potential 20% return Cash Flow: Generate steady monthly income from tenants Return on Amortization (ROA): Let tenants build your equity for you Tax Benefits: Enjoy generous government incentives for providing housing Inflation-Profiting: Transform economic challenges into your personal wealth generator  Key Highlights: Potential 38% first-year return on investment No special certification or license required Ethical wealth-building using other people's money Proven strategy for creating generational wealth Simple, accessible investment approach for ordinary people Your wealth-building journey starts today! Share the wealth by sharing this episode with a friend. Free Resources: Connect with a free GRE investment coach at GREinvestmentcoach.com Download the infographic gift summarizing the five ways real estate pays here. Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/550 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching:GREmarketplace.com/Coach Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai    Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, real estate pays five ways updated for today's times, even with conservative assumptions, watch your total return from real estate climb to great heights today. You'll understand what billionaire real estate investors don't understand a new free audio course today on get rich education.    Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show, guess who keep top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki, get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast or visit get rich education.com   Speaker 1  1:12   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  1:28   Welcome to GRE from Belgrade, Serbia to Bellingham, Washington and across 180 nations worldwide. I'm Keith weinholder. You are back inside get rich education. Today you're going to understand real estate investing really well, probably better than anyone that you know, in less than an hour. Now, before I begin investing in real estate, I seriously wondered how in the world it could possibly be a lucrative investment vehicle. I mean, like, how would that even work? Because you've got this physical structure where elements wear down the outside, tenants wear down the inside, and the whole thing only appreciates it about 5% a year. Yawn. That is really boring. Well, later I would start to put the pieces together. And actually didn't really understand leverage in cash flow until after I had bought my first rental property, I became the person, however, to coin the real estate pays five ways concept, and I discussed that years ago on the show here, and now I have updated it for today's times. So the principles remain the same, but the numbers are different. That's because today, cash flows are lower and interest rates are higher than they were five and 10 years ago. So let's see what total rate of return we come up with today, and just how we get there. And on the way, you'll see even more evidence of why compound interest does not build wealth, and getting your money to work for you doesn't build wealth either. And to say that is total heresy. In a lot of financial circles, you'll clearly see how real estate has really made more ordinary people wealthy than anything else. This is course level instruction, and you're getting it all free right here today as part of one of our weekly episodes. This will help you retire earlier than you ever imagined, or just find the time for yourself to become the best version of yourself. Now, for long time, listeners, I've got to tell you first, much of today is going to sound like a review, but I've got a really surprising twist at the end here, in the fifth of five ways that you're paid, I also have a free gift to give to you and to all listeners today. And this is not in any way, replay of old material. It's not AI generated. It never is. It is me talking to you updated for today's times. And this is we're about to get started. This is just with simple buy in hold real estate. So you don't even have to be a house flipper or a wholesaler or a landlord, and you can just use normal 30 year mortgage loans. And as we see, it doesn't even take a ton of money. These are fundamental wealth building attributes that lay people don't understand and will change your life. I mean, more than 95% of real estate investors don't even understand what I'm about to share. We're going to calculate your rate of return from each of the five ways we'll calculate, then your cumulative return on investment until it builds up and culminates. In your total return at the end today, and I'll tell you anything less than a 20 to 25% total return in this buy and hold real estate is actually disappointing, and you don't even need to take on inordinate risk. But you'll see the exact percentage that we get up to today, and how it gets even higher than 20 to 25% I mean, this is how real estate creates Young Money and old money and Fast Money and slow money, and gives you access to other people's money. Ethically, all of that, we have some new listeners dropping by today. So if you're new here, I'm Keith Weinhold, get rich education founder, Forbes real estate council member, best selling author, and long time real estate investor, also an incomprehensibly slack jawed and snaggletooth to podcaster. But see here in the audio only, you only have to hear the slack jaw, but video platforms where you'll find me and this course on YouTube and rumble, oh, through a disaster, because you both hear my slack jaw and have to see my snaggletooth. It's dreadful.    