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Making the right choices isn't always easy - we've got so many options of what we can do and when I'm tired I don't want to weigh all my options. It would be great if I could just get a gentle push in the right direction. Something that would make the choice I want to make easier to make.What I'm talking about here is a nudge and that's what we're going to be talking about today. We'll be learning about what a nudge is, why they work, and when they don't. We'll also be looking at some of the various ways we can nudge ourselves and why it's so important for us to know when someone else might be nudging us.Find the full show notes at HackingYourADHD.com/nudgeThis Episode's Top Tips 1. At its basics, nudging is an attempt to change someone's behavior by changing the environment or conditions. A nudge shouldn't alter the incentives, it just makes the option we want to pick the easiest option. 2. Nudges works because our decision making isn't rational, in reality, we actually usually just take the path of least resistance. 3. We can nudge ourselves in several different ways. One way many of us already use nudges is through reminders. We can also alter our environment (like having a water bottle on our desk to nudge us to drink more water) or we can change our default options (like having our web browsers default to a blank page instead of opening up to countless tabs). 4. It's important to be aware of nudges because many companies use them to influence our behavior. When we know that we're being nudged we can decide if that's really the decision we want to be making or if there is actually a better option for us.

Q2 saw a GANG of K-Pop releases and it was really hard to keep up. However, I wanted to share my favorite B-Side joints that came out. Enjoy! Also a little update on the BSKP mixes going forward: I've decided due to recent personal circumstances to post the BSKP mixes bi-weekly now. The KME Mixtape will still be weekly. This will give me a bit more time to properly curate and make better quality mixes. It's temporary for now, but we'll see how my schedule works out. What I'm thinking with two mixes a month is: 1)A curated/themed/concept mix and 2)A recent releases purely b-sides. Thanks for always listening

I speak with Steve Walsh, Professor of Applied Linguistics at Newcastle University about the quality of teacher talk and the effect this has on student learning. Steve talks with us about the questions that teachers ask as well as the rules and roles which influence how we interact with our students.Understanding Classroom Discourse (with Steve Walsh)Ross Thorburn: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to "TEFL Training Institute Podcast." This week, we are looking at interactions that happen in the classroom. We're talking about classroom discourse.To help us do that, we have Steve Walsh, Professor of Applied Linguistics at Newcastle University. Steve's written extensively several books and many, many articles about classroom discourse, how it affects student learning, and how teachers can use classroom discourse as a starting point for their professional development. I hope you enjoy today's episode.Ross: Hi, Steve. Thanks very much for joining us. To being with, Steve, what is classroom discourse?Professor Steve Walsh: Classroom discourse basically covers all the interactions which take place in any classroom. It's used interchangeably quite frequently in the literature. You'll see people talk about interaction. You'll see them talk about classroom discourse.Classroom discourse is the actual recording, the observation, the transcript. All of that constitutes classroom discourse. What we're really interested in ‑‑ certainly in my work, anyway ‑ are the interactions between teacher and students.The reason we're interested in it is because it shows us what's actually happening in a classroom. It gives us a clue as to whether anything is being taught or learned. You can't study learning by looking inside people's heads, but you can make a lot of influences, I suppose, by looking at what people do and what people say.That's the essence of classroom discourse and also, one of the reasons they're studying it.Ross: In terms of those interactions then, what do we know about what often happens? How do teachers typically interact with their students, and what are some of the common purposes that teacher talk for?Steve Walsh: We're interested in what you might call the teaching practices, which take place in the classroom, and all of these practices such as asking a question or correcting an error. These practices are encompassed in language. You can't do these things without using language.For example, in some of my work which I'll talk about later, we've identified a number of these practices, which are frequently occurring, which are found in any classroom anywhere in the world, which merit study. Let's take the most frequently occurring ones.This would be elicitation. Elicitation is about trying to get your students to say something by asking a question, for example, which is the most commonly used elicitation strategy.The second one would be repair, which would be the ways in which we correct errors. Something that teachers do all the time is error correction. There are huge debates, of course, around this as to whether we should correct every error or not.The third one, which is perhaps the most important one in many ways, is feedback. The feedback that we give to our students and that students give to us is hugely important because it tells us what's going on.Right now, for example in the current situation with COVID, we're all working online. We're teaching online, and we're not getting the feedback that we do depend on from our students.For example, if we don't get visual clues, if we don't get head nods, smiles, raised eyebrows, and these multi‑modal features, we don't know really whether they're actually understanding us or learning anything. Similarly, the feedback that we give to our students, the way is in which we acknowledge a contribution, for example.Typically, teachers say things like, "Yes. Good. Thank you. Excellent. Right." That kind of thing. These discourse markers. These simple single words. Although they're used to encourage and motivate, they can actually close the interaction down and signal the end of a turn.Although they are well‑meant in the work I'm doing, I'm suggesting that we need to push learners a little bit and say things like, "Oh. That's really interesting. Can you tell us a bit more about that?" We get what I'm calling pushed output using Merrill Swain's word ‑‑ output from our students.Finally, all the stuff that we do which is classed as management of learning, giving instructions, organizing, setting up pair work, bringing a task to a conclusion, all of these things are what we would call teaching practices, but they are absolutely interlinked with the language that we use.What's really important here is to understand that the language we use and the pedagogy goal that we're trying to achieve, the pedagogy goal of the moment, they have to work together. If my pedagogy goal is to promote fluency and I'm simply asking Yes/No questions, there's a mismatch between my language and my pedagogy goal.If my pedagogy goal is to give a grammatical explanation about a point of grammar, then it's absolutely fine to talk at length and have, what you might call, a high level of teacher talk. We're interested in the quality of teacher talk rather than the quantity. We're interested in the extent to which our language and our interaction promote learning.Ross: Maybe, we can drill down a bit deeper into some of those concepts then, Steve. Let's go back at questions for a second. Before, we've spoken on the podcast about how useful it is for teachers to ask questions to students that they don't know the answers to.Do you want to tell us a bit more about those kind of questions, and also display questions where teachers ask students questions that they already know the answers to? Are those sometimes useful or sometimes appropriate, or does it all really just depend?Steve Walsh: It depends. With regard to questions, we ask a lot of questions. There have been various studies on this to calculate the percentage time that teachers devote to asking questions. It's huge. It's enormous. One question for ourselves is perhaps, "Do we always need to ask a question? Are there other ways of eliciting a response?"When I first started teaching, we used to use flash cards to elicit responses. There are ways of doing this, but let's stay with questions for a minute. I would divide questions into two types ‑‑ display questions and referential questions.Display questions are questions that we use to get our students to display what they know. There are prompt. Display questions are questions that we, as teachers, know the answer to. They're not the kind of question you would ask your family or friends, because your family or friends would think you're crazy if you kept asking them question that you knew the answer to.In classrooms, it's OK to ask display questions because they prompt and they elicit. They try to encourage some kind of response. The problem is that we ask too many. In my work, we ask a lot of display questions where in fact, sometimes, we should and could be asking the other type of question, which are referential questions.Referential questions are simply genuine questions that we don't know the answer to. Questions, such as "What did you do over the weekend? How did you spend Saturday? Have you ever been to Paris?" These types of questions, which are genuine and real, are an essential part of human communication.What I'm suggesting is that we need to rebalance questioning, and perhaps try to incorporate more genuine questions of our students and fewer display questions. You'll hear people talk about these as open and closed as well.Some people, including my colleague at Newcastle, Paul Seedhouse, would suggest that every question in a classroom is some kind of display question because it's there for a purpose. It's designed to get a response from our students rather than the normal purpose of questions, which is to access information and find out about things.Some people would argue you can't actually ask a genuine question. I think you can and we should because it shows an interest in our students. It shows that we're listening to what they're saying, and we're interested. We're genuinely interested.Ross: You mentioned how your [laughs] friends and family would look at you very strangely if you ask them a display question. "What color is this pen? How many shoes are there?" That kind of thing. Obviously, that's true, but that suggests that there's a difference between how teachers interact with students inside the classroom, and how they interact with other people outside of the classroom.Can you tell us a bit more about that? Is it ever really possible for classroom interactions and classroom communication to be similar or to mirror what's going on in the real world?Steve Walsh: The simple answer is it can't. Interactions in the classroom are bound by rules. We're talking here to use a little bit of technical language. We're talking about an institutional discourse setting.An institutional discourse means any situation within an institution, which has got its own rules. For example, a visit to the doctor. You go into the doctor, it would be unusual for you to say to the doctor, "How are you today?" but it's absolutely fine for the doctor to say to you, "How are you?" and "What can I do for you?"These rules that apply restrict the interaction that we can have in the classroom. Some people say it's not genuine. The other way of looking at it is to say that the classroom is as much a social setting as any other. It's a place where people come. They have a goal.All institutional discourse is goal‑oriented. We have a purpose for being there. We have roles. In the roles that we have in the classroom, the roles are asymmetrical. They're not equal. The teacher is the authority figure, and they have control of the discourse, for example.These roles and rules, if you like, in the classroom, restrict the discourse that we're going to get. They limit us to certain patterns, but that's quite interesting because then we can say, "Well, what is an appropriate interaction in the classroom, and what is a less appropriate type of interaction?"Although on the one hand, classroom interaction/classroom discourse is not authentic and can never be genuine in the same way that an interaction with a friend can be. On the other hand, it's a social setting, which has certain norms and practices which can be studied. That's what makes it useful in terms of understanding teaching and learning better.Ross: You mentioned there the idea of rules and roles. Let's talk about the roles a little bit more. How set in stone are those teacher roles, Steve?They obviously must change a little bit depending on the culture, maybe the part of the world that you're teaching in. I wonder if they're also influenced by other things, like the expectations of students or even just influenced by what it is that the teachers are teaching.Steve Walsh: That's a good question. This is really very much about the socialization of learning that we're all socialized into behaving in certain ways in classrooms.Typically, we expect to answer questions rather than ask questions. We expect to sit quietly for much of the time. We expect to put our hands up when we want to say something or answer a question. These are the rules, if you like, the social rules of the classroom. Of course, these vary from one context to another.If you go to some parts of the world ‑‑ the Middle East, the Far East, possibly South America, places like that ‑ then the role of the teacher is very much seen as a traditional role in some people's eyes. In other words, they are there to impart knowledge.In other parts of the world, the role of the teacher might be seen in quite a different way as somebody who's there as a facilitator, as a catalyst, somebody who can help people learn but in a more possibly informal way. I don't think these two contexts that I've just described are mutually exclusive.In the work that I do, I talk about micro‑context, which vary as a lesson progresses. The teachers' role and the interactions that unfold have to vary according to what's going on in the classroom, according to the agenda, the teaching goals of the moment.At one point in the lesson, you might be dominating the interaction for 10 or 15 minutes while you've given explanation or give some instructions. At another moment in the lesson, you might be taking more of a backseat, letting the students get on with something, and interact together.But what's important for good teaching is to learn how to vary the role that you adopt and match the role according to what you're trying to achieve with the students at that point in time. Some people are good at this. I'm afraid some are not.Some people feel that they have to remain as the authority figure, what the literature would refer to as the sage on the stage, the one who has all the knowledge. Especially in language classrooms, it's probably a mistake to completely follow that rule.The other thing, of course, is that teachers are under pressure from outside the classroom. This perhaps influences their role very strongly as well. They're under pressure from parents, from head teachers, perhaps, the curriculum, assessment, and examinations. All these external, invisible or hidden factors have an important effect on how we behave in classrooms and the role that we adopt.Ross: One more time, everyone, that was Professor Steve Walsh. If you'd like to find out more from Steve, check out his books and articles. There's a list on Steve's University of Newcastle page, which I'll put a link to.If you'd like to find out more from us, please go to our website, www.tefltraininginstitute.com. Thanks for listening. We'll see you again next time. Goodbye.

"What I'm essentially doing is I am using your own content. So whether you're posting or commenting on sites like LinkedIn as fuel for my personalized outreach." - Kristina Finseth in today's Tip 523 How do you personalize your outreach? Join the conversation at DailySales.Tips/523 and learn more about Kristina! Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: scott@top1.fm

How are you making your teams feel mentally safe, psychologically safe, emotionally safe to be themselves? And when they can be themselves, they will be at their natural best for your team and your organization. And that's what you need, right? That's what you need for your team to perform. Go ahead and take action this week. Find somebody around you, ask them some good questions when there's a mistake that you might make fess up to it, own it. Talk about how you're going to be better because of it and continue to create the environment in which people can as well.  [00:00:47] And today I want to have a conversation with you around safety. Now in today's day and age with the COVID-19 crisis, everybody is thinking about safety. Safety is at the forefront of everybody's minds, specifically people's physical safety, right? Leaders and organizations are spending so much time thinking about how. [00:01:07] We can keep our people safe, especially as we ramp back up into our workplaces, as, as quarantines start to lift, as organizations start to ramp up their operations. Again, people's physical safety is, is an incredibly important issue because people need to feel safe when they come into work that they're not going to be put at risk so that they can perform at their best. [00:01:34] So leaders in organizations are spending a lot of time thinking about how they keep people safe. It's not just relegated to an EHS or a safety department or a safety leader. Safety is at the forefront of everybody's mind. But when it comes to creating high performing teams and having high performing individuals, you know, people that can perform at their best as often as possible and get the kind of results that we need, our teams to get the safety and physical safety specifically, isn't the only type of safety that people need to function at a high level. [00:02:14] If you're listening to this, no doubt. You've experienced some type of working environment at some point in your life where you didn't feel"safe. I'm not talking about physical safety. What I'm really talking about is psychological safety, emotional safety. People spend so much time and effort and honestly wasted energy and wasted attention on things like office politics on trying to safeguard their job. [00:02:40] Sometimes people spend more time trying to keep their job than actually just doing their job. And what we know about how human beings function is that when we're in a mindset where we're just playing, not to lose, to lose what we have, what we've worked so hard for when we're playing not to lose versus playing to win. [00:03:04] Right. When we're playing not to lose, we do not function at our best, but when we're in a mindset where we're playing to win, right. Not just focusing on the mistakes we could make or how we might fail, knowing that those things are a genuine possibility, but being okay with it, because we're just focused on the winning aspect of human beings, then function at their natural best. [00:03:32] So leaders. It is on you to create an environment in which your people feel safe, not just physically safe, but mentally safe, emotionally safe, psychologically safe, that they aren't always having to look over their shoulder, to the left and to the right worrying about who's coming to get them, or what kind of office politics or company politics or back fighting, or the meetings after the meetings or their water cooler conversations. [00:04:02] They're going to come back to get them. You see teams that have a natural open and honest ability to trust one, another mistakes and all flaws and all that people can actually be like, like buck naked with each other, Patrick Lencioni. That's how he works at that. People can be just virtually buck naked with one another flaws, mistakes, and awe. [00:04:27] We can come to the table being really vulnerable with each other about where we're good and where we're not. Those are the teams that actually function at the highest levels because they're focused on. On answers and solutions, not just flaws and problems, right? They can take advantage of each other's strengths, not just always highlighting each other's weaknesses. [00:04:51] They're aware of them, right. They're aware of them enough so that they know how to compensate for one another. Where, where each other's strengths can take advantage of other people's weaknesses. That's what creates really good high performing teams. But if people are spending more time, Worried about themselves, right? [00:05:12] Keeping themselves safe and not exposing any kind of weaknesses they have that only does that not create very high performing teams, but that actually has a degrading effect on the human psychology over time. We all know this, that human beings are hardwired with this fight or this flight or freeze response. [00:05:33] It's a survival mechanism. So anytime we perceive an incoming threat, we naturally go into fight flight or freeze response just briefly, let me unpack it. So anytime that we perceive an incoming threat, some people go into a fight response, which is, you know, I'm going to rise to meet this challenge and it's going to be me or them, and I'm going to fight this thing. [00:06:00] Now what's interesting is that there's a lot of leaders. That take that approach when it comes to leadership to try to put pressure on their teams. And I figured that the best will rise to the top. Right. But what this does over the longterm is human beings were not meant or designed to live in a fight flight or freeze response over time. [00:06:26] Like we said, it's a survival mechanism. It's meant to survive the moment, but not to thrive over the long term. So even though some people might perform well in a high pressure state, some leaders might think that, Oh, look, that strategy is really effective. It's a, it's an effective means of getting performance out of people. [00:06:49] But over time, what you'll find is that people do not perform at that same level when they exist in that high stress, high pressure state. So the fight response, although it does well in the moment, isn't good. Over the long term for human beings, obviously the flight response, isn't good either. And we see this all the time. [00:07:13] Some people when faced with pressure, they would rather run from it or lean away from it rather than lean into it. We don't want that either on our teams. And then some people we've seen this as well. They had that kind of freeze response, that freeze mechanism, which is, they just kind of freeze up and they can't make any decisions. [00:07:38] And they are frozen by inaction. None of those responses lead to the type of performance that we want for ourselves or that we want from our team members. So leaders, we have to do a really good job of not sending people into that fight flight or freeze response. If we can make people feel safe, if we can make people feel appreciated that you know what nobody's going to be perfect, we can all make mistakes as long as we learn from them. [00:08:12] And we don't hold them over one another constantly. That's the type of environment that creates not only high performing teams and individuals. But people that are in really healthy, emotional States that actually go home to their families better for having been a part of your team in your organization. [00:08:33] So leaders, your job is to help make people safe, not just physically safe. Yes. Physically safe. Like it like is so important in this current climate. But it's an opportunity when safety is on all of our minds to not just relegate it to the zone of physical safety, how are you making your teams feel. [00:08:56] Mentally safe, psychologically safe, emotionally safe to be themselves. And when they can be themselves, they will be at their natural best for your team and your organization. And that's what you need. Right. That's what you need for your team to perform. Like you need them to perform. So, yeah. Couple practical steps leaders you might think and assume. [00:09:20] Yeah, my people feel safe. They would tell me if they didn't, chances are you're wrong. Chances are you're wrong. That those people will not tell you if they don't feel safe. That's the whole point. They're not going to tell you if you make them feel unsafe because that will make them feel unsafe. So leaders, one of the most practical, effective things that you can do for your team starts with creating an environment where it's okay for people to be imperfect. [00:09:53] It's okay. For people to make mistakes. And as the leader, you go first, you set the tone for the environment that exists. So the first time you make a mistake, Admit to it, own it, fess up to it because people will take your lead and isn't that what you want rather than wasting a lot of time with office politics of people blaming one another for any mistakes that are made and finger pointing. [00:10:24] If people just own the mistake, we can move on faster from it and land on solutions. That will ultimately drive the performance that we want. So you, as a leader, if you own up to and apologize for and fess up to the mistakes that you make, your people then will be more apt to do it. And then when they do what's really important is that you as a leader, facilitate a conversation like that. [00:10:54] Okay. You made a mistake. How are we going to be better? The second you jumped down somebody's throat. When they make a mistake or you don't let it go and keep hanging it over their head is the last time people will feel free to be open and vulnerable. And this feeling of a lack of safety will perpetuate throughout a team and throughout an organization. [00:11:21] So leaders, you set the tone for people's feelings of safety, not just physical safety, but psychological, emotional safety that will put them in a position to perform at their best. And isn't that what we want. Leaders. That's what we need is for people and teams to be healthy for people to be fulfilled and passionate what they do to drive the performance that we need and to go home to their families, happy and healthy and safe and fulfilled

What we've seen over the last several months is that there's been a big shift, a big disruption, of course, in the coaching and consulting industries because of COVID-19, because of this global pandemic. What I want to walk you through today is here are the ways to get online referrals and what are the best online sources for getting referrals, specifically as a coach or consultant here in 2020, and as we finish out this year and going into 2021, where the best place for you to find those referrals or the best places to hang out, to give value, to make sure that those are turning into actual lead generation sources for you with your coaching and consulting business. I'm going to give you four different ideas for today, but before we jump into this, you might say, "I don't know how any of this is set up. I don't even know what to do or where those places might be. I don't know, this whole COVID-19 has disrupted so much of my business, my industry." That's why you're here. Just you listening to this, watching this, wherever you might be, you're seeing that this is an opportunity for you to get the traction and then momentum that you need as a coach or consultant. Brush the dust off, pick yourself back up. Let's do this, okay? The first place that I know that you can get great referrals online is what I call your LinkedIn or Facebook groups. What I'm going to give you today is not necessarily content where you say, "Oh my gosh, this is groundbreaking," but it's saying for all the different options that are out there. You know these options, you probably know all four of these options I'm going to give you. What I'm doing is I'm narrowing down and saying I know these are the top four, instead of the top 25, 30, I could do this, this, this, posting, liking, sharing, tweeting. Oh my gosh, how do you make sure that you're narrowing in on the top three or four that you know will work? The first one here is LinkedIn or Facebook groups. LinkedIn has started to pour a ton of different emphasis on the actual group, the community aspect of LinkedIn. You don't just go on, you don't just have connections, but you go on and you jump into a small hub, a small conversation as part of a LinkedIn group. Facebook's been pushing groups for a couple of years now because they recognize that people don't just want to be in on a platform, they want to be connected. They want to be in a group that's continuing the conversations that matter to them about topics that are most important to their future, to their interest. Facebook groups are starting to get pretty well overrun, as far as they're fairly well saturated there, millions and millions of groups now, but LinkedIn still is fairly well on the early adoption side of LinkedIn groups. If you can find a LinkedIn group that's not necessarily tied just into your industry, but into your industry specifically tied to a problem that you solve. It's not just I'm going to join a coaches group, but maybe if I'm helping parents be able to figure out how to be better parenting or if I want to help people who want to get out of, I'm not joining necessarily a coaching group, but I'm joining a group of people who are getting rid of financial debt or getting financial freedom. I would join that group far more than just joining any other group about coaching. (Transcript continues) ----- Being an expert doesn't mean you automatically have an audience, especially with so much noise in the digital marketing space. You need to break through the noise and establish your message as a rising thought leader in your industry. Jon Cook has worked with over 1,100 coaches and consultants and 800 speakers to make their messages remarkably clear and compelling to the right audience, and today he wants to help you. If you want greater clarity and even better results with your message, visit workwithjoncook.com.