Getting back to the course here, you know, school did little to teach you and I about the most important things in life, like nutrition or relationships or money. And you know what drives most divorces? Can you guess what it is? I mean, it's not arguments over trigonometri or English grammar or the periodic table of the elements. No, it's money problems. Well, the financial education in this course, it's gonna help you solve that as much as anything you need to take on the mindset of how you must unlearn what you've learned before you can believe something else.    We're gonna use this same simple example of a $200,000 income property throughout the course a rental, single family home. Yes, you can still find many of these, and it's with a rent paying tenant. Now, if you want to think bigger than a 200k property, no problem. Say you want a $20 million apartment building, you can just multiply everything by 100 because we're talking about ratios today. Say that when you buy this property, your down payment and closing costs have you putting in 25% All right? So you've now got 50k invested on this 200k property.    Well, in the first of five ways you're paid appreciation is what it's called. Well, historically, real estate appreciates at about 5% per year. All right, see your 200k Income Property appreciates to 210k There's your 5% yawn, boring. That might only be about the real rate of inflation. That's what most people think. But look at what you just did there already. You just did something amazing. You already benefited from a force greater than compound interest. You just created compound leverage, and most people don't even know it, because your return is far greater than the 5% total appreciation your return on investment is your gain, which is 10k divided by the amount that you have invested, which is 50k because that's all that you put into this. You just got a 20% return from only the first of five ways you're paid appreciation. And now, if you're scratching your head wondering how that just happened, how did 5% return go to 20% no worries, I will slow it down. And this course never gets more complicated than this, you achieved a 5% return on both your 50k invested and the 150k that you borrowed from the bank. See the return on the bank's money doesn't go to the bank, it goes to you all while the tenant pays the interest on the mortgage loan. We'll get to that part later for you, this could be your first moment of epiphany in this course, a light bulb moment. Yes, today you'll get more light bulb moments than Thomas Edison. That is the magic of leverage. It's so simple ethically use other people's money, but most people are only getting compound interest, a return on their money, only not theirs and others like they could have great so where does appreciation come from? What is its source? Supply versus demand for real estate an area's wage growth, population growth, a region's infrastructure improvements contribute to this. The shrinking availability of developable. Land and more. Now what if real estate prices go down? You're covered. That will be addressed shortly. Here we are just scratching the surface. You're starting to figure out why wealthy people's money either starts out in real estate or ends up in real estate. And the thing is, is you can do this the same simple way that I did when I began as a real estate investor. You don't need any degree or certification or real estate license in order to do this. Real Estate pays five ways.    Now that you know about the first appreciation, leveraged appreciation in real estate's case will carry forward your 20% gain and add it onto the second of five ways you're paid, cash flow. For many, this is the most important one. One way for you to think about this second way cash flow is that it's the recurring income from your tenant that shows up, whether you had any involvement with the property that month or not. That's why this is passive income most months. This one is the most liquid of the five ways, because it pays you cash every month, and therefore you can immediately either reinvest it or just spend it and increase your standard of living. This is effectively your salary increase plan. Yes, it's the opposite of a 401 k, which is a salary reduction plan, which actually was an early name of 401 K plans, since this income is sourced by your tenant rent payment, minus the property expenses. Your Cash Flow is sourced by jobs, because that's how your tenant gets their rent payment that they pay you, and this is why I like larger metro areas, your market selection is more important than your property. That's a huge lesson right there, because it's about the durability of this cash flow. All right, we're about to run the numbers and see what your rate of return from passive cash flow is. Let's do it. We'll build on our example of your ownership of a 200k income property with your 50k down payment. All right, on the 200k rental single family home, say that your rent is $1,500 a month. That is therefore $18,000 of annual rent income. But then you need to deduct out your expenses, and you do have a lot of them. They are your mortgage and your operating expenses, like I've shared with you before. The easy way to remember those operating expenses is with the acronym VIMTUM, vacancy, insurance, maintenance, taxes, utilities and management, and paying that manager is what keeps this mostly passive for you. So to be clear, your rent income minus your mortgage in VIMTUM operating expenses equals your cash flow. You can kind of think of that as your rent overflow. Okay, here we go. Say you figure that from your 18k of annual rent income that you need to pay out 15k worth of annual expenses, that leaves you with $3,000 of cash flow, or so you thought, but you have a freak plumbing problem that creates a bill of 1000 bucks. However, you have property insurance, but say your insurance deductible is $1,000 so you've just got to come and pay out of pocket for your managers, plumber to fix it, and now the $3,000 of annual cash flow you thought you'd have only leaves you with $2,000 somewhat of a thin cash flow. Then that's a higher maintenance expense than you had previously forecast in your pretty looking pro forma projection. That often goes wrong, because something stupid often happens out of the blue in real estate investing, all right, well, with your $2,000 of cash flow, which is passive income, that's divided by your same 50k invested that gives you a return of 4% from the second of five ways you're paid. That number is what's known is the cash on cash return. You thought it would be 6% but we're being conservative. The Freak plumbing problem made it just 4% add this to the 20% from leverage depreciation in the first video, and you now have an accumulated 24% total rate of return from this income property already, and we still got three ways to go. We're just gonna keep piling onto this return in the next three ways you're paid. How high is this going to go? And you know what's interesting with this? Luke. Conservative math adding up your lofty return. It's actually conservative as we proceed, you'll note that I'm using simplification and rounding you're going to see me round down more than round up. To keep this conservative and real estate math is simple. It's just add, subtract, multiply or divide. There's nothing complex, no trigonometri or calculus or exponents. This is easy. You just have to know what numbers to use, and that's what you're learning and reinforcing today.    Now here's a weird scenario. Imagine if you had a stranger out there funding a bank account for you, making monthly contributions into this illiquid savings account. I mean, does that sound too good to be true? Nope. It exists. The third of five ways that real estate pays is exactly why this is real, as this free audio course, real estate pays five ways continues for you. Real estate has so many ROIs returns on investment that one of the five is called an Roa. That's the third way you're paid. And none of this material is new or esoteric or avant garde. It's always been out there. There's just been no one else that's put it together before this, most people were never taught how to build real estate wealth in the real world. And what's insane about this third of five ways you're paid is that now you're probably already getting paid more ways than you ever have. I mean, instead, what is most people's investing experience, it's in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, gold or Bitcoin. I mean, that's where you're typically only paid one way, capital appreciation, if you even get that, and maybe a second way is if you have a dividend paying stock. But I mean, that's all you've got. One way, maybe two. If you want to build wealth, you've got to give your money multiple jobs. That's exactly what we're doing here. ROA stands for your return on amortization this third way you're paid is the monthly principal pay down portion of your mortgage. That's your return. So we're going to add your ROA to the 24% total return that we've accumulated so far. And now you might think you already have experience with an ROA if you have a mortgage on your own home, your primary residence, but no, not actually, because in your own home each month, a portion of your mortgage payment goes toward principal pay down and the rest of pay interest, but all you did in your primary residence is you went and you had to work to earn money all month. All you did at the end of that month was move that money from your cash pocket over to your equity pocket when that mortgage payment gets made. So that's merely a transfer of funds, but with income property, your tenant earned that cash that month to pay your mortgage principal payment, and we'll tally that up in a moment. On top of the principal, they pay your entire interest payment, plus your tenant pays you a little on top of that each month called cash flow, which was the second way you're paid. So yes, your tenant is going to work for you. If your tenants rent payment is a third of their income, they're working close to 10 days a month just for you, just to pay your rent. I mean, that is amazing. If you add properties with rent paying tenants like this. It's sort of like you have all these employees out there working for you, and yet you don't have to manage them at work. It is amazing this third of five ways focuses on that return on amortization, and the etymology of the word amortize that comes from the old French meaning death. And that makes sense, your