1:44 - Telling other people's stories"I experience you as" instead of "you are""What I'm hearing is" instead of "you're saying"9:22 - F-bomb10:20 - Ryan's dead grandfather visited, he has a film shoot coming up, and he's getting sick. Correlation?22:14 - How to be an empath: stand up to your ankles in a trough of dirt.32:07 - F-bomb33:21 - F-bomb33:08 - Abby is avoiding life-giving forces in response to 2020 being an asshole. Ryan invites her to ditch her all-or-nothing mindset and pick up her spiritual practices a little at a time.36:31 - F-bomb (technically she just said "fuhhhhdammit" but it still counts)38:05 - F-bomb59:22 - F-bombGRATITUDES:Abby is grateful for the free time her lack of job has afforded her as of late.Ryan is grateful for a stranger named Kristi Fitzgerald.MORE DEETS:Email us at truenorthpodcast11@gmail.comJoin our tribe at patreon.com/truenorth11

Mason welcomes Sarah Greenfield onto the podcast today to wax lyrical on the wonders of poo! Sarah is a registered dietitian, functional medicine practitioner and absolute poo aficionado. As someone who has personally struggled with digestive issues for the better part of her life, Sarah knows just how vulnerable and overwhelming it can feel to take the reins of your health and make long lasting change. It is Sarah’s deep desire, and mission to assist those suffering from health and digestive issues to heal from the inside out. "I truly believe that your poop is the direct reflection and a perfect way to measure what's going on internally." -  Sarah Greenfield Mason and Sarah discuss: How monitoring your poo's can help you learn the language of your health. What the ideal poo looks like. The importance of identifying dietary irritants and bacterial dysbiosis when working to heal digestive issues. The gut/nervous and endocrine (hormone) system connection. The perils of diet dogma, how extreme diets impair digestive capacity. High fat diets as a source of pro-inflammatory bacteria. To float or not to float? What it means if your poo sinks or swims. Lifestyle, sleep and stress as important markers for digestive health. The impact macro and micro nutrients have on microbiome diversity.   Who is Sarah Greenfield? Sarah Greenfield is a registered dietitian with a background in functional medicine living in Los Angeles where she launched the Fearless Fig - Sarah's program for spreading gut health awareness and wellness solutions. From the TEDx stage to interviews with NBC’s Lester Holt, Buzzfeed, and Men’s Health, Sarah’s fearless approach to health is captivating audiences across the globe and changing how we all live a fearless life.   Resources: Sarah's Website Sarah's Instagram Sarah's Facebook Sarah's Courses     Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Mason:   (00:01) Sarah, thanks so much for joining me.   Sarah:  (00:03) Yeah, I'm excited.   Mason:  (00:04) Me too, Fearless Fig. Is there something about the fig and its digestive prowess that made that your title?   Sarah:   (00:16) Well, kind of. It's like a yes and no. I like alliterations. I was like, "Oh, Fearless Fig, that kind if goes together." But also when I moved to California was the first time I actually had a fig and I ate so many of them because I was like, "These are the most delicious things I've ever had," then I had horrible digestive issues afterwards because they're so fibrous and I just, I ate way too many. I think it's kind of funny in retrospect that I'm like, "Yeah, [crosstalk 00:00:41]."   Mason:  (00:41) I get you. I'm a sucker for alliteration as well. I'm like-   Sarah:  (00:44) Love it.   Mason:  (00:46) ... "What else is that fearless feijoa?" Another word for a Kiwi. Otherwise, yeah, fig's good. We're going to go and talk about poo quite a bit. I really like it. I've been sharing with the crew here and there as much as we can get off leaning on practitioners consistently, and start building that real folky know how, that we can watch our own selves and our own expressions, our own poos, but I haven't elaborated too much. I'm just like, "Hey, guys, keep on just watching your poo and you're going to see what feedback you're getting from any dietary swings, or if you're dialling in the diet in a particular way."   Mason:  (01:24) I'm really excited to go and just get a bit of like, navigation through that landscape when we're ... Is there a technical term for poo watching or poo observing that we can, or maybe we can coin one, poo pervery?   Sarah:  (01:39) I like that. I don't think I have one. I always go back to learning the language of your health, because I truly believe that your poop is the direct reflection and a perfect way to measure what's going on internally, because we don't have a lot of that data that we see on a regular basis. We have snot, that doesn't really tell us too much. But when you dive into poop, that's really a huge language of your health.   Mason:  (02:05) Such an immediate feedback as well. You're right, because we've got expressions in our skin, with our hydration, with our wees, but the poo digestively it's our anchor for what's consisting ... With so much coming out at the moment making sure that we're eating correctly, yes for ourselves and our mitochondria, but eating in a way ... basically eating for our microbiota. That's something ... People are starting to see that, looking at your shit is literally your way to bypass the shit of either dietary dogma and just aligning yourself, because theoretically based on testimonials or what in your head makes sense or morally what makes sense, I'm going to make that my diet.   Mason:  (02:57) You can free yourself from that and actually watch what's going on and by watching what's coming out of you. Let's dive into that. What does that ... Yes, you've said what it means to ... You can actually know yourself a little bit more, but let's start looking at this as in the whole practise how we can get some ... find our feet a little bit more.   Sarah:  (03:18) Yeah, looking at it as number one and I think just bringing ourselves back to this idea that our body's always trying to give us clues when something's off, and we tend to push them away until we're into a disease state. Getting back to this idea of connecting to optimising wellness, and not waiting until it's so far along that it's a bigger issue. But really just starting to say like, "Okay, what can I start to tune into?" The poop is right there. I always start by just assessing ... I'm not telling people to face down in the toilet for 20 minutes, but just take a look back, there's a couple of key things that you can really look for, that can clue you into what's going on.   Sarah:  (03:56) First and foremost, ideal poo is usually a question people ask me about and that is pretty well formed, it comes out easily. You don't want to be straining, you don't want to be sitting on the toilet for almost really any longer than it would take you to pee. It should be a really quick process where you have the urge to go, it comes out, it's well formed, it doesn't make a mess in the toilet bowl, you have minimal cleanup. That's a good poop. When we start to see things like more of like a soft serve consistency that can indicate that things are not being processed as well. To me I start to think about, "Okay, well is there irritation?   Sarah:  (04:31) Is there inflammation going on in the digestive tract? Are you eating things that maybe are irritating?" When it's off that ...   Mason:  (04:37) Is that including a big streaking on the bowl, that kind of thing?   Sarah:  (04:40) Yeah, and if it's consistent, because we also have to understand, you can have a weird poop every, once in a while and it's not a big deal. It's just when that becomes your norm and it's messy all the time and it's streaking all the time that that's something you want to tune into. I've done so much. I know we talked about testing and not necessarily wanting to go back to testing. But having done all this testing, I know that when those things start to kind of creep up, we know something's out of whack. That usually goes back to, "All right, what are you eating? Is it inflaming your gut? Is there irritation? Is that consistently happening?   Sarah:  (05:15) Why is it not formed?" Thinking about, are you getting enough fibre? Do you have enough bulk in your stool? Think about your diet. We tend to be busy, overlook our diet, go for convenience foods, go for things that are not fueling the microbiome. That's one thing. Another thing that I [crosstalk 00:05:33]-   Mason:  (05:33) Can I ask on streaking?   Sarah:  (05:34) Yeah.   Mason:  (05:34) Yeah, and just to be clear as well, I love the fact that we can test what's going on in the gut as well. It's just nice to be able to then take that and embody it, so through the testing we can actually get really insightful about what's going on, on a bacterial level and inflammation level, right?   Sarah:  (05:50) Absolutely.   Mason:  (05:51) With the streaking, just for someone, because we're not on here long, we could probably talk for probably five hours about this, about the specifics, but are there particular ... Is it macronutrient commonality that you're going into excessively if you're seeing a lot of streaky or loose stool? Or is it more in that camp where what you're doing, we're going to have to look for what you're doing which is generally inflaming you? We have to go and look for what's in the diet that's causing inflammation.   Sarah:  (06:18) Yeah, typically I go for what's causing inflammation. When we want to look at micronutrients or macronutrient breakdown and that's not functioning well, there's other things to look for. But when you're seeing this consistent, loose stool, I'm always thinking, "Okay, well, where's the irritation coming from?" Is it an irritation caused by something you're eating that's aggravating your immune system and causing inflammation? Or is it just years and years of digestive gut abuse, where now your bacterial balance is out of whack and when you look at it from a stool test or something like that, you see a higher level of inflammatory bacteria?   Sarah:  (06:59) That's what really fascinating. A lot of times, I work with so many people who have digestive issues and just can see these patterns, that that's something you absolutely want to clue into, because it means that there's just probably some dysbiosis or irritation.   Mason:  (07:13) Do you find that there are particular factors more likely to contribute to the creation of those inflammatory bacteria?   Sarah:  (07:23) Yes. Typically what I find is people who have had history of prolonged antibiotic use, or they went through something recently, where they were on antibiotics for a long period of time or proton pump inhibitors. A lot of times people will have issues with acid reflux and the solution from a conventional perspective is to say, "Okay, well, here's some proton pump inhibitors that will decrease the acidity. It'll cure that acid reflux," and just go be on them for months, six months at a time, a year. I've seen people on proton pump inhibitors for years and that's just not okay, because if you're on those types of medications that are decreasing your stomach acidity, it's going to have the same impact as an antibiotic over ...   Sarah:  (08:07) There's been studies where they've looked at six months. If you're on that proton pump inhibitor, it's going to have that same negative impact on your microbiome, and then you'll start to see things like pro-inflammatory bacteria growing up because they're a little bit more resilient than our good bacteria.   Mason:  (08:21) In that process, because something I kind of ... I love the theory of this and then every now and then I get, which is like this whole big Yin time that we've got going on at the moment, we're going inward and I feel I am anyway, and it's actually going into winter here. I get to go through that process internally and really feel into where I'm like, bacterially or, in my tissue where I'm hitting a snag. I don't know there if there's anything you want to, if you want to take us through the journey of poo formation and creation and ... Just nerd out on that a little bit.   Sarah:  (08:59) Yeah, well it starts really ... It's a mental process, because the way we break down and degrade our foods starts with our awareness of our food when we sit down and eat. There's a whole mental aspect that happens where if you are distracted, if you're eating your food, watching TV, doing a call, working, it's going to impact the way you're able to actually degrade and break down nutrients and ultimately absorb them. When our stress levels higher, that's impacting also the diversity of our gut. Really, when you think about poo formation, it comes down to what type of environment are you creating for yourself when you sit down and eat a meal?   Sarah:  (09:38) Our food is the foundation of our health. It's not only just what we're eating, but it's the way that we're able to then process it. That's what I think about first and then we also think about, what is the actual construct of our meal? Are we eating things that are really extreme? There's a lot of extreme dieting happening right now. Especially the ketogenic diet is a really big one out here in the United States. I hate that diet for many reasons, because of the microbiome impact it has. But when you're going extreme, when you're eating these extreme ways, that's negatively impacting and throwing off the balance of our microbiome.   Sarah:  (10:17) You want to look at the food that you're consuming, and make sure that it is balanced, that you have adequate macronutrients or carbohydrates, protein, fat, because that's influencing the balance and integrity of your microbiome, which also impacts hormone status. If you're eating this standard American diet or standard Australian diet as I've heard it referred to as well, that's going to throw off your hormone balance, which impacts digestion, which impacts your gut microbiome. All very interconnected. I think about it in that context as well. Then as you get to ingesting, if your stress is higher, you're not going to have enough enzymes to break things down.   Sarah:  (11:00) You're not going to be able to extract nutrients. You're going to have an inability to absorb certain things. Then if you're not feeding your microbiome well from a prebiotic fibre standpoint, phytonutrients also the colours of our food or feeding the microbiome, then you're not going to be making certain compounds as effectively. We make neurotransmitters in our gut. We make vitamin B, vitamin K or different types of B vitamins, I should say. We make hormones. All of these things are impacted even from just that moment that you sit down and the intention you put into your food, and then ultimately, we're going to be able to see, "Well, how is that coming out when you're pooping?" Yeah, I just get lost in it.   Mason:  (11:43) No, I feel you. I'll get lost out there with you as well. I love that. I want to just talk about the keto diet. We talk a lot about dogma, and I talk a lot about dogmatic diets quite often being useful for a particular time, where you can extract the insight, maybe you're disconnecting from that SAD diet or whatever it is, or coming home to yourself a little bit more and seeing how that food does affect you. But then it's in that bridging period when you know, "All right, it's time to take what I need and then drop that label," and that rule, all the rule based eating and the dogma and the morality or whatever it is, and that tribalism which is good to an extent, and then move towards what's real for you with your own identity, not relying on that.   Mason:  (12:30) We've talked a lot about it in veganism, and ketogenic comes up again and again. Whenever I talk to people focused on the digestive system, the keto diet starts getting really slammed. I just want to make sure everyone's remembering it's like, it might be really beautiful and useful. There might be elements that you might still continue to resonate with and you embody, but we're talking about, set yourself to this system and then don't listen to the signs of your body that it's time to change. In that, what is it about the keto diet? We're talking high fat, relatively high protein, but very fat fueled, I think is that what you're referring to?   Sarah:  (13:06) Yeah.   Mason:  (13:06) And then no carbs. Can you tell us about your interpretation of what's happening on that type of diet to the gut?   Sarah:  (13:15) Yeah. The way that I see it and the way I look at it, and I appreciate your prefacing out with or prefacing it saying, our bodies are shifting and changing. While something might feel good for a certain period of time, it's just when we get attached to these things as the only way to eat and keto, what that will do oftentimes, in people that have digestive issues is initially it'll feel really good because we're taking out all of the fermentable carbohydrates. We're taking out all of the prebiotics. We're taking out all of these things that feed the bacteria in the gut that sometimes can get out of balance and cause digestive issues. But what we're then doing is we're introducing more protein.   Sarah:  (13:52) We're introducing more saturated fat, and saturated fat can actually bind to certain endotoxins. Now we have, we always have certain endotoxins in our gut just based on gram-negative, gram-positive bacteria, gram-negative bacteria. They're in our gut. They're part of our ecosystem, but when they're higher, we have higher levels of this LPS. What that does is it creates permeability. It creates a leakiness in the gut. When we eat saturated fat, when we're eating higher saturated fat, we're feeding that pro-inflammatory bacteria, and then saturated fat will bind with LPS and make it more easily absorbable versus something like fibre, which binds with LPS and helps it stay in the digestive tract and then ultimately be eliminated. There's a lot ...   Mason:  (14:39) What's LPS mean?   Sarah:  (14:40) LPS is lipopolysaccharides ...   Mason:  (14:42) That's right.   Sarah:  (14:42) ... it's essentially ... Yeah, it's in the cell wall of all gram-negative bacteria. When you look at the actual ecosystem of the gut, there's about, I think it's about 35% of our normal gut microbiome is a phylum called bacteroides, which is gram-negative. They do make up a huge population of our gut. It's just we want to keep that in balance. Most people when they're experiencing digestive issues, when they're extreme dieting, when they're following the keto diet, they will throw that balance off even further.   Mason:  (15:15) I think we've talked about it on the podcast before is that you're especially getting just fatty greasy poo's in that point?   Sarah:  (15:21) Yeah, so you can see it manifest in that way for sure. You can see just the fat coming out, those shiny poos. Poops that float can also be an indication that you have too much fat, you're not able to break it down. Then ultimately, it can lead into these more loose streaky, hard to clean up poops that we talked about because that's a direct way to see potential inflammation in the body. That's essentially what you're kind of swinging towards when you're on that ketogenic diet.   Mason:  (15:49) Okay, so float, to float or not to float? Is there a swing that you like to see and sometimes we're float and sometimes we're not? What is that actually showing about where we're at digestively?   Sarah:  (16:03) Yeah, so good question, because it's not like a one size fits all. It's not like if your poop floats, oh-oh.   Mason:  (16:12) Yeah, if you don't sink you think.   Sarah:  (16:12) Yeah, it's not necessarily a bad thing if your poop's floating and you have a very high fibre diet, because with the fibre, you're going to get more gas actually trapped in the poop and it's going to float. If you're like, "Oh, I follow a really high fibre diet, that's probably why my poop floats," because in Ayurvedic Medicine, they say a floating poop is ideal. In functional medicine, we look at a floating poop as fat malabsorption essentially. You're not breaking down fat effectively. If you're in more of this SAD diet style or you're under a lot of stress, or if you're having acid reflux, and you have this floating poop, that's probably something to look into, because that's showcasing to me at least that you have a malabsorption with fat and you're not breaking down fat effectively.   Mason:  (17:00) When we are sinking, what is that an indicator of where our poops at? What's sinking us?   Sarah:  (17:06) Ideally, if it's sinking, I always look at that as a good sign, because that means that you have the proper ability to break down fat. You're breaking down things well. Essentially, again, if it's not a super high fibre diet, that's a good place to be. Most people don't have floating poops because of too much fibre. At least people that I see are not getting that much fibre, but ideally you do want it to sink. Then the other issue that you would want to be on the lookout for is if it's sinking, but you're still seeing pieces of food that you can identify in your poop. The common ones that I see that we shouldn't be able to identify are things like carrots, tomato skins, lettuce, rice, things like that we shouldn't be able to identify, corn ...   Sarah:  (17:49) Corn is a pass, black quinoa, sesame seeds, those are going to be a little bit harder for the body to break down, flax seeds, but the vegetables, things like that, you shouldn't be able to see that in your poop. That can also indicate that there's some malabsorption and digestive issues.   Mason:  (18:06) If you're doing a little bit of black quinoa or something like that and corn and you're having a little look and you've completely digested it, you're like, "Man, my Agni fire is like rocking right now."   Sarah:  (18:19) "I'm on it."   Mason:  (18:19) Yeah. There is nothing getting through this cauldron of my digestive system. Okay, that's good to know because ... I appreciate, we're just getting little tidbits and tips for looking at what's going on and how it's working internally. We're looking at our poo. We're realising whatever we're doing, whether we're in SAD diet, keto, extreme in one direction or another, we're not completely digesting. We're saying the tomato skins, we're floating, we're streaky. Where do we start? Because I assume there's a different journey, there's a little bit of like you know, for lack of a better term for poopoing of fibre, excessive fibre diets here and there, whether that's just on a healing journey.   Mason:  (19:09) What's that process of bridging back? Where are we starting? I assume there's going to be an inclusion of prebiotics and fibres there in that process. What does that bridging journey and it's going to have to be simplified, because it's very bio individual? But yeah, what's that journey look like?   Sarah:  (19:29) Yeah, so fibre is kind of ... When you can't tolerate high amounts of fibre, that's the first indication that something is off in your microbiome, because we should be able to break these down. But what happens a lot of times is the bacteria from our gut will move from the large intestines up into our small intestines, and that creates a lot of pain, a lot of gas, a lot of bloating, and that's when we start to be able to not break down what we call FODMAP foods or fermentable carbohydrates. That's the first indication. There does have to be when you're dealing with digestive issues, there is a period of elimination, of pulling back on certain foods that you should be able to digest, but at this point in time, you just can't, your body can't handle it.   Sarah:  (20:11) We do have to go through a phase of looking at, "All right, what can you tolerate? How do we start to heal the body and rebalance the microbiome?" Even fermented foods in many cases, if you have a yeast overgrowth, if you have this bacterial overgrowth, and you're trying to take probiotics and eat fermented foods, it's going to cause you to feel like crap. That's, I think a lot of times where people get confused where they're like, "Well, I'm following all of the ideals of what a healthy diet would be. I'm eating more fibre. I'm eating more fermented foods. I'm eating more plant based foods and I feel like crap."   Sarah:  (20:43) That's the place to tune into to understand like, "Okay, can your body actually handle it at this point?"   Mason:  (20:49) There's so many questions bubbling up all at once. I just want to step back into extreme diets. We've covered keto. Are there any others that you feel to talk about the implications of? We kind of the celery thing, which isn't necessarily about celery. Before we go on and talk about, I want to talk about some of your superstar fibres and prebiotics and those kinds of things that you really champion and see generally have a place in the healthy poo diet. What are some of these other little signs and implications that we can learn from these extreme diets that maybe we're tilting in one direction too much?   Mason:  (21:27) I guess, celery is like, let's just say that falls into juicing, lots of cold foods, perhaps lots of raw foods, which is familiar for me because years ago raw food was my entry there. Let's talk about that a little bit.   Sarah:  (21:43) Well, that world is really tough on people with digestive issues, just because raw takes a lot of heat. it takes a lot of enzymes, it takes a lot of power to break it down, so for people that are imbalanced in their gut, it's a tough place to go to just that raw. Then a lot of the fibres as well can be really challenging. It's really ... Any of these extreme diets are really tough. Even veganism for a certain period of time can throw people off because they're eating ... You look at the staples of a vegan diet and it's so high in the fermentable carbohydrates, avocado, garlic, onions, greens in some cases. Dandelion greens have a lot of good prebiotic, so when we're eating really vegan, and also it's just carb heavy more so.   Sarah:  (22:34) That can really throw people off into a place where they're all of a sudden digestively they can't handle it. Then also the paleo diet because paleo is taking away a huge source of complex carbohydrates. It's taking away beans. All these things are really critical to feeding and diversifying the gut. I think what I've been really understanding is that so many people have digestive imbalances, and a lot of these diets are taking out key things that the body can't process, but should be able to, and masking the digestive issue and just pushing it off until it becomes something different. That's my like ... what I get concerned about.   Mason:  (23:10) Yeah. The concern's great. It's like just to know ... For people to realise that, things are going so good in one area as you said, you can go on that vegan, especially you go to Bali, you get on the vegan diet, lots of acai bowls, and juices, and salads, and perhaps you're doing like a bit of raw kale and these kinds of things. Could be good for a time but then quite often, we start getting back that bloating feeling. From what I can tell it's kind of like a diarrhoea that it's going to be produced from that type of diet, right?   Sarah:  (23:47) Yeah, yeah. The other thing that I think just the idea of going to Bali and being on a retreat and really immersing yourself in a different lifestyle, for a time being and feeling really good, the other thing is I always like to remind people is that, the gut doesn't work in isolation. It's not, just like anything in our body doesn't function in isolation, which is where I think conventional medicine sometimes can miss the mark, because you're going to the cardiologist for your heart and you're going to the endocrinologist for your hormones, and the gastroenterologist for your gut, which is great.   Sarah:  (24:18) They're very complex systems, but they all work together, and that idea of how does this all come back and function together is oftentimes overlooked in a wellness and healing journey. Because when you're in Bali, when you're changing your routine, when you're participating in more yoga and slowing down, you're shifting your entire hormonal makeup. You're shifting the way that your body is experiencing chemically and responding to stress, and that impacts the digestion, that impacts hormones. The one thing I will always like to remind people is we can get really freaking granular into this.   Sarah:  (24:52) We can look at the individual bacteria in your poop and we can look at every element of what you're eating, but there's still this larger picture of lifestyle and sleep and stress, and how all that plays a huge role in this really complex system as well.   Mason:  (25:08) You bring up a really great point. It's like, who are we attributing success to here? Are we completely attributing it to the switch to keto, paleo, a big one to the fasting with all the juices and the cold bowls, and yet I still have these digestive issues? What's going on? It was so good for me, but I'm getting this blowback. We have a lot of young women coming to us going, "Look, I ..." Behind closed doors, especially lots of big Instagram accounts that they have this certain brand identity. They've been enmeshed with their stage persona and they need to up keep that and they're like, "But I don't have my period," crazy bloating, diarrhoea, always cold, but they can't stop because there's a fear that if I stop that diet, which gave me the healing is going to give back all my issues.   Mason:  (26:08) You're right; in conjunction is all of a sudden the deep relaxation, the hydration, the sunbathing and what that does. Maybe talk to us about that, that link between the nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract.   Sarah:  (26:23) Oh my god, it's everything.   Mason:  (26:26) [inaudible 00:26:26] right.   Sarah:  (26:28) We have this big nerve running down the back of our neck called the vagal nerve or the vagus nerve, and that I like to refer to as our gut brain superhighway. Our brain and our gut are constantly in communication. These two things need to be talking to each other to essentially function. Like I said, the neurotransmitters that are made in the gut, they're influenced by inflammation in the gut, by irritation, by leakiness, permeability. The way that we approach it in our mindset is, directly going down to our gut and influencing everything that's happening. When people can manage and navigate stress more effectively, everything changes.   Sarah:  (27:07) The more stressed out you are and I see this time and time again, where I know if I'm working with someone and they're having significant digestive issues, I know that their stress level is also going to be mega, mega elevated or their sleeps impacted or something's going on that's keeping them out of balance, or there was some emotional trauma that can come up and present in the gut as well. This idea that, we can fix one thing or we can just take the supplement or we can just do the diet without addressing the other areas, the stress is so huge, because we have stress in so many different capacities. Stress, we have perceived stress, which is, I have all these emails or I have these followers I have to upkeep this persona.   Sarah:  (27:49) That's perceived stress, which is affecting our brain. Our HPA access, our hypothalamus pituitary adrenal gland is kicking off, and now we have this surge in cortisol which is that impacting our sleep, which is impacting our hormones, which is impacting our gut. It's all very interconnected. Then we have stress from not eating enough calories throughout the day or over exercising, which ... I'm in LA, I see this quite frequently, but kind of the picture you painted, I don't have my period, I'm gaining weight, I'm bloated, I have diarrhoea, what's going on? I'm doing all the things.   Sarah:  (28:25) You look at, "Okay, well," perceived stress, movement based stress, caloric intake stress, and then toxin load and is your body actually able to process and remove toxins? Or are those another form of stress that are burdening your system? Yeah, stress plays a huge role. I can't ever pick a favourite and say, "Stress is the one to manage if you're going to pick one," but it's so integral in the conversation that it cannot be overlooked and expect to be healed, or that your guts going to function.   Mason:  (28:59) In context of the Yang and the searching for where I'm going to get this new saviour especially, it's pervasive in LA.   Sarah:  (29:08) Oh yeah.   Mason:  (29:12) I love LA, and I love that it's this big mixing pot and bring in a lot of Western philosophy and same with Silicon Valley, just like these explorations of what we can bring in next to diversify and bring more harmony to our Western culture. But, of course, in such a yang world, you get stuck in chasing that shiny thing ... I'm doing all the right things as you said, and then in reflecting of that, is that Yin state that's almost boring. It is definitely just in context of looking for something that's going to save you, it seems.   Mason:  (29:52) There, what you're saying seems boring and too simple, but more and more I'm definitely getting it at the moment. I've had to clip myself on the ear with all this that's going on in the world and this going internally, and then bringing the family together to the house. You can't deny the consistent beauty in that sleep, in that approaching life in a parasympathetic sense, just maintaining hydration, a harmonious diet where you know, your poo's reflecting the state of health. How do you communicate this? You're in the middle of ... You've gone out of the frying pan from wherever you are, I'm sure into the fire of LA.   Sarah:  (30:33) Yes.   Mason:  (30:33) How are you communicating this while still appealing to creating the shiny thing, that the moths will come to?   Sarah:  (30:43) Yeah, well, I mean, exactly. I really tend to look at people that are frustrated. When I talk about ... Because I'm coming, I'm not working with someone that's like, "I've just been experiencing bloating." I'm coming in and saying, "Have you been struggling with your health for years, and all the information that you got is not pointing you in a direction where you feel better?" What I'm looking for and I'm wanting to support people in, is this idea of long term health and longevity and sustainability. If you're looking for a quick fix, if you're looking ... "I just want to fix my bloating and move on. Give me the supplements. Tell me exactly what to eat.   Sarah:  (31:20) Tell me what to do. Tell me what my macronutrient balance should be." I'm not the right practitioner for you, because I'm really looking at, "All right, how do I support you and go on this journey with you?" I work with most of my clients for six months just to start with, and then we'll go on longer for a year because health is not, it's not a one sided quick fix thing. It's really about the exploration of the mind and how you approach it and your beliefs around your health. Then the physiological aspect and how is your body responding to this and what are you carrying on, or what are you holding on to and how is your body showing you this.   Sarah:  (31:56) To me health is really if you want to go deeper and you want to get internal, and you really want to say, "Okay, how do I create something that is sustainable?" I understand that health is an ongoing journey. It's not linear. It's not ever over. I think that's a hard thing for people to hear sometimes, because it's like, "How long will it take you to decrease my bloating and fix my bloating?" That's a tough question, because it's not always going to happen in a systematic way. Then a lot of times, once you overcome something that has been a burden on you, you can then see something else that's a challenge. It's like, I'm a marathon runner so I always joke that every first time marathon runner, their goal is like, "I just want to cross the finish line," and I'm like, "Uh-huh (affirmative)."   Sarah:  (32:39) Then as soon as they get across that finish line, they have a time goal, and then all of a sudden it becomes about this shifting goal and that's in anything. Every time you hit a goal, you raise the standard, you raise the bar, and that's the same exact pattern I see in our health.   Mason:  (32:54) Yeah, it's like sometimes that pause to reflect on, "Wow, my bloating is pretty much nonexistent and I didn't even take time to ..." My sound boy just fell off the wall. Great timing. It's like, "I haven't even stopped to acknowledge how far I've come and how much I'm producing this harmony within my gut through the shifts in diet." Your right it's like, "Wow what's next? What's wrong with me next? What other thing have I got in me that I need to detoxify and optimise?" Yeah, great point. What you said about macronutrients, we can't live forever with every meal having different percentages of different macronutrients. That's not sustainable over 20 years.   Mason:  (33:41) But with that, what do you see as your ... What are these beautiful foods that you really resonate with in your own diet, in your clients diet that you see really tighten up these fearless fig faeces?   Sarah:  (33:59) Fearless fig faeces. All right, I got to write that down and change that. For me, it's just really about thinking, once you get to a place where you can tolerate things, it's thinking about diversity. So my motto is the more diverse your diet, the more diverse your gut. If you can think about, getting 40 different types of whole foods in your diet per week, that's a good place to be in. I don't mean like, you could do like a red apple, a green apple, brown rice, red rice, black rice, and that's diversity and that's phytonutrients and that's colour, and that's feeding all different bacteria. The gut microbiome when you look at it is so ... We're just starting to really scratch the surface of the research I feel in what is going on in our gut microbiome.   Sarah:  (34:43) The way that it's interacting, the symbiosis between other bacterial organisms, between everything is just starting to be explored. At least at this point, finding just the more variety in your diet is going to help. I like the idea of, when I tell people I don't like measuring macronutrients, but if you want to go for a goal ... I always say, half your plate is bright, colourful vegetables. A quarter of that is protein, whether or not that's meat based or plant based. Then we want to do quarter of the plate half a cup type thing of some form of complex carbohydrates, quinoa, resistant starches like cooled white rice, cooled white potatoes.   Sarah:  (35:27) That really feeds and fuels the microbiome and then some good source of fat as well. That's what I think is going to make a fearless fig fece an ideal.   Mason:  (35:39) I just want to ask about, because when I talk to digestive experts, when people are looking at the blue zones and et cetera, the beans and the lentils and legumes are starting to come back into, probably find this harmony which I've struggled with a little bit. A little bit just because I didn't enjoy them in my early days and went more raw, trying to go off more large scale agricultural crops, the anti nutrient kind of thing. Then trying to work in more with an ancestral diet and style, but I've ... I'm really opening up to that. Well, we live in a different world and I'm trying to just make sure that I don't have any prejudice, and I'm just finding what works and doesn't for my family. Where do they fit in? Have you had a little journey there with beans and legumes yourself?   Sarah:  (36:31) Oh yeah.   Mason:  (36:34) [inaudible 00:36:34].   Sarah:  (36:34) Yeah, well, for me, I had a digestive journey, which is why I'm probably in the position that I'm in, because I was having such awful digestive issues and I was getting no clarity on the why. It was just like, "Take this out. Take this out." But I didn't understand why my body was imbalanced and beans were the worst culprit. Beans really are like even in a healthy system, beans do typically tend to produce more gas. They have something called raffinose which is hard for our body to break down which causes more gas. But I think they are really, really beneficial part of our diet. They do feed you know those gramme-positive bacteria.   Sarah:  (37:13) Lactobacillus can feed off of certain legumes. Bifidobacteria is really good with black beans, those darker polyphenols feed that really well. I think it's looking at your ... You don't want to necessarily eat beans, all three meals, but incorporating them in a way where that can be your protein source for one of your meals, that's a great way to bring them in. Yeah, just looking again at variety and balance and moderation, and it doesn't have to be so extreme, which I know is it's really hard for people because we want to have that black and white rule, just eat this because there's so many variables within food and in our health.   Sarah:  (37:49) But I think that beans are such an important part of that picture of our microbiome, and also allow us to know that things are working well when you can tolerate them.   Mason:  (37:59) Yeah, I'm starting to open up a little bit and just see where they sit, how many times they sit in my diet, small amounts. I've said in another podcast just watching the gas, watching the farts that sometimes inevitably come and take it too far, or too little.   Sarah:  (38:18) Get back into them. But like also the way you prepare them like soaking them overnight, adding a little bit of you know acid to it, like apple cider vinegar or something like that can help pull some of the things that disrupt digestion out of it. Sprouting them is going to be another way to access a little bit more digestive enzymes and make them a little bit easier to break down. Just exploring the different capacities.   Mason:  (38:40) Coming out of cans, BPA free, organic beans in the brine, have been cooked, do you have a gauge on where they're at in the preparation cycle?   Sarah:  (39:00) I think there's going to be an ease to those than an accessibility, because a lot of people aren't going to spend hours and days boiling and prepping their beans. I still think there is a lot of good nutrition value in that. I always just say, if you're going to be using canned beans, make sure they're not loaded with sodium, and that you do want to rinse them, because you want to rinse off that non digestible, that raffinose. I still think that they're a perfectly great way to incorporate beans into your diet. If you have elevated digestive issues, I would then challenge you to do more soaking like I said, adding apple cider vinegar, even sprouted like sprouted mung beans are a really great thing that you can eat raw.   Sarah:  (39:39) That's a good way to incorporate it just because it has more digestive enzyme support, so it's going to help you break things down a little bit more efficiently, things like that. But I don't want to say that canned beans aren't great too, because I definitely do incorporate those a lot.   Mason:  (39:55) I'm just curious is that we get asked the question, I'm definitely ... I've just asked my former stepdad, Israeli guy, and I just remember him when I was a kid, him like soaking those red beans like overnight maybe for a little bit more, real long cooks and I just ... There was just something self regulating about it. There's something self regulating about going in and then preparing the beans for yourself that for me puts that cap, rather than just been able to go everyday, cool, bang, get the salad.   Mason:  (40:33) I just want to start bringing that home, so we're talking about like fibres, diversity, phytonutrient diversity coming through our vegetation. Just ... I guess it's one of those things we're going to be talking about it now, and you're going to be talking about it like 20 years from now, trying out these vegetables that are on the fringes of your awareness and hybridised and [inaudible 00:41:01], I guess like that is a huge staple. Then getting the beans, and then getting the fibres in, what kind of ... To bring us home, what kind of benefits?   Mason:  (41:14) Just a refresher. Maybe people hearing this for the first time. What kind of benefits are we seeing through assuming we've gone through a healing journey, and we can now integrate soluble and insoluble fibres through our diet? What kind of benefits and clean up and work is that doing to our digestive system, and they been shown in our poo?   Sarah:  (41:33) Yeah, well, if you're getting those good, solid poo's and everything is ideally sinking not always floating, but if you're getting that good poo and you also feel well, because everything that's presented externally in our body, like you had mentioned skin conditions, dehydration, that's usually a presentation of an imbalance in our gut. When we can go through that healing process and we can eat diversity and tolerate it, we're just seeing ... I'm just seeing ... It's incredible. The body is healing. You see so many things like hormone balance come back and women start to get their period again and skin rashes, clear up like eczema.   Sarah:  (42:12) I've seen that happen multiple times anxiety, depression. That's hugely caused by inflammation and bacterial imbalances and we talked about LPS. It's so many things and I think that's probably why I got so fascinated with the gut, because when we look at these things that we're dealing with fatigue, brain fog, all the things I mentioned, PCOS. A huge part of that is coming from an inflamed and imbalanced gut. When we can get our gut into a place where it's in harmony and in balance, we're seeing that spill over into every single area of our health.   Mason:  (42:45) So good. Final question. Do you take any fibre supplements? Do you ever do like a psyllium in the morning or anything or do you ... Are you normally just cruising with your diet?   Sarah:  (42:56) I don't typically tend to take in more fibre but I do use it in my practise. Especially when we're going through gut healing protocols, acacia fibre is one that's tolerated really, really well. If you're doing a cleanup, if you are ... I work with a lot of people with bacterial overgrowth, and so as we're removing some of those negative bacteria, I'll add it with acacia fibre because that actually helps to feed the bacteria a little bit and then make the medication or the supplement a little bit more effective. I like that. There's another one called Sunfiber, which is a great product.   Sarah:  (43:32) Those are the two that I usually work with because they're not as bloating as ... Sometimes psyllium husk can bloat people. I actually really like using psyllium seed, and it's something that I didn't find until I went to Australia, so I think you guys have it. But out here it's a little bit harder. We have psyllium husk but the seed is really effective and it has really good fibres in it.   Mason:  (43:55) So good. Thanks so much for coming on. Best place for people find you? I know Fearless Fig on Instagram is rocking away.   Sarah:  (44:04) Yeah, that's the best place to find me. I do tonnes of education there and then also my website fearlessfig.com. I have a whole poop guide where you can go and just look. You can download it and then it'll take you through how to look at your poop, what it means, what bacteria is associated with it. It really is that deeper dive into poop.   Mason:  (44:24) Yeah, great. Because we didn't really cover constipation, but I'd just like to bridge, maybe we did in talking about that nervous system and that vagal tone work there. Is that fair to say?   Sarah:  (44:35) Yeah, that's a huge, huge one. Also, if your vagus nerve is damaged and there's a lot of ways to repair that so like gagging. Not that I'm like, "Yeah, you should just gag yourself," but to improve vagal nerve tone, gagging, singing, gurgling those are all really great ways to do that. That can be associated with constipation. That's slowing down the motility. It's slowing down the nerve reactions that are happening. I think we indirectly talked about it all, but yeah if you want to dive into that more, I have that in the guide looking at the different levels of constipation, because the Bristol stool chart is the best, at least at this point the best way to evaluate and assess visually what your poop should look like.   Mason:  (45:19) Oh yeah. I forgot to ask about whether we're still enjoying Bristol, so that's ... all right, great.   Sarah:  (45:26) Yes, I love me a good Bristol stool chart.   Mason:  (45:30) Sweet Bristol stool chart up in the toilet, you have all you guests really think about. The other thing ... I'm sorry. I know. It's like I keep on bringing things up.   Sarah:  (45:37) That's okay.   Mason:  (45:38) You guys have, in the US you have good poo observation decks in the toilet. It's a bit wider. The waters up higher, there's more surface area. Here, it's really ... It's quite like a 10 centimetre like-   Sarah:  (45:52) It is.   Mason:  (45:53) You know what I mean?   Sarah:  (45:53) I noticed that. Yes, because I actually was in Australia the end of last year. I was working at, I was in Tasmania actually studying with a microbiome restoration specialist.   Mason:  (46:05) What's his name? I think Dan Sipple, who's a, he's a regular on our podcast. I think he goes and studies with this guy as well. What's his name?   Sarah:  (46:12) Jason Hawrelak.   Mason:  (46:13) I think so. What's his book, Eating for your Microbiome or something?   Sarah:  (46:18) Maybe. Yeah. He's fantastic. I actually, literally went to Australia for a month because I just emailed him, and I was like, "Can I come observe your practice?"   Mason:  (46:28) [crosstalk 00:46:28].   Sarah:  (46:29) Yeah, so was just so much fun. But I did notice because we talked a lot about understanding bowel transit time and looking at your poop. I had a really hard time looking at my poop there because it was such a deep, the toilet was just like a deep vessel of like, "Oh, it is harder to see that."   Mason:  (46:46) Sometimes you go for a wipe and you drop it and you're "No, no. I've covered it up." Where as in like, being in the States you got all this place to pop the paper without ruining the observation. Anyway, I think that's something that I'm going to like, when I'm renovating I'm going to look to get like a-   Sarah:  (47:01) A shelf. Well, actually, the fact that you bring that up, there are toilets in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands in some areas, that are not the older areas, and they have actual shelf toilets, where before it even goes in the water, you poop on this flat space and then it flushes down.   Mason:  (47:18) South America as well.   Sarah:  (47:19) That's something I've been ... I'm like, "I got to find out more about that."   Mason:  (47:23) Yeah. I remember specifically in South America being like, it's really close, which prevents this splashback as well, which I really like that kind of [inaudible 00:47:32].   Sarah:  (47:33) It probably makes it stink a little bit more, but for science that's all good.   Mason:  (47:38) It's all in the name of science so we like it. Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on and chatting. It's been really great.   Sarah:  (47:45) Yeah, thank you for having me.   Mason:  (47:46) Hey, have a beautiful birth.   Sarah:  (47:48) Thank you so much. Yeah, hopefully he'll come soon.   Mason:  (47:52) Yeah, no, just keep walking around and enjoying your time and nature and turning that vagus nerve, and I'm sure it'll be smooth transition.   Sarah:  (48:04) Thank you.   Mason:  (48:05) Thanks guys. We'll put all the show notes and the chat and everything ... We'll put everything in the show notes rather, so you can go and check that out and download that guide. Thank you so much Sarah.   Sarah:  (48:14) Thank you