tenant is slowly killing off your mortgage balance for you over time. So let's do this. Let's add up your ROA, all right, we're using this same example where you got a 150k loan on your 200k rental, single family home. Let's say that you got a 7% interest rate on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage, so just the plain everyday loan. Just look up any amortization calculator, enter those numbers in there, and you'll see that in year one, your tenant pays down over $1,500 of your income properties mortgage balance for you, let's round it down to just 1500 bucks, because it could have been some vacancy in there as well. Your ROA is simply this year, one principal pay down divided by your amount invested again, that is 1500 bucks divided by your 50k Of down payment and closing costs that you have in the property your skin in the game. And this is another 3% return for you. That's your Roa. I mean, you are beginning to really build wealth now. This is somewhat of a hidden wealth generator that a lot of investors never consider. Many of them are aware of this, though, it's like your tenant is funding an ill, liquid savings account that has your name on it. We'll add this 3% ROA to the tally of a 24% cumulative return that we figured from the first two ways. Yes, you are now up to a 27% total rate of return from appreciation, cash flow, your ROA, and we still have two of the five ways to discuss. We're just gonna keep piling onto your return. What is the source of your Roa? This 3% it is jobs again, your tenants income. If interest rates fall and you refinance, you'll get an even higher annual chunk of tenant made principal pay down, even with the initial loan kept in place this 7% mortgage note, how in future years, your amount of 10 it made principal pay down. Only keeps increasing over time. But we're only talking about year one in this whole example. We're going to carry forward your 27% total rate of return so far into the next one as this real estate pays five ways. Audio course will continue here in Episode 550 of the get rich education podcast, yeah, even the episode number has some fives in it as we roll on, breaking down just how the five ways build wealth more after the break, I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, this is get rich education.   You know what's crazy? Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns, and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time, in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back. No weird lockups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing, check it out. Text family to 66866, to learn about freedom family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family to 66866. Hey, you can get your mortgage loans at the same place where I get mine, at Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than any provider in the entire nation because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. You can start your pre qualification and chat with President Chaley Ridge personally. Start Now while it's on your mind at Ridge lendinggroup.com That's ridgelendinggroup.com.   Speaker 2  23:45   This is Ridge lending group's president, Caeli Ridge listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and remember, don't quit your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  24:10   Welcome back to get rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, as we continue with the real estate pays five ways audio course, before the break, we're rolling forward a 27% total ROI from the first three ways that you're simultaneously paid. Again, nothing complicated, just with a piece of buy and hold real estate that you purchase carefully. You don't have to do any renovations. You don't have to be a landlord. This is how you're going to build forever wealth, legacy wealth, if you don't come from money now, money can come from you. This can shake up your entire family tree. After today, you'll have a concrete plan. I don't come from wealth. I build it myself, and I'm laying out the architecture of how I did. Just that in a simple way for you, the fourth of five ways you're paid is that real estate investors are rewarded with a generous basket of tax benefits from the government because you are doing what the government wants. You're providing others with housing. Informed people know that if you spend money on certain things like solar panels for your home or education expenses, you get a tax break for spending that money. Well, with real estate, you don't even need to spend any money to get a tax break every single year. Incredibly, you get the tax deduction anyway. It's easy. Let's do it here. And you know, it's time to make something crystallized for you. And this can rock your world and even induce some disbelief. Some people say, don't get your money. Get your money to work for you. We've all heard that. Here is the heterodox. Here is the paradigm shift. If you want to build wealth, don't get your money to work for you. Outside of this show, I bet you have never heard that iconoclastic stance your best and highest use as an investor is not to get your money to work for you. It's making other people's money work for you. OPM, now, you probably heard that before as well, but I've got a twist on that. But see if you want to build wealth, do you think you'd have to both think and act differently