In April I was in a really bad place. Emotionally and physically. On the 10th of that month, I shared a story on Instagram about going into my kitchen 14 different times in one day. I was using food to cope with my problems, and I wasn't feeling good. I wrote about it some for SHAPE. Stepping on the scale was the final straw, reminding me of a difficult college #hurdlemoment, and thus began a lot of inner work trying to get to a better place. Journaling. Talking. Therapy. Strengthening. Less judgement. More acceptance. Setting boundaries. Better interactions. Now, a couple months later, I'm really proud of my progress. But here's the thing: No one's reaching out to me and commenting about my attitude. What I'm hearing, from friends and complete strangers alike, are comments on my appearance. In today's 5-MINUTE FRIDAY, I'm opening up about how that makes me feel. PROMPT: What is something you're working on that no one knows about? SOCIAL @emilyabbate @hurdlepodcast SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEKLY HURDLE NEWSLETTER! HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK WATCH: Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, Episode 3 with Emmanuel Acho BUY: Under Armour Mid sports bra ($28), Lululemon Energy sports bra ($52), Nike Swoosh sports bra ($30) TRY: Pickup Please Free Donation Pickup DONATE: 1 Million Miles for Justice with Black Girls Run READ: Nicole Cardoza’s Anti-Racism Daily Newsletter ... and lastly, Happy Father's Day! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hurdle/message

Running a business is HARD! It requires a lot of skill sets that aren't always easy to come by. A lot like life! 04:00 Entrepreneurial love  08:54 What I'm not willing to do. (hint: new social platform) 12:00 My mis-take.  16:00 My experience will hopefully help you.  25:00 a lack of clarity will ALWAYS cost you 35:00 A consultants obligation to the client 42:00 We can't know it all, relax.  www.vickibaird.ocm  