than the masses? I mean, yes, you certainly do, but this is your differentiator, even multi decade billionaire real estate investors don't realize what I'm about to share with you forever. Wealth is built. Early Retirement, wealth is built. Your standard of living is indelibly elevated beyond what you ever thought possible because you are ethically using other people's money three ways at the same time, the bank's money for leverage in the loan, which we covered in the first way, you're paid the tenants money for cash flow and loan pay down, which we covered in videos two and three. And now here you are using the government's money for generous tax benefits at scale, which we're covering in this fourth of five ways you're using other people's money, three ways at the same time within this, this is why you're building wealth. And of course, this does not mean you're exploiting people by using their money, just the opposite. You're doing good in the world. Provide people with housing that's clean, safe, affordable and functional. Do that, and you'll be profitable in the long term and never get called a slum lord. Rental property income is generally taxed at ordinary income tax rates, but you don't have to pay tax on all of your rental income. The tax deductions are generous from rental property, you can deduct out your mortgage interest and your operating expenses, which I will not cover in our example. You also get a depreciation deduction. We'll look at that one closely, and when you sell, you can endlessly defer your capital gains tax so you never have to pay it all of your life, all right. Well, what does this really mean? If you buy a rental property for 200k and after a bunch of years you sell it for 500k your capital gain was 300k in most investments, you need to pay capital gains tax of at least 15% on this you would take a $45,000 tax hit. But with real estate, when you sell if you generally replace it with a property of equal or greater value, your capital gains tax is zero, absolutely zero. Now, rental property taxes are somewhat complicated, and I am not a CPA, I'm giving general guidance. I'm not going to get into things like your adjusted basis and other details. In fact, I'm not even going to consider this benefit of deferred capital gains tax in tallying up your rate of return. So instead, let's only look at your return from the tax depreciation portion of your full basket of tax benefits. It's going to keep things simple, and it'll also keep our example more conservative. Yes, even though your 200k rental property in our example tends to appreciate in value, the government says you can get a tax break because they say that the property wears out over 27 and a half years. That's just what the IRS guideline is. This only applies to rental property. There's no depreciation deduction on a primary residence. Let's do it on your 200k property, you can only depreciate the structures value called the improvement, not the land portion. We'll say that your structure or house's value is 150k and the land is 50k even the IRS knows that land doesn't wear out, only the structure. Divide your 150k structure value by 27.5 Yep. Pretty weird, arbitrary number, but that's how long the IRS says it takes to wear out. That gives you $5,454 that's how much you can depreciate or shelter from taxes if you're in the 24% tax bracket, that's $1,309 in tax savings for you. Divide that by how much you have invested in this 200k property. Again, that was 50k when you made the down payment and closing costs. This is a 2.6% return. Let's keep being conservative and round that down to 2% there it is our number from the fourth of five ways you're paid. We are layering on another 2% return. Now, can you really call a tax break part of your return? Is that fair? Should that be considered? Yes, it is, in this case of tax depreciation, because you did not even have to incur an expense in order to get that deduction, that's why some people call it the magic of depreciation. Usually, to get a tax break, like I was saying earlier, you have to make an out of pocket expense, like pay for fees to attend a conference or buy solar panels or pay automobile expenses. But you don't have to do that here, so the 2% rate of return for your tax benefit is even more conservative when you realize that we also are not digging into how this piece of real estate can also make you eligible for other tax benefits like a qualified business income deduction, a cost segregation and bonus depreciation. And for simplicity, we're not going to go run examples on different marginal tax brackets, and there are income thresholds and other thresholds, whether you're married or single. And of course, we are excluding that erstwhile capital gains tax that you can legally duck out of to collect all the tax benefits without me having to get deeply involved. At the end of each year, my property manager just sends my property's financials directly to my bookkeeper. And yes, I know we've got some CPAs listening to this right now thinking that 2% that is much too low of a return from your basket of tax benefits, but that is all we're going to use. We're going to add this to the ROIs that we accumulated from leverage appreciation at 20% in the first way, cash flow at 4% in the second way, and an ROA of 3% in the third way, plus this 2% from tax benefits here in the fourth way, here we are up to a 29% first year total ROI from your 200k single family income property that you so wisely purchased. Now you know how to use other people's money three ways at the same time again, the banks, the tenants, and with these tax breaks the governments.    Let's move on to the fifth of five ways. Add up your total rate of return, and then I'll give you some more important takeaways to give this context, and I'm going to give you your free gift. Your fifth way is your second biggest profit center, and most real estate investors don't even know that it exists, you're going to profit from something that actually makes most people poorer. So we're going to take our 29% add the fifth way to it, and it's going to culminate in your total number. The fifth way is called inflation profiting. Remember, it's not inflation hedging. Real Estate bought the right way is not an inflation hedge. Hedging is defensive, meaning that you break even from inflation, but no instead, you're actually profiting from inflation. That's different. This is offensive. Now a conventional financial advisor. You know, they're often out there selling investment products that tout something like a 10% rate of return. You know, synonymous with a return from the s, p5, 100. Ask your financial advisor about the five drags on that return. It's 10% minus inflation, emotion, taxes, fees and volatility, and your adjusted return is often less than zero. Just look at their track record. Stocks and mutual funds don't make anyone wealthy. They might just preserve wealth if you already have it strategically bought. Real estate has hegemony over all the other. Set classes precisely because it pays five ways. Either you can be a conformer or you can build wealth. If you want to escape financial mediocrity, you can't run with the herd. You need to get into a lot of good debt. It sounds scary until you realize that debt is tied to a carefully selected income property, meaning your entire debt payments are therefore reliably outsourced to tenants. DEBT, TAXES and inflation are three forces that make most people poorer. It makes most people poorer because they either don't have the resources, or they don't have the know how to arrange their financial life. They don't have any strategy. Well, today, you're learning how to make these three forces, DEBT, TAXES, inflation, those three wealthier with the Debase purchasing power of the dollar. You know most people, they see the price of a new car that goes from 50k to 60k or that their favorite Subway sandwich goes from nine bucks to 10 bucks, and then they just kind of hope that their salary keeps up. You know, that's sort of the average experience with inflation. Now, you and I, we would not save by stashing a million bucks under the mattress, because 3% inflation would de base its purchasing power by 30k every single year. That's why we do the opposite of saving. We borrow. For every million you borrow, we'll every year say that with inflation, your wage, salary, rent, income, all go higher by 3% now it gets easier to pay back your million dollar loan all while the tenant pays the interest, and you're profiting 30k each year. So after one year, you only owe the bank back 970k and inflation adjusted dollars and 940k after year two, and 910k after year three, inflation debases savings and debt at the same rate, so borrow instead of Save and see, this is the reason why the top selling financial author of all time, Robert Kiyosaki, a frequent guest on our show here, he says, savers are losers, debtors are winners. In an inflationary world, don't be a saver. Be a savvy debtor, because in the future, you can count on more inflation. See, the government needs inflation to occur. The easiest way for the US to repay its 10s of trillions of dollars in debt is to just keep printing lots of dollars, and that process debases every dollar that you're currently holding on to. Who cares about your debt when both tenants and inflation are just relentlessly paying it down for you? That is if you're doing real estate right, which means buying an income producing property with a loan. That's the whole formula here. That's all we're doing, buying a rental property with a loan. But when you understand how inflation both pumps up your real estate value and simultaneously debases your debt, it turns your world upside down, you almost become this inflation cheerleader, because inflation is now good for you, as this audio course is now covering the fifth of five ways you're paid. Please understand some risk still exists. You could buy in the wrong market, hire the wrong property manager, or just buy the wrong property no matter what, you're going to have some inevitable problems along the way, like that plumbing problem I mentioned earlier in the second of five ways you're paid over leverage is a risk over leverage means that you take on so much debt that you can't make the monthly payments so you can still lose money. But from listening today, you vastly increase your chances of being profitable, and that's why we say that carefully bought real estate has the best risk adjusted return. Here we go, following through with our example across all five ways on your 200k income property that you made a 50k down payment on, that is therefore a $150,000 loan that you took out at a 3% inflation rate each year, your debt is then