Tahnee welcomes Helena Norberg-Hodge to the podcast today. Helena is a pioneer of the New Economics movement and has spent many years studying the driving forces behind why our economies are failing us, and what we can do about it. Helena’s perspectives are informed by a systems based approach and coloured by the many years she spent in Ladakh, part of the larger region of Kashmir, where she watched global capital completely transform entire communities. Today's chat is deeply insightful and informative, for anyone interested in creating a global community where we all thrive Tahnee and Helena discuss: Helena's journey and the time she spent in Ladakh as the catalyst for her path into activism. Food and human centred supply chain. The problem with neoliberal multinational global economics. How small business is threatened by the global economic model. How change needs to occur at both an individual and systemic level. How we can create sustainable systems at the local level by drawing on insights from the global community. Technology as a part of the problem not the solution. Helena's upcoming online event, World Localisation Day.   Who is Helena? Helena Norberg-Hodge is the director and founder of Local Futures, and founder of the International Alliance for Localization. Helena's aim is to renew ecological and social well being by promoting a systemic shift away from economic globalisation towards localisation. Helena is the producer and co-director of the award-winning documentary The Economics of Happiness, and is the author of Ancient Futures: Lessons from Ladakh for a Globalizing World. Since 1975, Elena has worked with the people of Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”, to find ways of enabling their culture to meet the modern world without sacrificing social and ecological values.   Resources:   World Localization Day Event  Local Futures Website Economics Of Happiness FilmAncient Futures Book Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee:   (00:00) Hi, everybody and welcome to The SuperFeast Podcast. Today I'm really excited to have Helena Norberg-Hodge with me. She's the director and founder of Local Futures and the founder of the International Alliance for Localization. She's also hosting and facilitating World Localization Day, which is on June 21 this year.   Tahnee:  (00:18) I'm really excited to be supporting her and getting the word out and to be attending ourselves. We're really, just super excited and interested to learn more about this work because living where we do and doing the work we do, we feel like it's really important in this kind of global landscape to start also talking about what's happening locally and how we can ... You know, we're all living through the time of Corona and now the riots and movements with Black Lives Matter around Australia and the world and we're seeing governments just really behaving really ignorantly and persuing models that are really out of date and outmoded and I think the work that Helena is doing is just so important in this time. Really excited to have her here.   Tahnee:  (00:56) She's also had this really amazing kind of cultural life living in Tibet in Ladakh and she also has made films and written a beautiful book Ancient Futures: Lessons From Ladakh is the book and also the name of the film if I'm right. Is that correct, Helena?   Helena: (01:12) This is the name of the film too so we have a book and a film and then The Economics Of Happiness [crosstalk 00:01:16].   Tahnee:  (01:17) Yeah, which is the one Mason and I have seen, which is really amazing. You also won kind of the alternative Nobel Prize, which is pretty rad. Is that for your work in that region?   Helena:   (01:27) Yeah. That was for the work in Ladakh.   Tahnee:  (01:29) Okay. Pretty impressive resume. Every time I've mentioned your name people are like, "Oh my gosh." You seem to have this incredible reputation, especially around this area and I'm sure globally as well. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to be interested in localisation and what that means for us in this age of globalisation?   Helena:   (01:47) Yeah. I had my eyes opened to this in 1975 when I arrived in this part of Tibet but belongs politically to India. It's called Ladakh and I was going as part of a film team, I was a linguist at that time living in Paris and I love nature, really love nature, but I wasn't an activist. I wasn't aware at all of these issues to do with the economy and local versus global.   Helena:   (02:14) I came in contact with the people who had never been pulled into this global economic system because they hadn't been colonised. Even the missionaries who had come earlier had not been able to destroy their culture. They still had their own Buddhist culture that went back for thousands of years.   Helena:   (02:35) They had a way of life that in many ways was a paradise. It was a Shangri La. Almost every person who came in the early days said that, they said, "Oh my God. What a paradise. What a pity it has to be destroyed" and I, having picked up a bit of the language, because, as I said, I was a linguist and I had [inaudible 00:02:58] part of a film team that in helping to make the film and picking up some of the language I then decided to stay on. I was just in love with the people.   Helena:   (03:08) I realised that if they heard these foreigners saying, "It's a paradise. What a pity it has to be destroyed" they would be absolutely perplexed and amazed because from their point of view, they were getting the impression that in the West we just had everything that they had, plenty of time, community, connection to nature, every mother having 10 live in caretakers for every baby, no one in debt, no one having to pay rent or mortgages, unbelievable leisurely time frame. There just wasn't the time pressures that we have.   Helena:  (03:49) All of that they assumed that we had and on top of that we had all of this amazing money and we were flying in aeroplanes and they were being told that if they just would hurry up and get their children educated, get them to school, then they'd be able to go into the city and get a modern job and have everything that we have.   Helena:  (04:12) I witnessed over the next sort of decade how this process of global economic growth and the global economic system transformed their total way of life. I witnessed how people were being pulled into the city to get that job, almost overnight, led to friction between groups that had lived side by side for 500 years. There had never been group conflict.   Helena:  (04:42) After 10 years of huge tensions, after 14 years they were literally killing each other. By that time, this was in 1989, I had also been doing some work in Bhutan, [inaudible 00:04:56] work in Bhutan and I witnessed almost exactly the same process there. It was a very similar situation. They also had a Buddhist kingdom that had been cut off from the outside world. Both Ladakh and Bhutan had been protected by the Himayalas.   Helena:  (05:12) They were just so remote. They had been seared off for political reasons and both of them thrown open roughly the same time and in the same time period that led to this terrible bloodshed. In Ladakh, it was mainly between Muslims and Buddhists, and Bhutan between Hindus and Buddhists.   Helena:  (05:31) In the meanwhile, as I started speaking about this problem with the economic model and giving talks around the world. There had been lots of information from all over the world substantiating what I was saying and when I wrote a book later Ancient Futures that was translated into almost 50 languages and I would get from all over the world people telling me this story you tell of Ladakh is our story too.   Helena:  (06:01) I think I am telling a really important story and I feel supported and substantiated by all these people, almost 50 language groups, telling me this wasn't just a rare exception.   Helena:  (06:16) Really what that's led to is having to examine this economic system holistically, understanding how it has actually come to shape, everything we do virtually. It really has been shaping our thinking, our view of history, relationships to one another, our relationships to nature and in a fundamentally destructive way.   Helena:  (06:43) You'll hear a lot of critique of the neoliberal economy and so many people on the left in the Westernised world are very critical of what happened in more recent years, since the '80s basically with Margaret Thatcher and so on but when you come from [inaudible 00:07:05] we're coming from a deeper, I would say, spiritual awareness of the interconnections between human beings and the rest of life and this absolute conviction that intergenerational community is essential for our wellbeing. That's particularly for children.   Helena:  (07:26) What I saw in Ladakh was this tradition. Just this amazing, just unbelievably beautiful relationship between the wee little one year old and the great-great-grandfather ... You know, they'd be walking hand and hand, both of them barely able to walk, both of them [inaudible 00:07:44] speak clearly. They're both toothless. They're both hairless. They were sort of made for each other.   Helena:  (07:52) It was something that was so beautiful. I guess the thing that has made my work sometimes very difficult and lonely is that most of the people I've known intimately, personally, who have experienced something like this are by now dead and it does worry me a lot that a lot of people now would say go to many parts of the world they think they're experiencing tradition in rural remote communities.   Helena:  (08:23) But what I'm fearing is that in almost every place now, either colonialism, missionaries from long time ago or more recent, what I see is this mental pollution coming in through television and tourism as well, has so changed people and that means that people often find, very often, what they feel is a traditional village would actually be a few old people because all of the young people have had to go to the city. There would be, obviously, a lot of dissatisfaction and unhappiness as rural people are left behind and everything about rural life has essentially been marginalised.   Helena:  (09:06) That's been going on from the very inception of this modern economy. Yeah. There's just so, so much to say about it but it became very, very clear that ... Literally, I could probably list hundreds of reasons why the lesson from Ladakh was we must do everything we can to strengthen community and our deeper connections to nature, and when I say nature I mean also children having the opportunity to relate to animals.   Helena:  (09:39) That's a tricky issue today because people think that we should all become vegan but my experience was that all Indigenous people I know actually did eat animal products and they also had an ongoing caring connection with animals.   Helena:  (09:55) I just loved seeing a five year old boy care for a young baby goat just like I love seeing them carrying their little sister. I realised over the years that nurturing, we are animals and so it means, essentially, domesticated animals because we aren't and shouldn't be doing that with wild animals but that relationship with domesticated animals was so im turn nurturing young men and allowing them to maintain all of their feminine nurturing side. Now in neuroscience too people are recognising ... Actually I'm not sure if it's neuroscience but what we feel that there are some people who realise that this would effect the hormones of young men. It's actually really fundamentally important.   Helena:  (10:43) I came to realise that this deep connection to nature, this being embedded in nature, being much more deeply interdependent with particularly intergenerational community, was the foundation for the most remarkable joy and lightness of being.   Helena:  (11:03) I experienced people who were just so deeply relaxed in who they were. Part of this whole framework where you as a young person were involved in the nurturing yourself, you were also in the framework where you were deeply nurtured and where you felt eyes around you where a multitude of older people were there for you. They saw you, they heard you, they knew your name, they deeply recognised you as a unique individual.   Helena:  (11:38) The paradox is I discovered that when you had this really stable and secure community fabric, people are actually free to be genuinely an individual and we had all this hype about individualism in the modern world but I see a lot of young people petrified of in any way imperfect, petrified to live up to a standard image and to look important, and look busy, and to always send that message, "I'm fine. I'm okay" and not able to express their vulnerability, their imperfection.   Helena:  (12:22) To me, this has multiple levels but what happens when your role models are very intimately connected to you, you never think anybody is perfect because nothing in life is perfect. This is also why I remember asking mothers if they worried if their child didn't walk at age one they really absolutely couldn't understand my question. It took quite a while for me then to think why, because I spoke the language fluently but it took like half an hour before we figured out that they simply could not comprehend how anyone could worry about a child not walking exactly on some schedule. They were just laughing when I explained how in the West people would start worrying if the child didn't walk by age one. Their whole attitude was, "Of course, the child will walk at some point."   Helena:  (13:20) This was sort of the incredible wealth of this deep connected way of being and I realised fairly early on that it was actually ultimately economic pressures that were destroying this and tearing people apart and as they were pushed into the city then there's no space for the grandparents and they weren't needed anymore because now you were suddenly dependent on huge institutions far away and it was all about doing this job and it was a job that turned you into a very narrow little entity in a big system.   Helena:  (13:57) You were no longer someone who knew how to ... Already as a child you knew how to look after a baby. It wasn't something you had to read a book about [inaudible 00:14:08] have a baby yourself. You knew how to build a house, you knew how to look after animals, you knew how to grow food. Everyone knew how to sing and dance and make music. You were a much broader, wider and more developed human being.   Helena:  (14:26) What I saw was this narrowing as people went into the city and very rapidly this fear that, "Okay, I'm earning X amount of money now but every day the prices are changing." I saw structurally how this urbanising economic path where literally global markets and global institutions were behind it all, led to fear and, of course, as I said, the rise [inaudible 00:14:56] local people but also this fear that I'm never going to have enough money to feel secure so it led to this greed and hoarding and... Yeah. People changed dramatically.   Helena:  (15:09) All of this showed me so clearly, first of all, that human beings are not by nature innately greedy or aggressive. I'm battling now huge vested interests that are systematically putting out ideas that eradicate this knowledge that I'm talking about and it's very insidious and it's what children are taught now at universities, what we're taught through the media. It's just really very, very frightening to see how it's [crosstalk 00:15:45].   Tahnee:  (15:45) Are you talking about how they're controlling the messaging and the types of subjects studied and the ways in which things are taught? You know, that we gaze in a certain direction and don't look in the other direction. Is that kind of what you're getting at?   Helena:  (15:58) Yeah, but actually even more overtly than that, you know, there are books that reach everybody but in more recent years someone named Steven Pinker and these books get out really widely and his message is basically, "Don't worry about violence because in the past we were so much more violent" and the message that is being put out is subtly that economic growth through technology makes life better and better and better.   Helena:  (16:31) It's a package deal, an idea of progress and people very vulnerable to the idea that life has always got better through growth and technology and that's further back in the past we go the worst things were, it means that a book like mine that right now is in the schools in South Korea, for instance, wouldn't be in the schools in America. It's particularly in the English speaking world that corporate influence has been even stronger than some other cultures.   Tahnee:  (17:06) Who's paying for these media outlets. You look at the technological kind of industries, they're massive contributors to political and media campaigns.   Helena:  (17:15) I've spoken to a lot of those people who are continuing to promote this worldview and they really ... Most of the ones that I've known and I've had some in my family and most recently just last year I was meeting with Nobel Prize-winning economists, one of them is somebody named Joseph Stiglitz, who was the head of the World Bank, and he's a double Nobel Prize-winning and he's been a critic of globalisation, which I have been also actively involved in raising awareness about how the global economic system we have from the very beginning was very destructive but then in that neoliberal era in the last 30 years, 35 years, policies were brought in that were even more overtly supporting giant corporations, reducing any space for genuine democracy, corporate media, corporate-run medicine, corporate influence in education.   Helena:  (18:19) That process has been accelerating in the last 30 years, which is also the period in which most people recognise now that whether it's loss of biodiversity, extinction species, the terrible crisis of climate, the gap between rich and poor, which in every country has escalated absolutely obscenely and that's been true in every country I know of, including Sweden, my native country.   Helena:  (18:53) These trends have got worse. In some countries, it's much worse than in others and, particularly, with Black Lives Matter, the issue of black lives in a country like Sweden has not yet been an issue but I have seen ... I shouldn't say it hasn't been an issue but I have seen fear, racism, xenophobia increase there too because these policies that have led to a few people getting super rich and the majority of people struggling, and that's even the middle classes, has led to increased fear and prejudice everywhere.   Helena:  (19:37) I just so hope that people will be willing to focus more on this economic system and come together to look at how we can, all around the world, in every country, we need to be strengthening community and local economies.   Helena:  (19:55) You know, what that does is to actually ... It rebuilds those relationships that I talked about in Ladakh. It doesn't do it in, overnight. It doesn't do it in a complete and amazing way as they had it but I actually see a way that we in the modern world could have some greater comfort, some more communication and transportation without destroying ourselves or the earth.   Helena:  (20:28) There is a way forward that I'm really, really excited by and I'm excited by it because I also see it starting to happen. It's a many, many small initiatives and it's particularly evident in places like Byron Bay, where we are now, but many hubs around the world that actually starting to rebuild their community fabric, more human scaling businesses and interconnections, and definitely much, much greater attention to the impact this has on the earth, on nature, and its impact on climate.   Tahnee:  (21:09) Most definitely, yeah, in this time when we're talking so much about climate change and we look at the economic kind of models, which are all around foreign trade and they're not even supplying domestic ... I remember being appalled when I was a teenager watching it, must have been Four Corners or something and they were destroying the entire orange crop because they couldn't sell them in Australia because they were getting dollar a kilo oranges from California and they couldn't sell them overseas because they wouldn't travel or they weren't set up for that so they were just literally tipping them into a paddock to rot. I was just like, "That's insane. How can that be a system?"   Helena:  (21:46) [inaudible 00:21:46].   Tahnee:  (21:46) Not uncommon. It's like really common.   Helena:  (21:49) Yeah and yet ... I don't know. I just don't understand, think about this. I do think Covid has definitely helped. You know, when people started realising we can't even make our own gowns and masks what's going on? They realised how fragile the supply chains are. I do think Covid in that way is creating a major rethink.   Helena:  (22:12) I also saw many countries how this unjust system meant that people of colour were much, much worse off in a pandemic, and as they're still seeing in places like America.   Helena:  (22:28) It has led to quite a wake up that also included ... We have such a big network and are connected with people on every continent and it's just been so heartening to hear about the number of people who started growing some food and planting things from seed and really enjoying slowing down a bit.   Helena:  (22:51) I think I'm so, so hoping now that this will really spark an interest in what I call the big picture understanding, the bigger picture so that instead of just treating isolated symptoms ... Like if we just look at climate change in isolation and we don't understand its links to this global economic system and we don't understand either that the media has been so dominated by big business, it's not just Murdoch, it's virtually everything you hear in the mainstream, hasn't been telling people that the reason those oranges were just rotting on the ground and why we have everywhere, every year, the most unbelievable waste in food is because we've allowed global corporations to run our food system and they're running our government as well.   Helena:  (23:52) I think looking at the food system is one of the best ways to understand why we really must move towards a more local path instead of continuing to globalise.   Helena:  (24:04) Once you start seeing that picture, you start seeing that not only do you have, as we said, in one year when these crops just rot but every single year, every minute, virtually as we speak now, food is being imported and exported across the world. Literally the same product so that Australia will import wheat from Europe and exporting wheat to Europe and importing those oranges from California and just destroying the local oranges.   Helena:  (24:41) Right now they're importing 20 tonnes of bottled water I think from the UK and they're exporting 20 tones of bottled water to the UK. Scallops are flown from Tassie to China to be peeled and flown back again. Fish flown all the way from China to America to China to be treated.   Helena:  (25:03) This is going on while we talk about climate change but the official description of climate change and it's sort of cure has all been focused on the individual. The individuals have this finger pointed at them saying, "What is wrong with you? We have told you about climate change and you haven't changed anything. You're still driving your car, you still want to go on holiday on aeroplanes ."   Helena:  (25:30) It's led to a sort of conclusion that human beings are just innately greedy and another very popular mantra right now is people never learn from information. We've got to do it differently, we've got to do storytelling, we've got to do something else.   Helena:  (25:47) People didn't get information about the easiest, simplest way to reduce emissions and that would be that we eat our own oranges here and California eats their own oranges [crosstalk 00:26:00].   Tahnee:  (26:00) Start there. Shuck your own scallops.   Helena:  (26:04) You know, I can send you right now just most recently, a perfect bit of propaganda to, hopefully, explain to people how we really got to ... We have to wake up to the truth of the type of conspiracy, that is a very different type of conspiracy from what most people think. I see it as a structural conspiracy where tragically allowing business to become bigger and bigger and bigger and more global, allowing global traders to have so much power over different countries and allowing basically a system that started with slavery to continue to go in the same direction for several generations. That is the disaster that lies behind climate change, behind poverty, behind epidemics of depression, behind almost every serious crisis we face.   Helena:  (27:02) We don't need to go back to living as some ancient traditional culture. Partly, with localisation, we understand in any case we need to adapt more to different ecosystems, different cultures so we're talking about diversity, we're talking about local people having much more power over their own lives but also closely intune with the real economy, which is the living earth, the real economy. There's nothing we depend on, nothing that doesn't come from the earth.   Helena:  (27:39) Of course, we've allowed this structural conspiracy to escalate where business has been allowed and not just allowed [crosstalk 00:27:47].   Tahnee:  (27:47) It's been encouraged.   Helena:  (27:48) Yeah. Encouraged through blind adherence to an economic, really, a myth, which started early on in the modern economy, something called comparative advantage and saying, "Oh, no. Don't say self-reliant." Self-reliance has been described as hardship, has been called subsistence and that's why the truth about cultures like Ladakh and Bhutan are so important in terms of re-examining these assumptions.   Helena:  (28:19) We've all been brainwashed. I certainly had and I was in Ladakh for years before I even recognised what I was seeing. I was there for years and I was still thinking, "Well, it is a very hard life" because they were carrying things on their back. In retrospect, I now realise that there are some exceptions, I would definitely choose a future with some glass in windows but it was just ... The more we learn about our bodies, the more we learn to use our bodies and use the muscles we've been born with, not only to be healthy but to be happier ... You know, again, neuroscience showing all this.   Helena:  (29:02) The picture that I am painting is really one that I think so many people would agree with but the big difficulty is reaching them because instead ... I started telling you about the propaganda that just now has come out is a short film from the Financial Times where they start off ... It's so cleverly done because what they do these days, they show these images of these huge ships going back and forth and they talk about how all these emissions of food being transported around the world really looks like it's very damaging for the climate.   Helena:  (29:43) But then in this supposedly reasonable way lead you in and the conclusion is, "No, no, no. Those emissions are really not that important. If you care about the people in Kenya, you should be buying their flowers in winter."   Helena:  (29:59) Now no one is there telling people that in Kenya they're using the best, most fertile land to grow flowers to be flown to Europe, and while people are going hungry there. I actually believe in the structural conspiracy that the people who produce these things are not even aware of the truth. They haven't been there or if they have, they might have met some business people in Kenya who were making money out of selling those flowers.   Tahnee:  (30:28) I was thinking about that because I think so many people often ... You know, they play at that whole social justice kind of like, "Help them have what you have" kind of a thing, which, naively, sounds really beautiful I think, yes, it's a really nice emotional piece for people. I think the creators often aren't aware of how the actual economics of what's going on happens ... Yeah. They just don't appreciate ...   Tahnee:  (30:55) Even with aid, I remember studying with a group of women that was about problems of aid and this idea of coming in and giving money and it's like that's not really the solution. It's more about who is the best taro grower? Get them to teach other people how to grow taro. That's a better solution for aid. You know? Or how to make the soil better or how to build a better hut.   Tahnee:  (31:16) This is where we come in with our expectations and our cultural kind of indoctrination and you said that as well, like when you're in Ladakh it's like you have to learn to see differently when you enter these places. It takes time and it takes humility and the ability to drop your ego and be in a space of learning I think.   Helena:  (31:34) Yeah. I also think, for me, what's scary about it is that because in so many places now people really have become impoverished and they really aren't very happy so there's been a fragmentation of the family and very often the young people have left so then it becomes really easy to think, "These poor people. How can we help them?"   Helena:  (31:57) I've also seen that in the most remote areas like up on the Tibetan plateau, the most remote traditional nomads are almost the worst affected. They have developed this idea that they are the most impoverished, backward primitive people in the worst sense of the world and they just beg you to give them money to send their child to school. They think that's their responsibility, that's the future, living out on the land is backward, primitive and their children are being left behind.   Helena:  (32:31) This is something that most Westerners are not aware of that so when they go and those people themselves say the first thing you can do to help us out is build a school or give us money to send children to school because very few people are looking at the bigger picture and they're not seeing that these children that are being sent to school are then now in the thousands of applying for one job. You know, sometimes having gone through university, applying for jobs as cleaners and those people that are helping with the school they don't realise that the end result is there's now suicide among young people, one a month in a place where it would happen maybe one in a generation before.   Helena:  (33:13) It's all about seeing the connections and also Tahnee... You know, one thing that's scary is that the next iteration of this whole issue of aid became with the help of the World Bank, microcredit and so then people in the West were told, "You're all wrong with aid. That was very patronising. You came in there and you just dumped money and created dependence."   Helena:  (33:41) Then they came up with the idea of microcredit, which was suddenly marketed as this way of not creating dependence but actually coming in with a loan creates much more dependence [crosstalk 00:33:53].   Tahnee:  (33:52) Repaying them and interest and ... Yeah.   Helena:  (33:55) They were pulling people into debt who have never been in debt before.   Tahnee:  (33:59) They become customers of the bank, don't they?   Helena:  (34:01) Yeah.   Tahnee:  (34:01) If everyone is a customer then we all ... Well, not we profit but they profit.   Helena:  (34:06) Yeah. Now what's difficult is to say, "You shouldn't go in" and maybe give a microcredit loan... It's not that simple. You know? Each context has to be scrutinised much more carefully but I think once people could get a much better understanding of the bigger picture, as I say, understanding those connections between what's happening in this global economic system, understand how almost everything we do now, we've got to be examining it carefully that we're not ending up reinforcing a systemic support for even more globalised, even more commercialised ways forward.   Helena:  (34:50) Right now one of the biggest threats, as I said, is leaping into of a new robot culture where robots are being romanticised, they're being pushed by the FAO so the UN, again, has so many good people in it but as an organisation the UN is, essentially, appointees from these governments and most governments are shaping their policies around what big business is demanding.   Helena:  (35:20) This is just sort of structural conspiracy that we need to understand better to understand that even something like regenerative agriculture, we need to be looking really carefully at systemically what is happening on the ground when people use that word, because it's actually being massaged into a way of only talking about soil, only carbon, not about diversity, not about shortening distances, and once we really get the bigger picture we should be encouraging wherever possible diversification on the land, shortening the distance to the market, and trying to create a generally circular economy, not a corporate circular economy, which they are now pushing where they say, "Oh, yeah. We're recycling all our waste and we're making this wonderful product out of plastic and now we're melting it again" and it's all toxic stuff. Usually making things we don't need.   Helena:  (36:22) We need to be looking really carefully at what are the real needs and I just want to say that the best way to understand global/local is to look at food and the food system. It's the best way to understand and it's the best and most important area to focus on.   Helena:  (36:42) Also, what you're doing with health in terms of the mushrooms or the herbs or the plants that can genuinely restore health through the natural methods. It has to do with our relationships to the land and it has to do with much more human scale chains of connection.   Helena:  (37:02) Once we start going via this global corporate systems, even when there are really good people involved, it cannot support diversity, it cannot support real empowerment of people, it cannot support the community fabric so there's a structural reason why we must go slower, smaller, more local. That all goes together.   Tahnee:  (37:29) I just wanted to ... Having a business that's a conversation we have all the time is we've had offers from people to invest in all of these things and we think, for us, to keep it to this point where we can control the ethics of the company and how we do business is so important.   Tahnee:  (37:45) I can feel ... Like Mason studied business and what you're talking about, he learned how to be polite in a meeting with a Chinese buyer and all this weird stuff that had no application to running a small family business, like what we do.   Tahnee:  (37:58) It's just for so many people that's almost ... I don't know. It's seen as you're not reaching your full potential, you're not going to what's possible and it's like we constantly have to say, "No, we don't want more. We want to do better at what we're doing. We want to slow down. We want to make sure that we still do know the people we buy herbs off." You know?   Tahnee:  (38:15) It has to be this constant effort and checking in and I think when you look at a corporation there's no space for that. It's not built into the system. It's just about the bottom line and the profit and the meeting with the board. Yeah. It's like a whole redesign I think.   Tahnee:  (38:30) Even when you look at how politics is ... Everyone is like, "What's the budget doing? What's the economy doing?" What about the people? How is our culture? How are the children going? I feel like we're just having conversations all the time.   Helena:  (38:45) I think it's really good also to have this conversation to recognise how pressured we are by the culture and how here you've done really quite well and yet if you don't keep growing it's like you're a failure and when is enough enough? What is that level of balance and sort of keeping a generally sustainable balance where you know that you're doing well enough, especially where you have enough awareness to know exactly how they're being grown and that that's happening in truly ecological and ethical way and all the way across to the consumer and being aware and also aware enough to realise that doing podcasts, as you're doing, I think is one of the most important things you can do because you're swimming in a sea of enormous pressures to get bigger or die.   Helena:  (39:39) It's just like the individual. Like I said, when you get into this system where you're suddenly caught up in this anonymous system where how much you earn is never going to be enough unless every day the prices are going up. Once we start creating more localised systems we start changing that a bit but the reason why I'm glad you're doing podcasts is I hope it will help to get out enough awareness so that we start also pressuring for policy change.   Helena:  (40:10) When I say pressuring for policy change, I really believe that the combination of the activists that started XR and they've started Occupy could come together in a really powerful movement to, essentially, take the economy back, to now make it very clear to political leaders, we know the game, we know the exact point that we need to look at and that is your commitment to global trade and you're subsidising, you're taxing, and you are regulating in a way that is destroying the smaller and also Tahnee you should keep in mind that literally every business that operates within a national arena is being squeezed for taxes, being regulated, and in the meanwhile the giant global monopolies that do not pay tax [crosstalk 00:41:03].   Tahnee:  (41:03) Right. [crosstalk 00:41:04].   Helena:  (41:05) [crosstalk 00:41:05] subsidised and deregulated.   Tahnee:  (41:06) We were talking about this today because, for us, to like register a herb with the TGA or something it's thousands of dollars and it's a giant headache. Then you look at some of these medical companies with vaccines and they get rushed through, no testing. You know? You're just like, "Hang on a second. How is it that a herb is more dangerous than an injected drug?"   Helena:  (41:28) And, you know, the actual truth is also that these multinationals have been working to pressure governments to bring in those regulations because that would destroy their smaller companies. They've been pressuring governments to make it illegal even for farmers to sell food from heirloom seeds.   Tahnee:  (41:48) Yeah. I remember learning about that at university with Monsanto through India and they were getting them sucked into that loop of the seeds that don't reproduce that were genetically sterile and then they're having to buy them or the World Bank is giving them loans so that they can buy the seeds and then they end up in debt and it's just this cycle, which is completely evil. There's no other way to look at it.   Tahnee:  (42:11) Yeah. They were fining the seed savers. They were women storing the seeds and they were getting fined because they were keeping fertile seed that could reproduce.   Helena:  (42:20) It is an evil system and yet I see a lot of good people supporting it and that's why I also feel in a way positive in a sense that I really believe that we're in such a mess and on so many levels because of the blindness to how this system works.   Helena:  (42:40) What I'm finding is that I go higher up the ladder and talk to these Nobel Prize-winning economists or to ministers and so on, I'm seeing the higher you are up the power ladder, they're more blind. They're running even faster and they're relating to the whole world just through numbers. They don't see the people, they don't see the soil, they don't see the earth worms.   Helena:  (43:02) They cannot understand diversity. Diversity is inefficient. Monoculture has to be the way in those laws, and monoculture is deadly. It's deadly. It's destroying the soil.   Helena:  (43:16) On the other hand, not only do I feel optimistic because I see this blindness but that is related to what I see, which is that most people are looking for love and connection. Most people if they're helped to be guided to once again communicate in a more real, vulnerable way with other human beings and they start actually connecting at a deep level and do that in communities as they do in alcoholics anonymous and now in many emerging therapies where the combination of deep connection to others and to nature, to the animals, to the plants, that heals people and it's been proven all around the world and yet it's a micro-trend because the dominant system pushes psychologists and therapists and counsellors in exactly the opposite direction. You know, give them a quick drug, put them in prison, you know if they're not behaving well.   Tahnee:  (44:15) And they make money out of them when they are in   Helena:  (44:19) They make money out of it.   Tahnee:  (44:20) I mean, that's another [crosstalk 00:44:26].   Helena:  (44:26) [inaudible 00:44:26] globally I suppose maybe why I feel more optimistic than many of my colleagues or friends my age because I just see despite this huge pressure and all the money pressures, the regulations, the battle and so on, I just see so many amazing initiatives and amazing people.   Helena:  (44:46) Almost every day I will hear about positive trends that demonstrate that this is not about human nature, human beings despite this enormous pressure are actually managing to create alternatives and a whole movement that, the best word that I can come up with is localising, is just demonstrating and start getting this circle of positive change happening.   Helena:  (45:11) We are also now at the point where we desperately need more people to wake up to that and to actually start doing it, supporting the local food systems, supporting the local pub, and also put a bit of effort into what I call big picture activism. You know, helping to get the word out so that we can ... When I say get the word out, I'm talking about the fact that I have been involved I alternative things from the time of Ladakh, 45 years ago.   Helena:  (45:41) You know, I taught at the University of Berkeley and that's where we set our office for our institute and I was involved in place like Bolder in America and in Totnes this in England and in France and Germany so more alternative places and alternative when you analyse it means this coming back to nature and to community. It's about human scale, it's about all the fabric of local. I had never heard of Byron Bay. Never heard of it. Just like most people in Bryon Bay have never heard about all those other places.   Tahnee:  (46:15) Yeah.   Helena:  (46:16) Even in Japan, I know key places where you start getting life coming back to life as there is that connection because you can't go at it alone and that's one of the really important messages I want to get out. If you're questioning things, try to do it as part of a group. Try to come together. Support each other in that connection. Be sure you also spend some time rethinking those assumptions.   Helena:  (46:46) We like to lead people with five words, connect, educate, resist, renew, and celebrate, and the first word I see as so fundamental that the system operates by making us feel isolated and on our own and with climate change and pointing the finger and, "You as an individual" [crosstalk 00:47:10].   Tahnee:  (47:10) Social media.   Helena:  (47:12) Terrible. Terrible. It's the anti-social media. It's so frightening. To come together right now in Covid maybe more online but hopefully soon face to face to actually have even just two or three people just change their I to a We. Then the next thing we really want people to do is to be willing to take a deep breath and be willing to think really holistically big picture, is there really a way forward that's going to be now at this ... We're in a lot of trouble. We need to find systemic solutions. We can't continue to just treat every single issue separately. We need to come to the root causes so that this is what we have ...   Helena:  (48:02) You know, we have materials and so on that then lead us to say there is a way forward that is healing for you as an individual, for you as a family and for the entire planet but it does require rethinking some basic assumptions that you may not realise you're actually subscribing to ideas that support the dominant system.   Helena:  (48:26) As part of that rethinking we really want to encourage people to be willing to also say no and yes. Not fall into this also very well massaged mantra spreading out, telling people, "Only focus on the positive. Don't want any negativity." We believe that negative thinking about ourselves and negativity in our internal environment, being angry and obviously depressed has a very negative effect on our health and it sort of breeds negativity.   Helena:  (48:59) But being willing to say no to nuclear power, to this mad economic system, being willing to say no to a new development that's clearly destructive, that in no way has to affect us negatively. This thing about thinking and creating the world we want to see through thinking is much more to do with our inner world. [inaudible 00:49:25] maintaining that positive, calm and loving attitude is vital and we can be very loving as we still say no to developments that we know are harming life, are harming the community. This resistance and renewal is important that we be aware that we need both.   Helena:  (49:47) I personally am completely devoted to non-violence. I'm really devoted also to try and not even feel anger. I know that when I feel angry at something or somebody I'm harming myself. Even as we talk about this horribly unjust system and evil system I still try to maintain a positive climate inside my body and in my soul.   Tahnee:  (50:12) It's funny, though, also, to interrupt but I was just ... Even in our business in the last three years it's grown so quickly and I can really empathise how when you get to the top of an institution, how you can lose sight of what's happening. We went from having three staff to 20 staff in three years. There was a time there where I was so overwhelmed that I didn't know what was happening. I can honestly say I wouldn't have ... I'm really lucky we have such great people in our team but it's really easy for things to get out of control and to feel that pressure from the vested interests.   Tahnee:  (50:45) I feel like there's this deep empathy in me for ... Even Bill Gates. I've had people writing to me saying, "Oh my God. He's the devil incarnate" and I'm like, "I can empathise that he thinks technology is the solution." I don't agree but that's what he's been raised in and that's what he believes and to change his mind is incredibly difficult.   Helena:  (51:04) I'm so thrilled that you said that because I do see a pattern where people assume that everyone at the top is completely conscious of what they're doing and they are evil incarnate. I just don't see that. That's also what gives me hope. I mean, I'm not very hopeful at all that we're going to change Bill Gates but enough people will wake up and say, "That is enough." We need the numbers. It's about the numbers.   Helena:  (51:32) In a way, we're being really stupid if we allow a few men with essentially no real wealth because the money that they're accumulating has no inherent value. If it were gold coins at least they could melt it [crosstalk 00:51:50].   Tahnee:  (51:52) And do something with it. Alchemise it into something.   Helena:  (51:53) Yeah. Even then, a huge pot of gold coins. It wouldn't get them very far. [inaudible 00:51:59] truly make [inaudible 00:52:02] escalating with the deregulation of global economic activity but we really I think have a responsibility and the opportunity to try to get this picture out. It just doesn't have ...   Helena:  (52:17) I find when people assume that all these people in power are evil and then they're obviously then assuming if we put good people in, everything will be fine. Well, no, it wouldn't because the structures are incapable of respecting diversity, incapable of actually doing what we need to do.   Tahnee:  (52:37) I think about that with politics all the time. People go in with really good intentions and they get spat out again because the system does not want that. It doesn't foster those kind of ethics.   Helena:  (52:47) See, that's again ... I also do think ... I hope you'll think about it this way because, for me, that's why I've been begging friends not to go into politics because I keep telling them as an individual, you just won't be able to do anything. The key about politics is that we at the grass roots should be much clearer about the policies we want, we're economically illiterate. It's not only economic illiteracy so certainly the number of people, especially women I talk to when I talk about the economy their eyes just glaze over and they're just not interested.   Helena:  (53:25) I'm beginning to think it's partly because they just assume, "Well, this is far too big. Can't change it." They've been brainwashed into believing that it's this almost evolutionary process that's just inevitable so no point thinking about it or a lot of people also think, "I never will be able to get my head around it" and a lot of women say to me, "Helena, will you just shut up? I'm not interested."   Tahnee:  (53:48) Men's business.   Helena:  (53:49) Yeah. Now, I mean, it's also ... Yeah. I've heard a lot of people saying that for instance... Yeah. Trade treaties and the global economy and no interest to me. I just sort of want to say to them, "Well, it means you're not interested in whether you're going to have a job or not, you're not interested in the health of your child, you're not interested in democracy. You're not interested [crosstalk 00:54:15]."   Tahnee:  (54:15) Yeah. Where your food is coming from.   Helena:  (54:16) Yeah.   Tahnee:  (54:17) In terms of what the World Localization Day Summit because that's happening June 21, you have so many people coming on, some massive names. You've got Russell Brand and Satish Kumar, I loved his book, and Jane Goodall and Amanda Shaver and yourself, of course, Charles Eisenstein. You've been endorsed by the Dalai Lama, which is about as good as it gets.   Helena:  (54:40) Noam Chomsky and Zach Bush is on the program.   Tahnee:  (54:42) Yes. Zach and Johann Hari, I loved his work on addiction.   Helena:  (54:45) Yeah.   Tahnee:  (54:46) That was really beautiful. And beautiful Ella who's local to this region.   Helena:  (54:50) Yes.   Tahnee:  (54:51) Joanna Macey. So many good people. That's happening on the 21st at 6 P.M. Is this a series of talks? What can people expect?   Helena:  (55:00) It's a program that is going to be about four hours. We don't expect people to sit through it in one go but we hope that they will want to watch all of it. It will be available so once you sign up and everything then you can look at it again and we hope people will see it as a repository that they hopefully will want to share with other people.   Helena:  (55:21) We will be also later on offering the individual talks and interviews on the website so you can go if you want to hear more from people. It's been pretty much a nightmare having to cut things down and [crosstalk 00:55:35].   Tahnee:  (55:35) Yeah, because this was originally an in-person event or mostly in-person. Yeah. Then Covid happened.   Helena:  (55:41) That's right.   Tahnee:  (55:42) You guys have pivoted to an online space, which is a lot of work.   Helena:  (55:47) And also we're doing a webinar the following evening at 7:30. There will be a webinar with some of the speakers from the program answering questions.   Tahnee:  (55:59) Wonderful. People can sign up World Localization Day dot org. I'll share the links to that in the show notes and share them on our social media. I wanted to just touch on I think just finally what I've really appreciated about your work as I've trawled through it is that you have this really balanced harmony between globalisation and localisation in the sense that you're not telling everyone to isolate in their communities. You're sort of inviting people to share what's working and share ... It's kind of the best of... A human-centred approach I suppose, what you talk about, the best of what we're doing here and you can share this out and make models that work.   Tahnee:  (56:39) It's more of this idea of bringing it back to the humans and this kind of grassroots sharing and connection. Is that right? Am I on the right track with that?   Helena:  (56:46) Yeah. Absolutely.   Tahnee:  (56:48) It's not to shame people for travelling or for engaging with other cultures. The system is what's really causing the issue. Let's go back to people and back to real connection and community.   Helena:  (57:00) Also, that when we think that if we do get into an aeroplane or we do drive our car that we're destroying the planet without knowing that actually whatever we're doing on that individual level is a tiny fraction of why climate change is happening. We just need to look at the bigger picture and then, yes, as individuals we could do more but we need the help of policy change.   Helena:  (57:28) It drives me mad to see this self-blame that's being pushed now where people are actually in many places that train lines have either been shut down or trains have become so expensive ... It's more expensive to travel by train from Devon to London than to get in an aeroplane and fly to the other side of the world, certainly, the other side of Europe. All of that has happened because of policy change that we have not been told about. If we had had the big picture, been more economically literate, there's no way that people would have allowed this insanity of supplying food back and forth across the world. That was obviously the easiest way to reduce emission but instead this narrow focus on you, the individual, this blame on the individual.   Helena:  (58:16) I'm really worried now about young people with Black Lives Matter. We have to be so careful we're not saying to young white people, "This is your fault. You, as a white person, you can't speak anymore and you've done this, you've created this." We really have to try to come together and work absolutely as broadly as we can across all cultures and races across the world to a system that has so been ...   Helena:  (58:43) From the very inception, this system we want to change was racist, it was misogynist, it was based on overt rejection of the feminine and any people of colour. It was literally based on slavery. This is how the whole thing started and slavery today is actually as bad as it was from the very beginning but it gets hidden from us.   Tahnee:  (59:06) Yeah. Just different forms.   Helena:  (59:08) I think there's a huge release that can come if we realise that this self-blame or blaming the other is not going to get us anywhere. You know, even though, we're talking about even at the top we're going to waste our energy blaming Bill Gates or thinking that just putting another person in his place is going to make a difference. it's really about us coming together and we can start at the local level by building just new economies that really reduce our ecological footprint [inaudible 00:59:39] but then also speak out, educate ourselves and educate others.   Tahnee:  (59:46) Such a beautiful place to finish on I think, Helena. Thank you. For everybody, you have to get on this World Localization Day dot org. I will put the link in the show notes and we will share it out everywhere we have people watching so you guys can come along. I'm really grateful for your time. I know how busy you are right now so thank you for sharing your story.   Helena:  (01:00:08) I am grateful to you really.

Dr. Ginger Campbell is the host of Brain Science, a very large neuroscience podcast, and one of the earliest neuroscience podcasts created. In this episode, she discusses the podcast itself, why and how she started it up, as well as what it takes to run a neuroscience podcast. Top three takeaways: If you want to make a scientific podcast, you must understand the workload that comes with it. It takes a lot to generate accurate scientific content for your listeners. When doing a scientific podcast, it is critical to think about your audience. It can be very helpful to try to reach those outside your field, especially in science, as there is a need for this communication. When picking a topic for your podcast, pick something that you are passionate about, and something that you can talk about easily. [0:00] Ladan introduces the episode and the guest, Ginger Campbell [3:30] Campbell explains why she chose neuroscience as the topic for her podcast [6:45] The subject that Campbell is most interested in right now is the intrinsic activity of the brain [10:15] One author suggests that we should do away with the idea of the mind, and focus more on how the brain as an organ interacts with the world around it [12:45] To make a scientific podcast, one must realize that there is a tremendous workload involved. Creating accurate scientific content for a podcast is much different than making a podcast talking about your favorite TV show or sports team. [16:30] Authors enjoy coming onto the podcast for the publicity, as obtaining publicity can be very difficult, and being a guest on a popular podcast can be very beneficial [19:00] When doing a science podcast, you need to deeply think about the audience you are trying to reach. Communicating with those outside your field about what your field does is very beneficial in building a good audience, as there is a need for this type of communication. [22:15] Be careful of goofing off at the beginning of shows and going off on irrelevant tangents early in the episode, or it may prompt some audience members to stop listening [26:00] Campbell started the podcast because she has an interest and a knack for explaining science, the same way she explains medicine to her patients [29:30] Due to the current economic crisis happening, podcasters depending on advertising will likely suffer within the near future [31:00] For those wanting to do a podcast, it is important to pick a subject that you are passionate about. Talk about what you know and what interests you. [34:30] It is easier to make a podcast about neuroscience than about quantum mechanics, because everyone has a brain, whereas quantum mechanics do not affect people’s lives [37:00] Listener feedback is what will really keep you going when it gets tough [39:00] Ladan gives further thoughts on the discussion and discusses the services of Neural Implant Media   TRANSCRIPT (Auto-generated): Welcome to the neural implant podcast where we talk with the people behind the current events and breakthroughs in brain implants and understandable way, helping bring together various fields involved in Euro prosthetics. Here is your host, Latin Yara. Check. Hello everyone, and welcome to the neural implant podcast. Today we have a special guest. It's ginger Campbell of the brain science. Podcast, and I'm really happy to have her on the show. She is an O, G original gangster of the neuroscience podcasting space. She's been doing this since 2006 and the really one of the pioneers of podcasting, she says podcasting started in 2004 so she's not completely. The first person to do this, but that was like 1415 years ago, so you know, we can call it pretty much like that. So really interesting stuff. She's had over 10 million downloads on her show and really an honor to talk to. One of the people that started out Pluralsight is podcasting ginger Campbell. Pleasure to have you on the show. You are the host of the brain science podcast, which is a huge neuroscience podcast, and I'm really excited to have you on. We've actually been talking about this for awhile and do you want to introduce the podcast a little bit? Yeah, thanks. First I want to mention that the name of the podcast is. Brain science podcast is not part of the name anymore. Just in case you happen to be searching in your podcasting app. I think I took the name, I think I took podcasts I will name about five years ago. Actually, I don't remember exactly when I did it. I decided that putting podcasts in your title had become sort of redundant. Back when I started in 2006 it was really common for podcasts to be part of the title, but you know, now it's not so much. So anyway, just plain old brain science, neuroscience for everyone. Now you're making me rethink the name of my podcast. And so basically the idea of the show is to explore how recent discoveries in neuroscience are helping unravel the mystery of how our brains make us human. And my tagline is. The show for everyone who has a brain, because I want to communicate. The show doesn't require a scientific background. However, the listeners are very diverse, ranging from people who haven't gone to college. I've got a house painter and a plumber, and then actual neuroscientists, so that makes for a challenge when I'm creating my show. Interesting. And you said you started back way back in 2006 I think that's pretty much when a podcasting started. How was that? Well, podcasting officially started in 2004 and then it appeared in iTunes in the summer of 2005 which is when many of us early people became aware of it because before that you had to be able to. Code your own RSS feed and stuff like that. So I wasn't that much of a pioneer. And then it took me about a year to figure out what I wanted to make my show about. So, so I think I started about two years in which now that I'm on my 14th year, I guess, represents almost a pioneer. Yeah. I think for those looking back nowadays, they would, they would see very much as to see very little of a distinction. It's like, Oh, when did you, you know, when did you come to America? 1492 or 1512 or something. Like I said that at some point it's kind of like, ah, it's kind of, you know, splitting hairs, but so why did you choose neuroscience. Well because it just happened to be what I was reading at the time that I decided to start a show. I didn't want to show about my job, which I'm a physician, so I wanted to show that was about what I was just interested in, and at the time, neuroscience hadn't been quite become quite so popular, but I would be listening to people say things that weren't quite right because mainstream media. Coverage of science and neuroscience is, you know, pretty bad, and I wanted to share the things I was reading. I figured lots of people weren't going to read the books. I wanted to share the stuff I was learning with others. That was really my motivation and I wanted to make a show that was accurate, that told people what the science really shows. That was my, that was my driver. So you're working as a physician, but not necessarily in the field of neuroscience. It was just kind of an interest of yours then, right? Yeah. I actually came through it through philosophy of mind. I was reading Western philosophy for the first time in my life. I had been through Eastern philosophy, which is actually very mind oriented, but not exactly science oriented. And then I decided to explore Western philosophy. I discovered there's this whole subset of philosophy called philosophy of mind, and that's when I discovered that neuroscience had come a long way since I had last. Got it. Which was like right before I started medical school in 1980 that was in the days of huge glass electrodes and, and so I got really fascinated with neuroscience because like I said, it, it, it's, it helps us understand who we are. Yeah, definitely. And I mean, but that's still pretty interesting. I mean, there was a, to keep something up for 15 years or to, to maintain, you know, as somewhat expensive habits and a very, very time consuming habit of podcasting, you know, really is, is more than just a passing interest. I would have to argue that there was something bigger driving you, like how you were thinking, why you were thinking and the science. So maybe what were your favorites. Episodes or favorite subjects like this philosophy of mine. Specific topics, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Early on, I was really interested in the question of consciousness. That would be a major theme that still carries through on the show. My favorite early episode was one about exercise and the brain. With John Rady, unfortunately, as a horrible sound quality, but, but that was my favorite early episode because that was something people could use. He explained why exercising is good for your brain, and since the people who tend to listen to my show oftentimes care about their brain health, that one was one that had a personal impact for people. So it stands out out for me. Really? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And then of course, learning about brain plasticity. That was something that was new at the beginning of the show. Now it's kind of old hat everybody knows about brain plasticity, but the subject that really, the subject that I'm really fascinated by right now actually has to do with the intrinsic activity of the brain. And this actually might be relevant to your listeners who are interested in neural implants, because I've been reading a couple of books about the idea of the intrinsic activity of the brain. One is called the brain from the inside out by URI Misaki, which is, he's the guy who's very well known as a pioneer in brain rhythms. And I have another one. I can't think of the name of it right the second, I think it's called the spontaneous brain, but they're both on the same idea that we need to start looking at the brain from the inside out. It's intrinsic activity is really a key feature, and the reason why I think this might be relevant to people interested in neural implants is that I think it may explain how something like say the cochlear implant. Is why it's so successful. I don't know if you're aware of this, but when the cochlear implant was first invented, people didn't really think it would work because the amount of information in the signal is very poor relative to normal hearing. And what they found was that people learned to make sense out of what they were hearing from the cochlear implant. You start out making sense, but eventually their brain just kind of decoded it. And so. Bruce hockey's idea is that the brain is going along, making signals, making it, throwing signals out, throwing signals out. And then when we're lippy as a part of life, we associate through the timing of brain rhythms. A spontaneous signal was something else in the world, and we make a match. So if that's really true, then that means our brain can be more flexible for, you know, learning, you know, new ways to interact with the world. For example, a brain machine interface. You know, we could learn to, to generate a different brain pattern, to do a thing, say with the computer. And that seems to be what people are actually experiencing, right? When they're trying to create these interfaces. Are you familiar with what I'm talking about? Yeah. Yeah, I know. I know. Boost hockey has a boost hockey, uh, array the Tetro and everything like this, and, and some of my colleagues have worked with them, but yeah, it's, it's definitely, you know, the amount of plasticity that's in the brain. And you, you might remember this actually, you might've been around like when this was, people were saying like, Oh, there's no, you know, change in the brain. There's no neurons being created after, after childhood. Right. And essentially that everything's kind of set in stone, but you know, that that basically negates all of learning. And, you know, people like kind of, kind of like with the cochlear implant, like, you know, people can learn crazy, crazy stuff like Morse code. I mean, people learn beeps and boops, you know, and, and translate that into, you know, speech almost. And, and like, I think I heard, I was hearing about like, people that are really good at Morse code, like they almost here. Writing or speech in that, you know? So yeah, it's crazy stuff. All this, all this about plasticity and how dynamic the brain actually is. And this other guy that I'm reading, and I'm, I can't pronounce his name, so I'm love to say it, but the name of his book is the spontaneous brain. He actually argues that maybe we should even do away with the idea of the mind and just talk about the world brain problem. That is, how does the brain. Interact with the world. And in, in his book, he, he talks about the empirical evidence. It's very similar to be sockies because they both talk about the evidence that faster rhythms are nested into slower rhythms. And also the fact that when you look at the brain's response to an external signal, it's. Influenced by whatever the brain is already doing. They're not additive. There's an interaction. So I think that idea, the idea of just doing away with the idea of the mind, he calls it a Copernican revolution because he's saying instead of having this, you know, like sort of mind centered view of the world, which gives us this, this, you know, mind body problem, which we can't seem to solve that. If we just shift our viewpoint from. To the interaction between the brain and the world. We can just do away with the whole mind body problem. It's just kind of an interesting thought. Yeah, definitely. I think, I think there definitely is a fallacy that lies there. But I want to talk about the podcast. So, you know, you have written here that you've passed 10 million downloads and are very influential. You've been ranked number one on iTunes and Libsyn, which is a big, you know, podcast, hosting a site. They're also have you as one of the proud, you know, like, Hey, look, who goes with us? You know, look who we have, you know, is one of our customers. But what has been your experience with hosting? One of the biggest. Well, unfortunately, science podcasts are not, you know, the most popular in terms of big numbers. I mean, my numbers are very good for science, but because of the way advertising works, you need really big numbers to, to make money. To give you an example, I don't know if you've heard of the person who does grammar girl. She's. Made a business out of her podcast, a Minoan Fogarty. She actually started as a science podcast and back in 2007 she told me she gave up science podcasting cause it was too much work. And, and that really is a reality. I mean, if you're going to, I know you would like to encourage more people to do science podcasts and so would I. But I think that it is important to be realistic about the work. Load involved. You know, if you make a fan cast about your favorite TV show and you just get together with your buddies and talk about it, you know, every week it's not, I mean, it's time consuming, but it's not the same kind of work as trying to create accurate science content. I think it's a level of challenge that the people that the average podcast or doesn't appreciate. That's funny that there's more money in grammar than there is in science. Yeah. Well, everybody needs grammar, and a lot of people don't think they need science. Yeah. No, it's very helpful actually. So what has been some of your, I don't know, responses or what? What kind of feedback have you gotten over? Geez, almost a decade and a half that you've been doing this, huh? Well, the two most surprising things. One is feedback from students. I never. Expected the feedback from students. I thought of my show as being a show that would be sort of the NPR adult kind of person who, who was curious about about neuroscience, but I have students of all ages, and I actually have one listener. Who is now in his first year of residency, who's been listening to the show as a psychiatry resident who's been listening to the shows for eight years since he was in high school. So that's pretty amazing. And I've had people write to me and say, I'm going to go into neuroscience because of listening to the show, so that. That was a total surprise. I did not expect that. And the other surprising thing is when people with with neurological or mental health challenges write to me and tell me that. That might show helps them to cope with their challenges. I had a listener once who said he was listening to the show with his father who was dying from Alzheimer's, and I recently actually had a patient, sorry, excuse me, habit, a listener, right? Saying that he had recently been diagnosed with early onset dementia, and he was still listening to the show that he felt that was helpful to him. So. It's as a physician, I have to say that the most amazing thing is realizing the show has impacted so many people, so many more people than I'll ever reach as a physician. Yeah, that's pretty amazing stuff. I mean, and that's something I, I, you know, talk about on my show as well. Like, you know, a good scientific paper might get, you know, a hundred views and like five citations or something like this. And that's, you know, you can be proud of that. But with our shows, you can get hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of downloads and that reach, although maybe not as deep and, and like, you know, in the specific subset it breaches, it goes much further. And I think that really. Gives your research and your message much more value as well. Yeah. I don't have any trouble getting guests. Uh, even though I do focus on scientists who write books, I occasionally interview people who are involved in basic science, especially people that are, uh, extremely good at communicating like Seth grant, for example. But the reason that I focus on books is that it gives my listeners a place to go if they want to learn more. The average person doesn't have access to the literature. You know, they don't have access to an academic library. All these, lots of these papers are still behind paywalls. But by talking to somebody who's taken the time to put a bunch of research together in a book, if a person you know, wants to go to the next level, their first choice is just go and read the book and people actually do that. So authors are very happy to come on my show cause they, most of them really do understand that. Yeah. They, they want as much, you know, public publicity as I can get. Cause it really can be hard to sometimes break above the noise. And yeah. I mean there is something special about like having somebody who's worked in the field and you know, potentially. Simplify things and, and, you know, get it from behind the paywall because that's actually, that's the reason I started this show as well, was, you know, trying to get to the research. I was outside of the paywall at the time, but I wanted to learn what everybody was doing and who the big people in the field were. So, uh, I figured I might as well help other people with this as well. So, yeah. That, that's really interesting. You, you're very much into books. You have a different, you have another podcast about books actually as well, right? Yeah, so it's called, it's called books and ideas. It has a pretty small audience because it's not niche enough. You know, in podcasting, it seems to be an advantage to be, to have a niche. And even though books and ideas clearly describes what the show really is, it, it's not quite, I mean, it's really the place I put everything that doesn't fit. So I might talk to a science fiction writer, or I might talk to a scientist. I might talk to, I, I've interviewed. Astronomers physicists, a woman who's written video game novels. So I mean, it's very, very, very diverse, which I enjoy, but makes finding its audience difficult. So it's truly my passion project. Yeah, for sure. That's a, that's interesting. So what do you think, I mean, do you think, uh, the world would be better if there was more podcasts if more people were doing this kind of stuff, or would it be crowded or what's, what's your kind of opinion on science communication? We definitely need more good science podcasts. I mean, many years ago, I actually tried to start a website. It was called, this was back in 2008 I started a website called science pod-casters dot org and I tried to recruit Joe's to come and basically share their. Show notes all in one place so people may be, would find them. And I closed it down in 2010 because the national science foundation started their site, which I think is called. Science three 60 I'm not sure. Anyway, it's a very good clearinghouse for good science podcasts, and there was a way I could compete with that, but I do think that if you're going to do a science podcast, you really do need to think about what is the audience you actually want to reach. If you want your show to be, you know, the inside baseball, you know, really highly technical. Fine, but realize your chances of getting an audience is going to be, you know. You could, it's okay to have a small audience, but you need to know that that's what's going to happen if you want. If your passion is you want people outside your field to understand what your field is about, I think that's really, really valuable, especially these days because science journalism, you know, the newspapers aren't paying for science journalists, the television networks. Obviously aren't paying for good science journalists, so there's a huge need for somebody to go out there and communicate to people what science is really about. To give you an example of another great Lipson podcast that I'm promoting right now, for obvious reasons, is this weekend virology. I mean, if you want to hear a great show, that's really the science of coronavirus. This week in virology, which is a Lipson show and Vincent ranch and Ella used to be a part of my science podcast or.org organization. This week in virology launched in 2008 so it's not a, you know, Hey, let's jump on the bandwagon. You know, I had to get that in there cause I really think this is an important show for people to listen to. I just think that, I think it's really valuable. We need, I'd like to see some good physics shows that, you know, tried to explain things to regular people like me. You know, I guess maybe Sean Carroll does a little on his, but he, his show is, I don't think it's. It's really focused on physics, even though he's a physicist. Yeah, but if you're going to do it, I would the run recommendation if I had anything to do different, I don't know if you're planning to ask me that question. If I was going to do something different, I would want to have a cohost. I mean, you know someone to carry the load so that you know it's not all on you. If you can find a cohost, you'll probably have a better chance of, of lasting and not pod fading. And plus listeners enjoy, you know, hearing the relationship between the cohost. And that's something that, that, that I, I've never had the opportunity to do. Yeah, definitely. I agree. Like I've, I've had, I've also co-hosted some, some other podcasts, you know, with some colleagues, and that does get go much better because you get a different perspective. I mean, obviously, you know, the questions that you ask, you know your way of thinking, but then the cohost might ask a question and that's just like, Oh wow. That is actually very interesting. I'm very curious what the answer is. I think that's a very good piece of advice. But beware of the excess chitter chatter. I can't tell you how many podcasts I have turned off at the beginning because everybody's talking about. You know, it doesn't matter what TV show they watched or whatever. Most of us can't pull that off. I mean, if you're like a celebrity, maybe somebody wants to know what you did last night, but otherwise they probably don't and they're probably going to turn off your show before you even get to your interview. If you make it a habit. Of doing too much goofing around at the beginning. And that's, that's just my opinion. But I've heard other podcast listeners say the same thing when talking about what shows they turn off. Most of us aren't as funny as we think we are and know, get to the point. For sure. I completely agree. It has to be substantive. So, okay, so what's, what's your plans with the future of brain science and what kind of goals are you hoping to accomplish with it? Well, you know, this year it's hard to know what's going to happen. I was really hoping to take the show to another level this year. I actually experimented with going back to twice a month, which I, um, did the first two years of the show. But I've decided to go back to once a month, which has worked well for over 10 years. I'm trying, I was planning to release the second edition of my book. Are you sure? The unconscious. Origins of certainty next week, but that's been held up just in the layout. Um, stage, just because of uncertainties with, with the pen dynamic, and I'm not sure how people are going to get books. Amazon's society books are very low priority. If you order a book right now from Amazon, it'll come whenever. So it's probably not a re the best possible time to be releasing a book. And I really want to write that book. Are you sure is really just based on several older episodes of the show. And what I really want to do is to write a truly original book because I mean, I got almost 15 years worth of material. I got lots of material. I want to write an original book, mainly because let's face it, there's still a lot of people who don't listen to podcasts. And. The reality is books are still, you know, the gold standard. So I want to write a really good, but it's called, it's going to be called why neuroscience matters, because really my, my whole premise is that understanding how neuroscience works should be a basic scientific literacy skill for the 21st century. For example, if you understand what cognitive dissonance is. Politics make a lot more sense, but at any rate, so that's really my focus for this year is to get those books out. And then I w I hope they will help grow the show, but the main thing is to reach new people. Okay. Yeah. Just kind of educate the world on, on everything that's going on, how we think, why we think, I think that's a really good idea. But I would, I would argue that, you know, books are, you know, obviously they reach different type of peer person than, than podcasting. And maybe more, maybe less, I don't know. But I would say that even better. Methods of teaching. And a big part of that is actually video is, you know, lot more people. For example, watch YouTube, then read books. Yeah. And I'm not going to argue with that. I don't see myself as a video person. If somebody came to me and said, Hey, do you want to be part of a video project? I'd say, cool, but I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna. Take that on as a solo project. Audio podcasting is enough of a challenge as a solo project. I appreciate the fact that that a lot of people still, you know, now learn by video. I happened to be a person who learns by reading and believe that there are still those of us out there. We learn by reading and I'm willing to accept the fact that. Someone else may be reaching those video people. Yeah. And if somebody wants to come to me and say, Hey, here's your great book. How can we put parts of it into a video? You know, I'll be, I'll be up for that too, but I know what my strength is. Yeah. I mean, I got into podcasting because I realized almost immediately that it was just something that, that, um, really excited me and I felt like I was good at it. Explaining science is a lot more like my day job in which I explained medicine to my patients. So it kind of, you know, trying to translate things into English is something that sort of comes naturally, or at least I've been doing it so long. It feels natural. Yeah, definitely. Kind of, I mean, essentially you're translating from Latin into English. Well, it's not quite that bad, but close enough. Yeah. I did want to talk about one other thing that was related to the book, and that was, I had. I've had half a listener who's been just sort of hounding me about making an audio version of, are you sure? Which I'm not planning to do, partly because of expense and partly because of the content is already available mostly in audio. Format, but when I do my big book project, I definitely do consider making an audio version of it to be essential for the exact reason that you just mentioned that the format of audio is so good for reaching people. And the thing I love about audio versus video is that a person can be. They can be driving their car. They have been going for a walk. They can be cleaning their house. They can, I don't know how you would mow the lawn because I don't think you'd be able to hear it, but you can do a lot of stuff while you're listening to audio as opposed to, you know, video, which if you're actually really paying attention, you know, you kind of have to. Look at it. So that's why I'm comfortable with not doing video, although I appreciate the fact that, that it's, it's a very powerful tool. I mean, I'm the person who, when I go to the website, I don't watch the videos. I say I look for the, where did they put the written instructions? In fact, I have a coach who has all these videos and she's learned that she's just going to send me the PDFs because I don't want to watch the video. So it may be a generational thing, but. You know, I'm a baby boomer. There's plenty of people in my boom's still left. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I think also like audio is kind of the sweet spot where it's easily accessible and you also, like you said, you can do it while doing other things, driving, transporting, you know, basically all the stuff that I've stopped doing. So actually I've had my podcast kind of pile up because I've stopped commuting to work and I stopped, you know, doing all this stuff that where I, where I used to listen to podcasts. It's been a, it's been pretty bad. I'm going to have quite a backlog once I get back to everything. Right. And that's, you know, that's why it's hard to know what's going to happen. Rob Walch from, from Lipson, he, he's been talking on the feed about how the last slump in, in podcast advertising happened in 2008 with the, with the financial crisis in 2008 and I remember that because I had one. Really great advertising campaign with the Navy, and then the rates just went through the bottom. I mean, they just, they went way down. So people, podcasts, which you rely on, on advertising, are really going to be, you know, hurting in the next, you know, foreseeable future. And then the people who are making their living off of production, you know, audio editing and things like that are probably also gonna, you know, struggle a little for me. My show's established and I can survive on a plateau for a while, but if I was somebody just starting out, I'm not saying you shouldn't start now. But this might be a good time to be in the planning phases, right. And, and really get everything aligned up. Maybe if, I think if I was starting a new show at this point, what I might consider doing is getting a large number of interviews in the can, right. And then launching in the fall, maybe when people are hopefully going to be back on a more regular schedule and then you won't have that time pressure of trying to put out a show every week. So we can make the best of it. Yeah, definitely. Don't have this be dead time. Have it be useful, actually. Yeah. So what is, what are some, what is some advice that you have for people in the neuroscience field? Neurotechnology in general, like through your experience in the field and, and having talked to so many people. Well, I always, I always ask my guests to give advice to students because I have so many student listeners, and one of the things that, that many of my guests say, which I think applies to us whether or not we're students or not, is to choose something that, that you're really passionate about. In other words, if you were going to do a podcast. Unless you are intentionally planning a very short run series that's gonna like say go 12 episodes in and, but if you want to do it for a prolonged period of time, you've got to pick something that you're really passionate about. I picked neuroscience because I felt like I wasn't going to run out of material, which has certainly proven to be true every time. I think that I've kind of gotten. You know, into a stuck point. I turn around and I've got a bunch of new books in my mailbox and I'm like, and I get enthused again. So if the subject doesn't light you up, you're not going to last. I think the, the old writing advice, you know, to re, you know, which is write what you know, probably applies to podcasting too. Yeah, definitely. I would completely agree. I mean, you know, even even in the field of, even in the sub field of neural implants, you know, especially the guests that I have a little bit more familiarity with, it's much easier for me versus something like, you know, computational stuff or you know, programming or whatever, and they're just like, Oh shoot, this is a bit outside of what I know and what I can intelligently speak about. But also, I guess not. What I'm interested in. I am interested in it, but maybe not to the extent to the other stuff. So I completely agree, and I think you've shown this very well. It's, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon, you know? And then when you're, when you're planning your interviews, I think they're, the most obvious rule is read ahead of time. You know, you know, if you listen to interviews in the mainstream media, you can lots of times tell that they haven't read anything by the person that they're interviewing, right? So even if you're interviewing somebody who's only who's written a paper or whatever, you want to have read their work. And then when you're thinking about your interview, I recommend making your questions. Ask yourself, well, what is the one thing about this person's work that I want my listeners to understand? And then gear all your questions to that. And most scientists don't mind if you say to them, can you back up for a minute and explain what you meant by XYZ? If you're making a show for nonspecialists, they don't have to understand everything, but they need to be able to understand the big picture and they don't like being talked down to. I mean, the show I do basically goes against all the, all the dogma about how to do science. Broadcasting. You know, if you look at mainstream media, everything is so watered down. There's this assumption that people won't understand it or that you need a bunch of special effects, which of course obviously don't have and neither one. I think neither one of those things are true, but you do have to be able to make it clear. Why should I, the guy off the street care about this? I mean, you're doing a show about neural implants. I think probably, you know that. That's not as hard as it might be for some other show. I always like to joke that it's a lot easier to make a podcast about neuroscience because everybody does have a brain, and neuroscience really does affect us as individuals, whereas like most of us are not affected by quantum mechanics, so it doesn't matter whether we understand it or not. Yeah, I mean, I know we are affected by quantum mechanics on some level, but you know what I mean? We're not making day to day decisions based on her understanding of quantum mechanics. Yeah, exactly. Kind of make it relevant. Bring it, bring it all home. Right. And I'm not mean telling them what to think. I am also a big believer in trusting that the science can speak for itself. You know, decide what the key idea is. Help your guest to share that key idea. And then you have to trust your listeners. Yeah, for sure. This is really interesting stuff. I love it. Um, you know, especially coming from, you know, like I said, one of the biggest science podcasters, you know, of our time and, and somebody who's been doing it all, I'll say pretty much from the beginning. Yeah. There's a couple of science podcasts out there. They've been around longer than mine, but not many. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I'd have a hard time believing it honestly. Like, unless it was like radio program before, I was just like, Oh, we might as well do podcasting in addition to this, like science Friday. That's kinda what I'm thinking. Right. I don't care that I don't count those because those are repurposed radio shows. So you're right. One of the oldest ones is probably a repurposed radio show, but there is a show called the astronomy cast, which is Pam Hamlin. Gay's done over 300 episodes of that show. I think she launched in three 2005 while she's in the podcasting hall of fame, the only science podcast in the podcasting hall of fame, like actual hall of fame. Well, it's called the Academy of podcasters, and now it's been bought out, so it's probably going to become the Hollywood podcasting hall of fame, but the people that are currently in it are true pioneers. Just Google Academy of podcasters hall of fame. She got a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. No. But yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, it's a lot of work creating a science podcast, but I think it's, it's, it's a great way to share pot. I think it's a great way to share science. It just, it's just a lot of work. You have to, the thing that will keep you going if you decide to do it, and I don't know if this is your experience, but for me, it's listener feedback. Every time I think I'm going to quit. I get an email from somebody who said, tells me, you know how it's made a difference to them. And, and that, that keeps me going. Yeah, definitely. Like the, the feedback is, is great. And the really, it's amazing kind of the connections that you create for others and then you create for yourself as well. But another thing for me too is because I can go to conferences and I have gone to conferences kind of helping out on the meta side of things with some things, I, I'm basically in the room of, you know, a few hundred people that, you know. Portion of them who know who I am and listen to the show and everything like that. So that's kind of an amazing thing because I have a, I have a travel podcast as well actually, and it's, it's bigger than the Nerland pop podcast, but you know, it's just diffuse, like it's all over the world. So I would never in the wild run into one of my listeners, but at one of the conferences, it really, it does happen and people are, you know, people like it, you know? And so that, that also kind of motivates me a little bit further, cause it's just like, it's not just numbers on a screen, it's actual. People and it's actual, you know, it's, it's has real life consequences I guess. So, Dr. Campbell, this has been excellent. Thank you so much for coming on. Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention? Yeah. And, and I have a free newsletter on my website, so if somebody says, well, I'd like to know when that book is really happening. Who's got a brain science podcast.com and sign up for the newsletter. You get. Show notes automatically and know when the book is finally a reality. Excellent. I'm looking forward to it and especially looking forward to the audience guys. Hopefully you enjoyed that. Yeah, it was interesting. Afterwards we talked about, you know, how hard it is to make money podcasting and how little it is, and you know, she's like, Oh, you can put some of your episodes behind a pay wall, or, you know, do a Patrion and have people donate to you. But with how niche this show is, I don't think I'd be making too much. And I don't think, I don't want to do that to you guys. Like, and only earn 20 bucks a month, you know, sell out my soul for 20 bucks a month, or you know, 30 or whatever. I might end up earning from that. But I do this for the love of the topic and the. The people that are in it and just reaching out and everything like this. I think it's really good, but I mean, please do remember that I do offer other services, and so if you're interested in either advertising on a podcast or making your own podcast, or filming a promotional video for example, or a conference, or you know, a panel or whatever, I'm doing three D animations, then I'm available for this as well. The email is. Latin@neuralimplant.media and so yeah, I can do all your media needs. Even things like making some figures in, in some journal articles. I've seen some really, really ugly figures, really ugly photos, and I can make that a little bit better. Just that much better. To, to make it more attractive. And you know, it's a small thing, but it's a is, it's a very real thing. And I've seen people close and I've seen people just stop reading. If they saw like an especially hideous graphic, then yeah, let me know. Let me know and I'll see if I can help you out. Hope you enjoyed the show and were able to learn something new, bringing together different fields in novel ways. Until next time on the neural implant podcast.