being debased by $4,500 this is a quiet, hidden wealth generator that most investors don't even know about. $4,500 of inflation profiting divided by your same 50k down payment means that you have another 9% rate of return. Wow, a 9% rate of return that you're getting that most investors don't even know about. I mean, in the conventional financial world, I mean, they're proud to offer you a nine. Percent mutual fund return over time, and they advertise that as something good here by putting a down payment on a rental property. This 9% is another sweetener that no one even notices, and that gets added on to everything else. It's just incredible. Yes, 9% now, in the past, I used to think this return was just the inflation rate that we're using here, 3% but see, this is leveraged as well a 9% return from inflation profiting. And like I mentioned, uh, towards the beginning of the show, this is the twist for a long time get rich education. Podcast listener, see 3% that would merely be a hedge. So add this 9% to the 29% running total in the first four ways, and there you have it, an astounding 38% total rate of return from the five ways that real estate pays 38% I mean, you are really understanding why wealthy people's money either starts out or ends up in real estate, and that you don't have to be wealthy to start everything we discussed there was in year one. I mean, if someone asks you why you're investing in real estate, you can just hold up five fingers and share this episode with them. I mean, this says it all, and we could have surely come up with a higher number than 38% if you had used a 20% down payment instead of 25 then you'd have more leverage, and your total ROI would be in the mid 40s percent, and we really handled the tax portion conservatively. Here another reason your return could be higher, this was with a 7% mortgage rate and a pretty modest 4% cash on cash return as well. Yes, your total ROI is 38% now after year one returns fall over time due to the accumulation of equity in your property, so the denominator for the calculation is larger. You got 38% in year one, perhaps year two is 31% and year three is 24% but you can really see how you're getting ahead of the world in three years like that in other episodes of the show. Here, I do talk about how to limit the return attrition through refinancing and some other techniques, but these are amazing rates of return, compounding evidence that compound leverage blows away compound interest, and again, it's DEBT, TAXES and inflation that are making you wealthy. How you should know by now the formula is really simple. Just buy an income producing property with an everyday 30 year loan, even if real estate values fall, you can get paid for other ways and still have a positive return. Real estate values have always bounced back even after 2008 and see if the property is temporarily suppressed in value, you're going to have little concern with wanting to sell it when tenants are still paying you a monthly income during that time. Very few veteran real estate investors understand the five ways. Most real estate educators don't understand this either, but now you do, and to get this 38% total ROI again at times I simplified throughout I mean, your real world return is likely going to be different. It's going to be higher or lower than 38% probably. But now you know about a vehicle for actually creating durable wealth, and I would like to think that what you learned today is the most complete yet still concise way of understanding how a real estate investor gets paid. You gotta know this. This is the motivation for wanting to do this in the first place.    And hey, if you like what I've shared so far, I'd love to ask you for something, and then I have more important things to tell you and give you your free gift. As I made this course free. Hey, if you would please just share the wealth. Share this episode with a friend. I'm sure you know somebody that would benefit from this. It's really a big aha moment when you finally know how it all goes together. If you subscribe to our newsletter, you were already sent the video version of this course here in just the past couple weeks that's going to help you see how all the numbers go together. And the video course was also released free on YouTube, so if you're listening to this within a few weeks or months of the episodes release, it's still easy to find on our get rich education YouTube channel and four. Finally, in order to make this actionable and actually profit from what you learned, you can just copy me and buy properties from where I buy them at GRE marketplace, that's where there are properties conducive to the five ways you're paid. It probably does take about a minimum, oh, of a 35k to 55k down payment in order to get started. Properties are either new build or renovated. Tenants are in place. There's a property management solution, if you like, and optionally, our free investment coaching service there learns your goals, then helps match you with the right areas and properties and hey, I'm happy to tell you and announce that you can now connect directly with our completely free investment coaching service at GREinvestment coach.com, yes, this is a new URL to make it easier for you to connect with a GRE investment coach. Yeah, I kind of thought that was a good one, huh? How do you connect with a free