It'd be hard to find a law enforcement officer anywhere who understands police-community relations better than Cincinnati assistant police chief Paul Neudigate. The 30-year policeman last week climbed over a barrier during a racial equality protest and took the opportunity to talk with and listen to peaceful protesters. And he quickly realized: There's work to be done to bridge the relationship between police officers and a younger generation of Cincinnatians.  What protesters were saying "it hurt a little bit," Neudigate told The Enquirer's That's So Cincinnati podcast, because the police department has greatly improved its relationship with the community since the 2001 riots. "We have always said we have to work on our relationships with the community every single day," Neudigate said. "We had thought that we were getting close. That if something bad went down, the community knew that we're a new police department. We were much more responsive. We were much more transparent. We were much more engaging. And I think what we saw is we're just not there yet." Neudigate on June 2 crossed a barrier and began having conversations with protesters, a moment captured on video. He exchanged phone numbers with some of the protesters and has remained in touch with some of them, helping to answer their questions. He's been a leader in helping the department improve its relationships and reputation in neighborhoods across the city. It was part of the Collaborative Agreement that came out of the 2001 unrest, and Cincinnati police have been nationally recognized for its relationships in the community.  But Neudigate acknowledged that many younger citizens don't remember what happened 19 years ago, and some weren't born yet. The department needs to improve its public relations efforts, said Neudigate, who does a good job sharing news and positive stories on his Twitter feed.  "What I'm finding out from those conversations is a lot of the things that (protesters) want, a lot of the things that they think that we should be doing, we're already doing," Neudigate said. "We're just not doing a good enough job of making sure that the community is aware of all the different pieces that we've got moving." Neudigate's podcast interview offers candid insight into the Cincinnati police, including how the department's response compared to 2001. Neudigate's interview begins at the 21:15 mark in the episode.

Dear 2020, you're almost at the half way point. We're not sad about it! What I'm doing to try and make 2020 at least 0.0000001% better (I know, I'm shoveling against the tide right now.) 1. Art of Getting a New (Or Better) Job During a Pandemic - is now full! Thanks to those who signed up, and let's get you fired up! Also, if you missed out and have FOMO - just email me and I can get you on the wait list. 2. The New Pharmacist: 46 Doses of Advice - Chapter reading each Wed this summer - enjoy! 3. Is it time for reform of APPE required pharmacy school rotations? Last, and certainly not least, my heart goes out to the Floyd family, and to all victims of police/racial discrimination and brutality everywhere. Our country is angry and hurting right now, and I am very, very heartbroken over this. There are no words. Take care of yourselves and each other until next time.

I'm spending time listening to some of my black friends describe the world they're experiencing. It's the first step I feel I need to take in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. I need to seek out the perspectives and experiences of my black friends and colleagues. What I'm hearing from them is disturbing. In this episode I had to share my conversation with Wanda Jones-Yeatman. Wanda is a leader at a Fortune 500 that's a client of ours. She's a working mom of four kids living in the Washington DC area. Connect with Wanda Jones Yeatman on LinkedInConnect with me on LinkedIn for daily videos and storiesConnect with me on Facebook Visit my website or learn more about our firm, Partners In Leadership--About the podcast:Decide to Lead is a weekly leadership podcast. It's designed to share leadership development ideas based on the leadership coaching I do with Fortune 500 executives. I also throw in productivity tips and personal development ideas I pick up interacting with some of the most successful leaders in business today. Make sure you subscribe so you get each new episode as soon as it comes out!

Zach has the honor of sitting down to chat with Mary-Frances Winters, the founder and CEO of The Winters Group, Inc., about black equity and power. Mary-Frances shares some of the top things she believes that majority leadership groups are doing today that undermine their own workplace equity efforts and explains her perspective on why chief inclusion/people/culture officers are typically white folks. Check the links in the show notes to find out more about The Winters Group!Connect with Mary-Frances on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Links in order:https://bit.ly/2Bs8pZBhttps://bit.ly/2ZXoMYlhttps://bit.ly/3csD9qbLearn more about The Winters Group on their website. http://bit.ly/33pqotqCheck out the Inclusion Solution blog.https://bit.ly/2yX2quXYou can connect with The Winters Group on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Links in order:http://bit.ly/2WrDjtghttp://bit.ly/3d69LYhhttps://bit.ly/2XUy6t7Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here or below.https://bit.ly/2Ug4l5KHelp food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.https://bit.ly/2WD73UkCheck out our website.https://bit.ly/living-corporateTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, it's Tuesday. The day of this recording is May 4th, so May the 4th be with you. We have incredible guests every single time we come on, and today is no different, because what we're trying to do is what we always do, right? Which is center and amplify marginalized voices in the workplace. Now, I would like to think Living Corporate is a little bit unique in that we're having these conversations, but not only are we having these conversations that are centering marginalized voices, but we're having these conversations with marginalized identity groups, right? So a lot of times when you think about this diversity, equity and inclusion space, it's folks who don't look like me using fairly esoteric, like, heady language to describe things that they really don't experience, right? Like, not to put too fine a point on it. Just look... I'm just gonna be honest, right? Just gonna be a straight shooter, okay? And I'm proud of the fact that we've been able to have incredible guests that have not only the lived experience but have the practical knowledge and expertise to talk about real subjects, and so that's why our tagline for Living Corporate is real talk for a corporate world. Now, look, some of y'all have been listening to us and been rocking with us for a while, but every episode is somebody's first episode, so I just want to make sure I kind of level set a little bit. So with all that being said, I'm really excited to have our guest today, Mary-Frances Winters. Mary-Frances Winters is the founder and CEO of The Winters Group, Inc., a global organization development and diversity and inclusion consulting firm with over 35 years--count 'em, y'all, 35... more than I've been alive--more than 35 years of experience. She truly believes that diversity and inclusion work is her “passion and calling.” She's been dubbed a thought leader in the field for the past three decades and has impacted over hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals with her thought-provoking messages, and her approach to diversity and inclusion. Ms. Winters is a master strategist with experience in strategic planning, change management, diversity, organization development, training and facilitation, systems thinking--yo, shout-out to systems thinking--and qualitative and quantitative research methods, and she has extensive experience in working with senior leadership teams to drive organizational change. My goodness, gracious. With all that being said, Mary-Frances, welcome to the show.Mary-Frances: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. You're definitely dating me, but that's all right. I'll take it. [laughing]Zach: I apologize. I wasn't trying to date you. I was trying to speak to the depth and breadth of the work that you've been doing, 'cause I think a lot of times it's easy, you know--like, pausing on, just, like, this conversation, but kind of, like, thinking about generational tensions, right? So I think there's, like, a lot of frustrations sometimes with folks who--like, millennials, you know, folks, like, in their early 30s or even, like, mid-20s to late-20s crowd who just think that, like, all of these frustrations that we're seeing now are new, right, but there have been folks who have built foundations before us that allow us to actually move forward, so it's just incredible that you've been in this space and doing this for a significant amount of time. I don't believe that should be taken lightly at all.Mary-Frances: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I accept it with honor and respect, so thank you so much.Zach: Thank you so much. So how are you doing during this time? Like I said, we're recording this on May 4th. How are you and your loved ones?Mary-Frances: We're well, we're well. We're doing well. You know, it is unprecedented times. It's very, very difficult times for the world, but, you know, we're doing well, and thank you for asking.Zach: So let's get right into it. Diversity, equity and inclusion work is about marginalized identities, yet the loudest voices in this space tend to be those of the majority, right? So, like, when you think about these big, big organizations and you look at, like, the chief inclusion officer or the chief people officer or the chief culture officer, they're typically white folks. Why do you think that is?Mary-Frances: Well, I don't think that the dominant group sees diversity and inclusion as being about marginalized folks. They see it as being about everybody. "We have to include everybody," and so some of what my frustration has been, as you mentioned, 35 years, and so when we used to talk about it, you know, in the days of affirmative action, they were protected groups, right? So the initiatives were targeted towards those protected groups. When we started to talk about it as being diversity, then it broadened and everybody got included in diversity, and the group that gets least talked about now are black folks, because they don't want to talk about black people. So I don't think that the dominant group that controls the narrative, I don't think that they see it about being about marginalized identities only, right? And so the focus may or may not be there, you know, depending, and so we did a session for a client not too long ago to talk about the relevancy of white men in the organization. So, you know, you've got to be inclusive of white men. [both laughing] Yeah, so that's why I think--you asked me why I think that is? That's why I think that is, yeah. Because in the corporate world, we don't even use the word "marginalized identities." So it's not a new term in sociology, but let me tell you, 35 years in this business, it's a new term in the corporate world. It's starting to be used, and I think it is because of the influence of the millennials. We've been doing some work in some organizations that, you know, normally--some of these older, traditional organizations have been around 150 years and still got baby boomers at the helm, right? Some of these other organizations have been around 15, 20 years, they've got a lot of millennials at the helm. Those organizations are using this language, the social justice language. The traditional organizations? Not so much.Zach: [laughs] So one, thank you. I'm really curious--that really is a good segue into the next question I have for you about just you showing up doing this work as a black woman, and not to, like--again, not to age you, we're talking about the fact that--[Mary-Frances laughs] It's not like you're a black woman who just graduated from college and, you know, you're in this space, or you just finished B school, like, you're someone who has seen this space grow and evolve and change and shift and permutate, you know, various times over over the past three and a half decades, and so I'm curious, like, what does it look like for you to operate in this space, and then specifically going into the example that you just provided, how do you respond to narratives like that? That, you know, white men need to feel just as included as black men or other marginalized groups?Mary-Frances: Yeah. So as a black woman in this work, a cisgender heterosexual black woman, baby boomer, there are different ways it impacts me. So one way that it impacts me is "Oh, yeah, let's get Mary-Frances because she can bring the voice of black folks." Um, no. Mary-Frances brings her voice, not all black folks, right? That's one way. This other way is, "Gee, we really can't hire The Winters Group to do this--" This is a black person talking now. "Because you're black and I'm black, and, you know, the optics of it, it looks like we might be giving you, you know, preferential treatment." The third way is when I stand in front of a group, to the question about, you know, white men, I do--if my question is gonna get across, I do in some ways have to disarm white men, because they're gonna--they see me coming in with my sister locks and, you know, "This black woman is gonna come in and she's gonna tell us, you know, how racist we are. She's gonna make us feel bad," and so what I've learned over the years is that you've gotta get them to like you first. No matter what they've gotta like you, right? And they have to think that the message resonates. So I learned the language. I learned the language of the organization. I connect my message to whatever their business plan is, whatever their business strategy is. You know, I connect it to that, because, you know, you're already coming in being black, being a woman. So those are two, you know, marginalized groups, historically marginalized groups. And so yeah, so there are different ways. And, you know, we talk about code switching, right? So we have to code switch a lot of times in order to get the work done, particularly in corporate spaces. Now, I don't know if you've noticed--well, I'm sure you've noticed because you know my colleague, Brittany J. Harris, who is the vice president of The Winters Group, and we're doing a series right now in our inclusion solution blog on decolonizing DEI work, and, you know, part of that--and I wrote a couple of weeks ago about decolonizing particularly the corporate world with, you know, corporate speak. So you come in and they have to have a business case, and the business case has to be "How does this help my business, you know, perform better?" That's, like, the classic corporate business case, and that's kind of centering this capitalist narrative, right? We're about the profits, and you can [show?] me by hiring black folks and hiring women, whoever else you want me to hire. If you can show me that that can help me to sell more whatever I'm trying to sell, then it's okay. So I think that, you know, to some extent--you know, I was just talking to a very large client just before this--I will not name that client. Very old client, 150, 160 years old, you know, very old. [laughing] You know, middle of the country, and they're just trying to get this stuff off the ground and you come in talking about marginalized groups and whatnot to a bunch of these white men, they're just not gonna--it's just not gonna happen. So it's this delicate balance, Zach, of on one hand, you know, you have to be able to engage the groups that they listen, and on the other hand you're trying to dismantle, you know, this dominant sort of narrative that doesn't necessarily work, and it hasn't worked. 35 years, 36 years, all of the same issues that I was teaching and talking about 36 years ago are the same. As a matter of fact, my book Black Fatigue will be coming out in February. Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit comes out in February, and I have a chapter in that book, Chapter 3, called Then is Now, and so I go back and I look at data from whatever point you want to take. You can take it from 1965, 1975, it doesn't really matter what you want to take it. When you look at our data and our statistics, we have not made progress. We're stuck, and we're at this standstill. Brown vs. the Board of Education was 1954, which was desegregate schools. Our schools are more segregated today than then. You know, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You know, all of this legislation, housing. In 1975, 43% of black people owned their own homes. In 2019, 43% of black people own their own homes. The net worth--and, you know, net worth is, like, what you're worth, right? Net worth. A single black woman's net worth is $500, versus the net worth of a white woman, single white woman, which is [$5000?], still low. The net worth of white people, at 150 something thousand dollars, is 10 times that of a black person, and it follows even if you look at college-educated. So somebody who has a PhD who is a black woman college professor with a PhD makes 20% less than a white man who has a PhD and 7 to 8% less than a woman who has a PhD, and so all of these inequities--and I'm using those just as an example--is about Then is Now, that we haven't really turned the corner. So we're fatigued. [?] And it's particularly tiring for me because, like you said, I've been doing it for over 35 years. [both laughing] I'm tired.Zach: You're absolutely right, and we've had conversations about that on Living Corporate, and we cite the study Umbrellas Don't Make It Rain that really goes into dispelling the myth that higher education will, you know, somehow close the wealth gap, and it hasn't and it doesn't. So let's talk about this. There's a variety of folks that we've had on Living Corporate who have said, you know, diversity and inclusion, corporate diversity and inclusion, is inherently [anti]-black, not just in its external doings but at the internal politics. Do you have any thoughts on the voracity of that position?Mary-Frances: Well, society is inherently anti-black, so by extension the corporate world is inherently anti-black. We live in a society that has historically and continues to be anti-black. I don't know--yeah, so I agree. [both laugh] I mean, right? So yeah, you know, D&I is inherently anti-black. It is because that's the society--you know, when I wrote this book Black Fatigue and I was telling people about this, "Oh, please write about black and brown fatigue and, you know, all deference to indigenous people and native people and Latinos and everybody, right?" But the black experience in the United States has been different than any of those other experiences, and because of that the stereotypes and the marginalization plays out differently, and so I really felt a need--even though [?]--I show statistics for Latinos and Asians, you know, as well in the book, but I really wanted to focus on how this is playing out for black folks, because let me tell you. I say--you know, [?]--race is diversity's four-letter word, and particularly when you talk about black folks, people don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about the black and whiteness of it. "Let's talk about Asians. Let's talk about Latinos," right? So this anti-black--so that's one way anti-black plays out. You know, we have to include the other groups that we have [?]. I had a call with a client just on Friday, and they talked about how the psychologist or sociologist, whoever we were quoting--I forgot who it was--was black, and so we were like, "Uh, yeah," and they said, "Well, you know, perhaps we need to get some other experts included in this data set." What's that about? "Are there some Asian people who have spoke on this too?" [laughs] So yeah, I mean, we live in an anti-black world, and by extension our corporations are anti-black. I mean, look at things like the recent legislation around the CROWN Act. Why does anybody freaking care how I wear my hair? Why do we have to have legislation for people to be able to wear their hair--for black people to be able to wear their hair the way they want to wear their hair. You know, the young man wrestler, right, and they made him--Zach: Yes, made him cut his hair. His dreads.Mary-Frances: His dreads, right. Exactly. Right there. You know? I mean, why do you care? You don't have to like--what I say to folks is, "I don't care if you like it. You don't have to like my hair. I'm not asking you to like my hair." [laughing] But, I mean, are we still in a slavery, there's no freedom, that we can't even wear our hair the way we want to wear our hair? You know what, I heard about hair 36 years ago when I was in the corporate world and I had a very short afro, and one day a colleague--wasn't even my boss, a colleague--comes in my office and says, "Will your hair grow?" And I just looked at him and I said, "Yeah," and he said, "Well, you oughta let it," and he walked out of my office.Zach: Wow.Mary-Frances: That's why I left corporate. One of the reasons anyway. But anyway, so yes, is it an anti-black world? Yes, indeed. Indeed, it is. Unfortunately, you know, it is. And when you say that--and the problem is when you say that to white people they think that you're calling them a racist, and I'm not. I'm not. What I'm saying is the very foundation and structure upon which our various societies and the way we think and the policies and all those things are based on anti-black sentiments, anti-black beliefs if you will. Zach: You know, I'm really curious about, like--because you're right, we had Brittany Harris on the show some time ago, and we were talking about decolonization and dismantling and deconstructing systems, right? So it was more so about, like, kind of, like, trying to make some shifts and some headway in this work, because like you said, there's a lot of conversations that have just been happening, they've been recycling for years, and I'm curious to know, what are you seeing some other, like, DEI groups or, like, kind of names, things that they're saying that you're like, "Man, we've been doing that." Like, "We've been working on that," or "That's not new. Like, y'all think it's new, but it's not new." Like, does anything like that stick out to you?Mary-Frances: Yeah, I think that, you know, the whole idea of, you know, oppression, marginalization, privilege, all of those kinds of things I think have been out there for--you know, for a long time. You know, we can all remember--those of us in this work--Peggy McIntosh's White Privilege. Judith Katz, my colleague, did something on heterosexual privilege back in the '90s, and the Peggy McIntosh book was back in the '70s. You know, Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes, which shows, you know, bias. We now call it unconscious bias, but Jane Elliott, you know, put that out in, I don't know, the '70s, '60s or '70s. I was using that video--now that you've already dated me I'll just keep going with it--but I was using that video [laughing]--Zach: I'm so sorry. [laughing]Mary-Frances: No, no, no. You're fine, I'm just teasing you. [laughing] You know, I was using that video in the '80s, right? And now I hear people like, "Oh, do you know about Jane Elliott's video Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes?" And that's the other thing, [?] why I wrote Black Fatigue is because--and I'm not saying this is about millennials. This is not about generations at all thinking this stuff is new. This is about folks who are, like, in my age group to who this is all, like, a revelation, right? "We didn't know." So here, case in point. We know that COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting particularly black people, and when it came out, this proportionality, it was like, "Oh, wow, we have health disparities?" This is not new. I mean, these health disparities have been--they have been well-researched, well-written about, and they continue. They have not improved. Even middle-class black women are twice as likely to die in childbirth. You know, these are not new, and so that's what's part of, you know, the frustrating thing. You know, I really respect some of the newer folks who are coming into this space, and I think that they're doing remarkable work, and I'm hoping that perhaps they can put a different spin--I know Brittany, as a millennial, has brought definitely a different spin to our work. When Brittany came on board, which was, like, four years ago now I guess, we had started to talk about the intersection of social justice and corporate speak, because, you know, the language was all different, right? Everything was different. So we talk about mapping the intersection. What is the intersection of social justice and corporations? So corporations worried about the bottom line. Why should they be worried about, you know, social justice as well, and how do we get that languge? So I think at The Winters Group we're a little bit further ahead of mapping that intersection of saying that it's not one or the other. It really is a both and, because if you help to alleviate the social ills of this world or even of this country or even of the place that you operate your business, your business is going to be better.Zach: No, I'm right there with you, and I really think that segues well into this next question, which is just, you know, what trends do you see in this work from a thought leadership perspective, and if you were to kind of look across the landscape of this work and when you think about workplace equity as a whole, you know, where are the biggest places you think we have to grow?Mary-Frances: So where I see that we have places to grow in this work is fixing organizational cultures so that they truly are inclusive and we're not just using the word, that we're not just saying that we're inclusive, because the surveys that we do inside corporations would suggest that the cultures are not inclusive, particularly--PARTICULARLY--for black folks. Particularly. Now, when we do surveys with Latinos and Asians, culturally they may not be having a good experience, but they're not gonna tell us that because culturally they don't talk ill of--and I'm stereotyping, I know I'm stereotyping big time right now, but for the most part Latinos and Asians don't speak ill of their employers. That's a cultural thing, right? And so they're gonna say, you know, everything is good. We, you know, coming from a history of descension, a history of sort of laying it out there. You know, "No justice, no peace." Zach: Give us us free, yes.Mary-Frances: Yeah, right. We're willing to say, "No, this is not a good experience," if we answer the survey. We did a big survey for a corporation recently, and not many black people answered the survey. So then I did a focus group with them and they said, "Oh, no, we're not answering that survey. They can figure out who we are because there's only about 100 of us in the whole company." So the point is that organizational cultures, the traditional organizational cultures, are designed for dominant groups. They always have been. In the '70s when I was in the corporate world, they decided to bring in a whole bunch of black people, a whole bunch of black professionals, because they didn't have enough, and they just said, "Let's bring 'em all in here." Within a year, every single one of them were gone except one. There was probably about 30 people. Every single one of them left because the culture was not friendly, was not conducive. There were micro-aggressions all day long. [?] I told you about the micro-aggression about my hair. Here's another one. So the company sent me to some banquet or something, and I was sitting there--and I got to represent the company, so I was sitting at the head table, and we had a little fruit cup, you know, as our appetizer or something, and so the person sitting next to me said, "Oh, look at that, you have more watermelon in your fruit cup than anybody at the table." Now, why would you even say that? What would even make you part your lips to speak like that? Yeah. So you know what I did? I said, "Oh, you like watermelon? Would you like mine? I'll trade with you." [both laughing] So my point is that hasn't changed in 30 however many ever years that is. That hasn't changed. And so, you know, where we still need to grow is to really get at the culture, and the only way we're gonna get at the culture is to hold people accountable, and because the experience that people have in their organizations are 1:1 with their direct manager, right, and so if the direct manager is not talking the talk, walking the walk, it's not happening for that person. We often times focus on the top leadership, top of the house--"Let's start at the top of the house." I say that we need to focus on first-line leadership, those individuals who are most likely to have the greatest span of control. First-line leaders have more reports than the CEO. The CEO probably has six or seven direct reports, right? All the senior vice presidents, and then it goes down from there. So the biggest span of control and the biggest opportunity for change is at that first level, and we often times don't work with that first level of leadership because they don't have the budget for it or, you know, all of these other excuses. So I really think--and I've been saying this for years, so I don't know if this is a trend or not, but I've been saying this for years, that we have to get to that level. The other places that we still need to grow is pay inequity. You know, pay inequity for women and, you know, women of color in that equation too. That's an easy fix. You look at your data and you see who--if you have a disparity with women not being paid the same amount, then you fix it. You see, this is why if organizations wanted to do it, they could. Any aspect of diversity. If they wanted to do it, they would absolutely do it. So those are areas, I mean, in just terms of very tactical places, in terms of--cultures are really, really hard to change. So I had a call with a client this morning, and they had a question on the survey--they wanted me to review their survey. We have our own survey, but they got somebody else to do their survey, but they wanted me to review the questions. Here's one of the questions. "I fit in well at this organization."Zach: Hm, that's a good question.Mary-Frances: Huh? No, that's a bad question.Zach: Talk to me. Educate me why it's a bad question.Mary-Frances: Okay. Because it's about fitting in. Fitting in is about assimilation. Fitting in is about "I fit in," meaning that--Zach: I'm adjusting myself.Mary-Frances: I'm adjusting myself. I fit in, right? I mean, you still may get at it, but the whole idea of--even putting the language out there. So that's, you know, colonizing language, "fit," you know? Because what do we say when we hire somebody? We say, "Oh, yeah, they'd be a really good fit," and what "a really good fit" means is what? "They're like us."Zach: It's interesting, because the reason I was saying it's a good question is because I know a lot of--I know for me I would be like, "No."Mary-Frances: Right, exactly, and that's what they're hoping to get, but you see how the message could be from the other side, that you need to fit in.Zach: It absolves the organization of responsibility and onus in creating an inclusive work environment for that person.Mary-Frances: Exactly. So I said, "Why don't you have the question "I feel included at this organization?"" Right? I mean, you're gonna get the same answer, right, but you're now using language that is language that's about inclusion rather than fitting in, because fitting in is basically saying, you know, "Yeah, we need you to fit in. We need you to be like us." Zach: Okay, okay. Let's talk about black male presenting identities in this space, right? I could be speaking selfishly, but it seems as if they're still not highlighted with the same level of attention or nuance of some other people groups. Am I being fair? And, you know, if you agree with that, then could you kind of talk to me about why you think that may be?Mary-Frances: Yeah. So, you know, this is so interesting, because the chapter in Black Fatigue, it's called I Can't Breathe: Black Men's Fatigue, and I also have a chapter in the book called Say My Name: Black Women's Fatigue. So for the black women's chapter it's almost, like, twice as long as the black man's chapter, right? And I'm like, "Wait a minute." I said, "Is it because I'm a black woman and, you know, I relate to the experiences more?" So yes, and I'll tell you--this is the absolute truth. I am not kidding. I have been wrestling with this all weekend because I want to modify the chapter on black men to bring more of that voice. So with black women I could talk about, you know, #BlackGirlMagic, right? You know, what's the analogous movement for black men?Zach: There's nothing that big. I would say, you know, you have Black Boy Joy, but it's not as big, and there's some tension in that because a lot of black men are like, "Well, I'm not a boy. Don't call me a child. I'm a man." You know? So I'm not sure. That's a good question.Mary-Frances: So I write in the book about two experiences, two stories I tell. One story is about somebody who actually now--he has a degree in human resources, but he prefers to work with his hands, and he comes over and he tunes up our air conditioning in the spring and changes the filters and all that kind of stuff. So he was over the other day, and he worked for a large heating and air conditioning organization and was doing really well. They had him in their commercials on TV and everything and, you know, he said he just couldn't take it anymore. We would talk about entrepreneurship while he was still working there, 'cause he knew I was an entrepreneur and everything. So he finally left, and he's been on his own for 18 months, and he works 14, 16 hours a day. Nicest guy in the world. Got a young family, you know? Just really very customer service-oriented. He said, "Yeah, you know, when I go knocking on the doors, I've got to know how I'm coming," he said, "Because when they see that I'm black, you know, they get a little afraid." Ryan is all of 5'6" and, you know, maybe 150 pounds. He's a slightly built man. Zach: Slight guy, yeah.Mary-Frances: So he said, you know, "Why is this? Why do I have to exist like this, where, you know, I'm just trying to live and I'm just trying to, you know, run a business?" And he ran into--while he was in the corporate world, they told him one time that he couldn't get promoted because he was so good at his job that they needed him to stay in that job. That's why he couldn't be promoted, 'cause he was so good. [both laugh] Another time he was told that--he was promoting a particular service that they had, the air conditioning or whatever, and they said, "You're selling too much of this service." That's why he couldn't be promoted. So that's one. Another black guy, who had been with this organization for over 30 years, very well respected externally because he was in manufacturing and he has this particular knack for--he was called the turn-around man. He has a particular knack for going into a manufacturing operation and being able to, you know, whip it into shape, you know? The key performance indicators, the KPIs and all those kinds of things. I mean, he's a guru at that, right? [Lead?] manufacturing and all of that kind of stuff. And they would always send him to the place that was performing the worst, and he would go. So then they decided they were gonna put him in D&I, and this was after 30 years [?], so he's out of his element in D&I. He's gonna do his KPIs, he's gonna do his, you know, manufacturing operations. I think he turned just a few people off, right? So he ended up retiring early. No retirement party after all this. He's doing so well on the outside because he's got articles, he's got--he's well-known in this space, but he was kind of forced out of the organization because somebody didn't like, you know, what he said. So I think, you know, black men, one of the [?] chapters in my book, I have Tall, Dark, and Handsome, right? So when a white man is tall, he's paid more. When a black man is tall, he's actually paid less. The darker-skinned the black male man is, the less that he gets paid, right? Lighter-skinned black men get paid more than dark-skinned black men. So you take a black man who is tall and dark-skinned, you know, that feeds a whole lot of stereotypes, right? You know, and the handsome, you know, like I said in my book, black women [think they're handsome?, laughing] but the majority group probably doesn't. Not so much, right? But you're penalized. You know, black men are penalized, you know, for being tall. Black men are penalized for being darker-skinned. So my son, who is--he went to Harvard, Duke and Princeton, he studied under Cornell West. He is now a tenured associate professor of religion at Duke University. So when he was a kid he was always big. Joe's about, like, 6'5", so he was always big, and they always told him, you know, "You're gonna hurt the other kids. You gotta, you know--" So he's this gentle giant now because he was told, you know, "Don't be too aggressive." Up until the fourth grade there was something wrong with Joe all the time. We had to see a psychologist. You know, he just wasn't adjusting right, and he just da-da-da-da. All of these things. You know, he was in a white school district and usually the only black kid, one of two in his class. So in the fourth grade he had a teacher, he was a white male teacher, who said, "You know what? I think the only thing wrong with Joe is that he's brilliant." He said, "That's the only thing I think is wrong with him." And as soon as Joe started to see himself as brilliant and everybody else started to see himself as brilliant, guess what? Joe become brilliant, and voila, Harvard, Duke, Princeton grad, but if somebody hadn't told him that he was--[?], right? And so Joe writes about hip-hop and religion. He writes about the African-American experience. His book is--you might want to interview my son. His book is called "Hope: Draped in Black," and--Zach: I'd love to interview him, yeah. Let's talk about it offline for sure.Mary-Frances: Yeah, but what he talks about is how you hold hope in the wake of, you know, all of the oppression and whatnot. But, you know, we talked this weekend about black men and about, you know, the hip-hop culture and the gangster and, you know, the rape culture, and we talked about all of that and how that plays out and, you know, why that is, and yeah, it's--black men are very complex, very complex, and they have been, you know, obviously treated the worst. So it's tied up in self-concept. It's tied up in a whole lot of--and what one study found is that black men who have a good self-concept and are also able to figure out how to navigate, you know, the system, they do well in a corporation, but you've got to come first with a good self-concept, and I think, as quiet as its kept, all that bravado sometimes with black men, you know, "Show me some respect" and all that kind of stuff, you know, and "I'm all of that," I think underneath is really a lot of trauma.Zach: Oh, I agree with that. I think you're 100%, I mean, just spot on, and I also think, you know, when you think about black men in this space--it's interesting because black men and white women have something in common, where black men are black, yet they benefit to a much lesser degree, but they still benefit to a degree, from patriarchy, and white women are women of course, but then they benefit from white supremacy. So there's some dynamics there that are nuanced, and yet in a way that black women don't. So black women are women and they're black, right? So it's like, okay, there's no pool that you can pull from or there's nothing that you can really pull from a position of privilege. Of course you have able-bodied privilege, and if you're cisgender and all those things, but I'm talking about, like, just at a high level. So then--but I was gonna say that, you know, it's hard to talk about that because black men benefit from patriarchy, but it's like, "But it shouldn't be hard to at least try to engage in the subject a bit more intentionally," because, I mean, it hasn't stopped white women from being the center of attention for diversity and inclusion efforts for decades.Mary-Frances: Right, exactly. Yeah, no. I think you're right, and so in the book Black Fatigue I question whether, you know--so to a certain extent yes, I guess I would agree that black men benefit from patriarchy, but it's more intra-culture than it is inter-culture.Zach: Right, 'cause black men ain't out here about to just be out here disrespecting white women at work.Mary-Frances: Right. Yes, there you go. Yeah, not unless [?]--nobody better know about it anyway, right? [laughs]Zach: Well, shoot. [laughs] Well, and that's the thing that blows my mind. Like, I had a conversation. I'll never forget. This was some years ago. I had a conversation with somebody who tried to, like, insinuate that the reason why I spoke so much at work was because, you know, I was the only man, and perhaps because as a man I'm used to dominating conversations. And I said, "Look, I might be the only man in this space, but I'm also the only black person in this space, and certainly the only black man," and I said, "So if you think that the reason why I'm quote-unquote dominating this conversation is because I'm a man and y'all are a bunch of white women, that's false." I said, "I would actually be more akin to being quiet," as it took me time to find my voice as a black man in white spaces. I said, "I would challenge you to ask why you would use the language that I'm dominating anything by simply raising my voice in a meeting," right? But there's, like, this--I agree with you. I think that there's a, like, lack of nuance when we talk about even how patriarchy is mobilized for black men. I think black men are benefiting from patriarchy with other black people. They don't benefit from patriarchy, like, from--like, if it's me or Karen, Karen is gonna win out.Mary-Frances: Right, exactly. And for reasons like I was saying earlier. These studies show, you know, a tall--you know, you've got your stature if you will, that's a negative. You've got the color that's a negative, right? And so yeah, in white spaces, I think that it is an intersectionality in white spaces. You're black and you're a man. It's a marginalized identity.Zach: So, you know, your colleague Brittany Harris, VP of learning and innovation at The Winters Group, who we've had on in the past, has said that power is the silent P in this work. I'd love to hear more from you on the concept of power and how it fits into this engagement of workplace equity.Mary-Frances: Yeah. I mean, it is very much at the center, and it's complex, and when folks have power, why would they want to give it up? So I am not a proponent of power and privilege discussions with novices in this work. So folks who have not--I'm talking about people who are trying to teach, people who are trying to teach who have not had years of kind of understanding how all this plays out, I'm not in favor of going in and telling them that they have power and privilege. Yeah, I have it and I want to keep it. [laughs] Right? I mean, why would someone want to give that up? [?] Black people standing in front of a bunch of white men talking about, "You have power and privilege." Yeah. And so [they're?] like, "Yeah, what's wrong with that?" [laughs] I mean, they don't say that, but. And the other thing is how do they relinquish that power? I mean, that's really difficult to do. And the other problem that I have with that--so yeah, there's this inequitable power dynamic, but the other problem that I have with that is that we are accepting that we don't have power. We're rendering ourselves powerless, right? And so in the corporate world what is the key term? Empower. We want to empower our people. E-M, right? Empower, right? That is somebody giving you their power. So this is part of the corporate speak, you know, that I don't like, right? It's part of the dominant culture of corporate speak. I should have written about that one in my book. I might still. Anyway, I want to turn that around, that E-M to M-E. Me power. I have power. And so we have agency, but we don't take it. We don't use it because we have internalized that we don't have the power, we don't have power, and we cannot continue to--this is one of the trends I'd like to see, not to continue to talk to folks about power and just use our power, not to magnify the inequities. So everybody knows that if you're a white man in a corporation and whatnot and you're the manager or the leader or the director or the whatever, everybody knows you got power, right? [laughs] You know? You gotta tell me you have power? Why you gotta tell me that? Right? And so I think that there are other ways to claim power. I think that part of that is just the confidence that we come with, the self-concept that we come with. I think that we have to be ready to leave spaces, because there are consequences for us exercising power, and we have to have some safety nets, more safety nets than we have. So I left, you know, some 30 something years ago. I just stepped out on faith, I mean, 'cause I have a strong faith, and I didn't know what was gonna happen, but I just knew I couldn't stay there. We do know that black women, they're 40% more likely to start their own businesses than any other group, right? Because we recognize that it's traumatizing, and so this whole idea of--so who came up with the idea of power and power and privilege? White folks. To tell us that there's a power inequity... Surprise, surprise. And you know what? We're not gonna change that by telling white people that they have power. That is not gonna change that. The only thing that's gonna change it is for us to claim our power and to recognize that we have it. Zach: I love it. No, I'm right there with you.Mary-Frances: Right? [laughing] Stop telling white folks what they already know, that they got power. They already know that.Zach: No, that's true. Like, them not, like, screaming it from the rooftops doesn't mean that they don't know that.Mary-Frances: Well, exactly. Why would I scream it from the rooftops? Again, the dominant group, it's not something that they probably even--even when we call their attention to it, there are many who will want to say, "Uh-huh. And let me figure out how I'm gonna maintain it." There might be others who are curious. "Hm, there is this dynamic. Maybe I should, you know, do something to work on that," but the forces are so strong and entrenched, right, over 400 years of entrenchment, that it's not gonna change. You know, two or three or the small groups that you might get who are all for shifting that power dynamic, they're not strong enough to overcome that larger group who wants to maintain the status quo. So we just have to take it. We have to grab the power. We have to first of all understand we have it already. It's not grabbing anything. We already have it. We just have to use it and accept that there will be consequences sometimes for using that power, and if we don't have the strong safety nets in our community to, you know, accept and to protect those folks who, you know, get fired, you know, are out there, you know, being called out on social media because they're telling the truth or, you know, whatever it might be. We as a people don't support and protect our own as much as we should.Zach: Man, that's, like, a whole separate [?], and what we need to do is make sure we bring you back on when your book is closer to being published and talk about that, because I do think that, you know, how we--so, you know, we had Robin DiAngelo on some time ago, and she talked about white solidarity and the concept of essentially the formal or informal closing of ranks that white folks do to protect one another, often times at the detriment or harm of black and brown folks, and yet I don't--you know, because of colonization and because of just internalized oppression, you know, we don't have that I don't think in the same--Mary-Frances: We don't, yeah.Zach: And that's created so many challenges for us. I mean, since antebellum to today, right? Like, we've had so many issues because we don't necessarily practice to the same degree, protection of one another. So let's do this. You know, as you look across these leadership groups, especially during this pandemic, what are some of the top things you believe that majority leadership groups are doing today that undermine their own workplace equity efforts?Mary-Frances: They have not educated themselves, so they are not--they think that they know, they think that their good intentions are good enough. So I've heard leaders say, "I don't care if it's the right thing to do for business," you know, the business case that we talked about earlier, "I just think it's the right thing to do, so now go forth and do it." However, because they don't have an understanding of the history or they know the history that was told wrong, they really don't know what to do. So they're making wrong decisions based on ignorance or, you know, a lack of information. I think the second thing that majority leadership does, particularly in the corporate world, is that they still have to speak to and answer to shareholders, and so they're not going to do anything that is going to, you know, jeopardize that. And so even when you're looking at board members, and what I hear often times is, you know, "Oh, the board won't go for that," or "We've gotta satisfy the board." Well, you need to change the board then. The board may not be--you know, you may not have the right people, because boards are tokenized [when] they have one token black person and one, you know, token woman on the board, right? So those are two things, and I think during the pandemic, I think because of this ignorance they are just not aware, big companies are just not aware of the world that some of the folks on the lowest rung face, and so when you say, you know, "shelter in place, stay home," that home may not be safe. That home may be filled with violence, right? You know, you make decisions about "Who are essential workers and who are not essential workers?" and you don't--you know, are you thinking about the health--again, talking with a client today, you know, talking about some of their contingent, you know, workforce, and they were saying, you know, "Well, are we gonna pay the sick pay or aren't we gonna pay the sick pay?" You know, [?], and so all of these kinds of questions, and they realized that "Yeah, we absolutely need to do that," and so I don't think that there's enough understanding of what marginalized groups face regardless of their socio-economic. So they're making decisions from their own lens, from their own--I'll use the word privileged--from their own privileged lens, and they're missing things. It's coming to light, right? A lot of this stuff is now coming to light, but some of the earlier decisions missed just the horrific impact that this is having on everybody, but particularly those who are in the lowest low end of the economic chain.Zach: Mary-Frances, this has been an incredible conversation. You know, I'd love to make sure that I give you space to talk a little bit more about The Winters Group, what you're most excited about, what you're looking forward to, even during times as uncertain and extraordinary as these. I'd love to just give you space to talk a little bit more about your company. Mary-Frances: Yeah, so we're looking forward to, you know, transforming ourselves as we always do, but this pandemic has made it absolutely imperative, and we've already been doing virtual learning, but we are looking at innovative ways to do virtual, ways that other people are not doing virtual. You know, we have whiteboards, and we have ways that we can break people out into groups. Like, the technology allows that, but I think the ways that we're doing it--we're doing simulations, and so I think this is an opportunity for us to be really, really innovative in terms of how we deliver our message. I did a virtual keynote, you know, a few weeks ago. I think it's also an opportunity for us to continue our [?] of the corporate message and the social justice message, because they have certainly come together with COVID-19 in terms of just what I was just talking about, how we see how marginalized people are even more marginalized. You know, as the saying goes, "When the world gets a cold, black people get pneumonia. When the world gets pneumonia, black people die," and so we're seeing that now, and I think it's the opportunity for us to even more strongly advocate for the intersection of social justice and corporate.Zach: Man, thank you so much, Mary-Frances. This has been phenomenal. And y'all, that does it for us on the Living Corporate podcast. You know we do this every week. Coming to y'all with real talk in a corporate world. Make sure you check us out everywhere, okay? So you pull up your Google or your, I don't know, Bing, or your Yahoo or whatever search engine machine you're using, and you just type in Living Corporate. We're gonna pop up there, okay? Make sure you check out the show notes. Make sure you check out The Winters Group. Check out all the work that they're doing. Shout-out to The Winters Group and all of their incredible work. Shout-out to black women out here holding everybody down per usual. Thank you for all of your work. And shoot, 'til next time, we'll catch y'all. This has been Zach. You've been listening to Mary-Frances Winters, CEO and founder of The Winters Group, leadership, diversity, equity and inclusion consulting firm. Been out here laying the groundwork for y'all, setting legacies, and [they're] probably your favorite consultant's favorite consulting agency, okay? They've been out here. They've been doing the work. 'Til next time. Peace.