GRE investment coach? Well, at GREinvestment coach.com I've got a free gift for you. Everything that we discussed in this course today was distilled down into one colorful infographic that we designed and laid out here so you can view it, download it, or even print it out on one eight and a half by 11 inch sheet of paper. Yeah, my team and I went back and forth on this infographic for quite a few rounds to make it just right. I like how it looks, and I've never known anyone else to do this all the ways real estate pays concisely onto one sheet of paper. The link for that infographic gift is in the show notes for this episode at get rich education.com/ 550 since this is episode 550 get it at getrice education.com/ 550 Yeah, the infographic gift is a memento of this course and the time that we spent together today. Think of it as your diploma, and it's a diploma that doesn't come with 12 years of student loan payments either. Yes, it is just a piece of paper, but is it worth more than the piece of paper known as your bachelor's degree or your MBA? I don't know. You can be the judge. So congrats, graduate. Now you know how real estate makes ordinary people wealthy, but learning this today really doesn't benefit you if you don't find the right property in the right market with a property manager. If you so choose a property manager, you've got to take action. You usually want to start small, including with investor advantage, single family rentals for as little as 200k just like our example, some cost even less. We will help you do just that, and do it for free with our coaching book a time and get it on the calendar at GREinvestmentcoach.com that's GREinvestmentcoach.com    I'm get rich education's Keith Weinhold, thanks for being here, but you weren't here for me. You were here for you. I'll see you next week. Don't quit your daydream.   Speaker 3  48:25   nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  48:49   You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access, and it's got paywalls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers, it's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters, and I write every word of ours, my self, it's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point, because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream. Letter, it wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text GRE to 66866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text GRE to 66866.   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, get rich, education.com.  

Journey into the eerie heart of New Jersey, where fact and folklore collide. First, discover Ong's Hat, a ghost town said to hide a portal to another dimension. Then, delve into the mystery of Thomas Edison's rumored "ghost phone," an invention meant to communicate with spirits of the departed. Are these merely legends, or does New Jersey truly bridge worlds beyond our own? YOUTUBE - https://www.youtube.com/@hauntedchris TikTok- @chris_hah LEAVE A VOICEMAIL - 609-891-8658 The Nightmare Collective SUBSCRIBE!! Available on all podcast platforms! Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nightmare-collective/id1707943952 Spotify https://spotify.link/IPUVpAyWcDb Zoning Out- https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZLb8oK5uxgK64GL7vUHwK Draft Class- https://open.spotify.com/show/3BEobZXMT1kiPbffV0VT3F Twitter- @Haunted_A_H Instagram- haunted_american_history email- hauntedamericanhistory@gmail.com Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory Music License provided by Pond5 Nightmare Machine by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4133-nightmare-machine License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music: Drone in D by Kevin MacLeod Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3680-drone-in-d Licensed under CC BY 4.0: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a Grave Talks CLASSIC EPISODE! The Gill House in Galion, Ohio, showcases Victorian architecture and a rich history that draws visitors from all over. Built by Bloomer Gill as a grand family home, it quickly gained social prominence, hosting gala events, and had many notable figures visit, including Andrew Firestone, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford. These days, the luminaries no longer stop by, but there are many reports of paranormal activity. Investigators and visitors claim to have heard children's laughter from the attic, and shadowy figures have been spotted moving around the house. The basement offers the most chilling experiences, with visitors reporting disembodied voices, screams, and encounters with a ghostly figure known as Johnny Cake. Bloomer Gill sold the house to the Talbott family, and it seems Old Mrs. Talbot lingers within its walls, evidenced by tapping sounds and swirling mists. . Today, on the Grave Talks, Part Two of our conversation about The Gill House with Brenda Treisch, Jane Baker, and Mary Butterfield. If you'd like more information about the Gill House, search for The Gill House Paranormal Page on Facebook. Become a Premium Supporter of The Grave Talks Through Apple Podcasts or Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/thegravetalks) There, you will get: Access to every episode of our show, AD-FREE! Access to every episode of our show before everyone else! Other EXCLUSIVE supporter perks and more!