Welcome to the June 3 installment of June Tunes with Peggy Graff and Friends. Today's mid-afternoon music break from FUMCFW will feature "Some Days," sung by Choral Union and Adoramus Soprano Section Leader Mary Grim, with music by Steve Marzullo and lyrics by Audra McDonald, based on the poem "Somedays" by James Baldwin. Some Days Some days worry Some days glad Some days More than make you mad. Some days, Some days, more than shine: When you see what's coming On down the line! Some days you say, Oh, not me, never -! Some days you say Bless God forever. Some days, you say, Curse God, and die And the day comes when you wrestle With that lie. Some days tussle Then some days groan And some days Don't even leave a bone. Some days you hassle All alone. I don't know, sister, What I'm saying, Nor do no man, If he don't be praying. I know that love is the only answer And the tight-rope lover The only dancer. When the lover come off the rope today, The net which holds him is how we pray, And not to God's unknown, But to each other -: The falling mortal is our brother!… Source: Musixmatch

SHOW NOTES MAKEUP MONTHLY MAY: * Appreciating what we have * Rediscovering Old Favorites * Self care series *Products I'm testing  * Retinol vs. Retinoic Acid * How to make your makeup mask-proof  *What I'm not loving * New Releases worth discussing RESOURCES: SHOP GLAM LATTE MERCH! Sign up for our weekly newsletter The Glam Latte Youtube Channel Shop my Amazon Favorites Give us all your questions! DM on the gram or Hit us up on the PRIVATE Facebook Group!

This day of the Protecting My Peace series is another day to reminder us to keep visualizing what we want for our lives. Sometimes we look around and if it seems like everyone is doing more than we are in our personal lives or business, then that's it! We throw in the towel. We can't do that. We have to stay with the positive and productive things we're doing even it it seems like we're starting low and not getting anywhere. Don't listen to the noise. Stay focused, because starting low is a good thing. It's foundation-building and it's process-experiencing, which leads to us be able to eventually help others after we get to where we want to go. You get it? What I'm saying is not to despise humble, small, or meager beginnings. Stay encouraged in what God has for you and you will get there in due time. In Sharon's Heart Website In Sharon's Heart Youtube Channel In Sharons' Heart Instagram

Learn how to reinvent your reality and embrace change As we work with our clients during this pandemic, we're noticing a recurring theme. They've figured out how to deal with living at home, working at home and being at home. But now they're beginning to be anxious about what's coming next. It's strange, isn't it, that without a clear vision of the future, it's very hard to live today. In this podcast, I talk about these feelings that so many of us are having, and how this crisis is an excellent time for you to innovate, reinvent your reality, and start doing the things you've been trying to do for a long time. Please listen, learn and share. What is "what's next" going to look like? What I'm calling the "blurry future" is unsettling to us. These are ambiguous times, and humans hate ambiguity. We hate to be between a black box and a white box in that grey space where we are uncertain what is good or bad, right or wrong. Today's ambiguity and constant changes are creating all kinds of stress. The pain of change is, quite simply, painful. Martin Seligman's excellent book, "Homo prospectus," describes how we need to see the future clearly if we're going to leave today...even if the future is an imagined one, because that's the way our brains work. The challenge for us during the COVID-19 crisis is how to do our work today when we're uncertain about what's going to be the new normal, and if the old normal is ever coming back. That's why it may be time to make up that imagined future Seligman talks about. We need a new visualization of the future As humans, we live in a perceptual reality. Our brain takes information and creates a story about it, and that becomes our reality. That story is one that you create. It's your own movie, and the roles you are going to play in that movie are going to change as the story unfolds in unforeseen ways. Since your brain is looking for that movie, why not make up a new one in which you can be a hero. Your staff and customers will have important roles to play too in the future you are creating. (If you want to read more about how to visualize the future, check out Martin Seligman's New York Times op-ed, "We Aren't Built to Live in the Moment." ) It's time to reinvent your reality so you can embrace your future As culture change experts, we always tell our clients that if they want to change, they should have a crisis or create one. Well, that crisis is here. So don't waste it. It is a great time to reinvent your reality and make it work for you, not you for it. In other words, make change your friend.  For more on how to adapt to today's massive changes, start with these Podcast: Andy and Andi Simon—Innovation Games® Are What You Need To Imagine Your Future Blog: Now That You Have Your Crisis, What Do You Change? Blog: Crises Are The Best Times To “Reverse Everything” And Find A Better Way Forward? Additional resources My award-winning book: "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights" Simon Associates Management Consultants website  

What role should LinkedIn play in your overall paid advertising strategy, and how can use it to drive highly qualified leads for your business? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Modern Media Advertising Director Anthony Blatner shares his LinkedIn advertising strategies. From how LinkedIn should be used in combination with other channels as part of a holistic paid advertising strategy, to what ad formats perform best and how to work with your sales team to ensure any leads you get are being followed up with, Anthony covers everything he does to help Modern Media's clients get killer results from LinkedIn. Highlights from my conversation with Anthony include: LinkedIn is great for targeting niche audiences at scale. The cost per click on LinkedIn is higher than it is on other platforms, so it's important that you have a strategy for following up on any leads you get from LinkedIn. In Anthony's experience, LinkedIn ads work well for company's with a customer lifetime value of $10,000 or more. Whereas the cost per click on Facebook is generally around $2, on LinkedIn, it starts at $4.50 and goes up from there. LinkedIn is best for top of the funnel advertising, where you can attract a new audience and then retarget and nurture that audience on other, less expensive platforms. Anthony has found that LinkedIn lead forms work well for his clients. They tend to have a higher conversion rate because prospects don't have to leave LinkedIn to convert, but when you use a lead form, you sacrifice the ability to cookie a contact.  If you are concerned about GDPR compliance, there are a number of ways to use lead forms to secure explicit consent and stay GDPR compliant. Another LinkedIn ad format that works well are newsfeed ads. Whereas on Facebook, video works well for this format, Anthony recommends using images on LinkedIn because you are being charged by the click and not the impression (which is how Facebook works). There is a new LinkedIn ad format that uses chatbot-like functionality called conversation ads that is also worth checking out. Anthony says sponsored InMail can be an effective way to get more conversions for ads that are already tested and proving successful in the newsfeed. With many marketers cutting their ad spend due to budget restrictions relating to COVID, Anthony says the cost per click on LinkedIn is down 30 to 40 percent. He recommends setting a maximum cost per click when advertising on LinkedIn, and then playing around with lowering that number to see how little you can spend and still see results. If you are doing LinkedIn ads and not seeing great results, it is most likely due to your targeting. Anthony recommends that you go back and revisit your targeting strategy to see if that helps.  The minimum number of emails you can target on LinkedIn is 300. Resources from this episode: Visit the Modern Media website Connect with Anthony on LinkedIn Contact Anthony by email at anthony@modernmedia.io  Listen to the podcast to learn how the top LinkedIn ads experts are using the platform to drive leads, and how can, too. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth and today my guest is Anthony Blatner who is the advertising director at Modern Media. Welcome Anthony. Anthony Blatner (Guest): Hey Kathleen. Thanks for having me on the show. Anthony and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting into it with you today, talking about some LinkedIn ads. But before we start, can you please tell my listeners a little bit about yourself and about modern media and about really just how you wound up doing what you're doing today? About Anthony Blatner and Modern Media Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. So modern media, we are a LinkedIn ads focused agency. We do a lot of B2B lead generation and all of our focuses on LinkedIn ads. The way that I got to being here is I actually come at it from the tech and software development world. I originally started my career working at IBM, working on their consulting teams, working on big eCommerce stores. Really enjoyed that, got to travel around a lot. I live in Austin, Texas and I also got involved with the startup community while I was here and ended up falling in love with that. So after a few years at IBM, I spun off to start my own mobile app development consulting company who would build mobile apps for for a variety of other companies, a lot of startups, some other like larger tech companies that we would partner with. And when I was doing that, I saw that we were building all these apps and like some of these companies would actually have startups with build an app and launch and like do very well. And we had a number of clients that went on to get acquired or like Stallard technology. And then we also work with some bigger partners who may have already had a customer network and they launched their app and it goes up to that customer network and does very well out of the gates. Then you would have other companies who would spend all this time and money developing app their software and then they would launch it and without a good marketing plan in place, it would just sit on the app store. No one would download it. And you'd see how much time and effort these teams are putting into this. And without, you know, without that marketing plan afterwards, then it was just, you know, it was dead in the water. So I saw it, I saw the need for it and then we naturally got pulled into doing it, helping out with a lot of those. So from doing marketing for my own agency and for a lot of clients I ended up just really loving the marketing that I was doing, so a few years ago, transitioned to focusing solely on marketing. So now Modern Media focuses on marketing. B2B lead-generation solely using LinkedIn ads. Kathleen: I love how focused you guys are because I mean, I come from an agency background. I owned an agency for 11 years and you know, I think that's the big conversation in the agency community, right? Like it's easy to try to be all things to all people, especially when you're chasing dollars. But there's really something to be said for niching down and becoming, you know, the best expert in the world on the thing that you want to do, you know, and focus on. So I think that's great. Anthony: No, it wasn't easy to get here. You know, it's a lot of trial and error along the way to where getting into the marketing. A lot of the apps that we started by marketing, no, sometimes we did start with like Facebook ads and Google ads. So like I've, I've done a lot of all of that kind of advertising over the years. And just with my background and with the type of clientele we had, LinkedIn was just repeatedly becoming the best platform to market them on. So we had done a lot of Facebook, done a lot of Google. I'll tell you a story of probably the first one that really stuck out for me. They were, they were, this was a company that we were taking on to do marketing. They were at big data, but they are the big data platform. They sell their tools made for enterprise companies. It's like thousands of dollars a year. They were doing the traditional Facebook and Google marketing. But as we audited their account and looked at their lead list, a lot of the leads that were coming in from Google were like people looking for jobs, searching for jobs or students looking for research. And they were, you know, they were following best practices for keywords and negatives and all that stuff, but you still get a lot of leads coming in. And then on Facebook it'd be a lot of people who are maybe clicking on the ad cause it had like a pretty picture in it or something that was attention grabbing. But a lot of those leads that were signing up were just not good fits. Their sales team was complaining that they were wasting a lot of time calling out these people and they just weren't qualified to buy. They didn't have the budgets to buy the software. So we took him over to LinkedIn and you know, targeted like CTOs, data scientists at specific types of companies who would be had the, their platform was made for a few different industries. So chose those industries, chose companies I think like a hundred people and above and just right out the gates. Those leads that were signing up were like the perfect fit for them and they're just like, this is night and day. Like the clear differentiator there. And since then it's just been like, I'm just an advocate of LinkedIn now for, for B2B for these industries that that's our focus now. Who is LinkedIn advertising right for? Kathleen: That's great. Now I feel like when people think about online advertising, they have a lot of choices these days. You mentioned a number of platforms just, and you know, in the last few minutes I guess my first question for you is really who is LinkedIn advertising right for and where does it fit within that big mix of different options? Anthony: That is a good question. That is a very important question to ask. So it's not, it isn't a good fit for everybody. I'll tell you a few things about it is LinkedIn is great for targeting niche decision makers at scale. It is a more expensive ads platform to use than a lot of the other ones out there. So it's good for companies that have the resources to go work those leads that they acquire. It's going to be more expensive to acquire those leads than like most other channels. So, you know, they're higher value leads need to work them when people are signing up. It is more expensive to acquire them. So you, your offer, your LTV for your customers should be high enough to make sense. What we'd like to see is an LTV of about 10k for that ROI to make sense. You know, if your sales and marketing engine is very honed in, you can be less than that and still make an ROI. But that's a good rule of thumb. If you're on Facebook ads, you can get CPCs under a buck, you know, they might be a dollar to $2 on average. On LinkedIn the minimum is about $4.50 in the US so right out of the gate, that's their floor and you're just going up from there. And if you're targeting CEO's only, you know, that's gonna be even higher than that. So just be prepared for higher acquisition costs. And that leads to how it fits in with the ecosystem. LinkedIn is great for starting the conversation and for acquiring very high quality traffic. Once you acquire it, you know, you want to then nurture it on other cheaper channels or more cost efficient channels. So once somebody signs up to be a lead, you know, follow up over email, outbound calling oftentimes we retarget with Facebook and Google ads. So we acquired traffic on LinkedIn and then well, retarget on Facebook and Google because it's a lot cheaper. And you know, retarget those ads, retarget those leads to, we're doing lead generation on LinkedIn, and then retargeting them to maybe book a call on Facebook or Google. Kathleen: Got it. So it sounds like from what you're saying, focused lists you know, not kind of throwing a bunch of darts at the wall and hoping one sticks. It's like if you know exactly who you want to target and you have some good targeting parameters around whether that's job title, what have you, and then the budget to be able to support a larger, potentially larger per lead ad spend the team in place to follow up on those leads. And then really from an expectation standpoint, using it at the top of the funnel. Understanding LinkedIn ad formats Kathleen: So then knowing that if somebody is listening and they're thinking, okay, check, check, check, you know, all of these things I have, can you talk a little bit about LinkedIn ad formats and what you find performs really well? So like, what do you need to have in order to advertise effectively on LinkedIn? Anthony: Yeah, so a few things. So approaching the LinkedIn campaign is a few things and I'll kind of tell you about our most common campaign we'll do for people is a lead generation campaign on LinkedIn using lead magnets. So a lead magnet is some asset of value that your target market would be interested in. So a guide, a PDF, a checklist or something like that. Linkedin, like I said, this is starting a conversation with somebody, your target market. So offering people guides and easy downloadables is the best way to start the conversation to get them interested. Most, you know, unless you're a major brand, most people have not heard about your company. So leading with like buy now or contact us isn't gonna do as well. We're gonna have a much higher cost per lead. So on LinkedIn use lead magnets to start. As far as ad formats, we do often use the LinkedIn lead forms. They will auto-populate with the person's information. So the lead form is a little form when you click on the ad that'll open up right inside of LinkedIn, just like a Facebook lead form. They work very similarly. But on LinkedIn you can auto fill that with information from the user's profile and it comes with information from your profile. While you know on Facebook it's usually personal email addresses. In LinkedIn you do get number of personal email addresses, but you also get like work email addresses as well. I find that data quality is very high coming off of LinkedIn. And we also often use like job title and company name so we know who are these leads that are signing up. Or using the LinkedIn profile. You are also going to look up those leads afterwards and you know that that gives you a lot, a lot more richer information about your lead. So you can see, okay, who is this person, where do they work? And understand, you know, understand where your leads are coming from. Usually, you're setting those targeting criteria up front. So you know, people coming into your campaign are going to be part of that audience. But our average campaign or our most helpful one is, is using the LinkedIn lead forms, your lead generation offering a lead magnets to, to your audience. Kathleen: So this is an interesting topic to me because I've heard this, that lead forms are more effective than trying to get somebody to like go to your website and convert. But I guess my question is really if you're using a lead form, What are you sacrificing? I use HubSpot and so I can't, if I use a lead form, I can't cookie somebody. If I can't cookie them, then I am giving up the ability to see all that rich data about their behavior on my site, et cetera and things like that. But then you had mentioned also using LinkedIn leads or ads rather to then retarget those people on other platforms. Can you do that if you're using a lead form? Because at that point, you're not having a tracking pixel firing on your website. Anthony: Right. At that point we retarget based on the email. Kathleen: Okay. So if, but if there... Anthony: You lose some data you know, that is, it is different than going to the landing page and opting in. So we do often use both, but most common is using the lead forms. The conversion rate is just much higher. Typically using the lead forms the quantity you're going to get is going to make sense. You will see a lower conversion rate for pushing people to your landing page. But I do say, you know, there are times where maybe you don't have the sales team available to call all those leads. So it is more important for you to get fewer, more higher intent leads. And then at that point maybe a landing page is a better one for you to use. Because we do have accounts where like, you know, if they have a large budget they can be driving a lot of leads through there. And if you don't have the sales team to contact all those leads, like, Hey, I'd rather have higher intent leads. So landing page opt ins would then be better with them. LinkedIn ads and GDPR compliance Kathleen: Yeah. Now the other question I have about lead forms is, it relates to GDPR. So if you're driving somebody to your site, you have a lot of control. If you're trying to be GDPR compliant, you have a lot of control over how you structure, you know, your opt-ins and your GDPR language, et cetera. I don't have a lot of experience with LinkedIn lead forms. So can you talk a little bit about, if somebody is trying to adhere to GDPR, can they use LinkedIn lead forms and if so, what kind of control do you have over being able to document that opt-in? Anthony: Yeah good question. So we haven't seen too many issues with that on LinkedIn. Two things with lead form that you can include is number one, you were actually required to include a link to the company's privacy policy. So usually you use the privacy policy which will cover, you know, all those terms. You can also include a little blurb at the bottom of the lead form. Anything else that you want to make clear to the user as they're signing up. So those two inputs as far as that we usually get involved, you know, we're, we'll use the privacy policy from the company. And any other information on the lead form that needs to be, Kathleen: So am I correct that there's no explicit checkbox built in that would say, for example, I agree to receive other communications from company X, Anthony: You can add a custom checkbox to do that. Kathleen: You can, okay. Okay. So that would presumably then solve that issue if somebody was really being strict about how they complied with GDPR? Yeah. Great. When should you use a LinkedIn lead form? Kathleen: So yes, there's this trade off then with lead ads and it sounds like it's important to understand your goals. What I'm hearing, or at least what I'm taking away from what you said, is that if your intent is to really have a laser focus on your certain market or your leads that you want to attract and, and your goal if they do convert is to really follow up with a phone call from your sales team, then it doesn't really matter if you're driving them to your website and having them fill out a form because the goal is to get the sales team call them and or, and, or reach out by email. And so, you know, having a lead form would make sense there. But then it sounds like if your goal is to either put them into, you know, a full funnel nurturing sequence where you're retargeting on Facebook or something or where you're going to do mass emails then maybe it might make sense to not use a lead form and instead to direct them to a form on your site. Is that accurate, would you say? Anthony: Yeah, we've got the best results that we see are when we, when we use lead forms to drive the higher volume of leads and then the client usually has a sales team who's on top of those leads right away calling them, you know, it's like they say like the five minute after submission rules, like the best practice, you know, contact them soon afterwards. But five minutes is very fast. But if it, Hey, if you're on top of your leads, call them right away. Like, that's where we should have the best results. The sales team do work those leads. If someone signed up, they've indicated interest and if you position your lead magnet the right way, then they should be very open to like a sales conversation or at least that introductory like discovery. Hey, how can we help you in conversation Kathleen: Do you give your clients any coaching as far as how to follow up on those leads? Because I think the one thing I've noticed is that there can, there's the potential for a big mismatch. Like somebody fills out a form on LinkedIn to get a white paper there. They might not be expecting to get a phone call. So how do you advise your clients to follow up? Anthony: Yes, good question. So LinkedIn is great for starting the conversation. It is top of funnel. Be aware that these leads, this is probably the first time that they're seeing your company, they probably opted in to get your lead magnet. So yeah, I kind of joke about the five minute rule thing. I would say that it's very fast to contact them at the point where they have just for the first time seeing your logo and heard about your company. They probably haven't even come to it, had time to read that lead magnet yet. So I, you know, I don't say within five minutes, contact them soon. But you know, some of it is like you want that lead magnet to help do some of the education and warming up with them. It might take a little bit of time for somebody to receive that email, to click through to read it or to receive that email and then go read it. And then yeah, follow up with them, have them on an email sequence, follow up with them shortly after that and then have the retargeting funnel in place. So that's you know, if they sign up via email, if they click through and pixel them, then you can retarget them with ads afterwards. So we do recommend like a multi-channel approach afterwards as many touch points as you can, you know, shortly afterwards, while while it is still top of mind for them. And then there's a lot that goes into the lead magnet strategy as far as, you know, how do I pick the best asset? How do I create the best asset that's going to work here? For companies and brands and topics, services, that's they are, that are, it's like the levels of awareness thing pyramid. If they are not very aware of what your solution is and you work that you want to focus on their pain points and make the topic about them. If they are more aware, maybe if you are a well known brand and maybe you can make the topic about yourself if there's something that they're interested in. So for lower levels of awareness, keep in mind that this is the part of the first time the senior company. So that call, the way I coach people about that call is that needs to be very introductory, very discovery. How can we help you get focused? Other LinkedIn ad formats Kathleen: Yeah, that makes sense. Now we talked a lot about lead ads. Can you talk through what are some of the other ad format options on LinkedIn and for each of them, you know, when would you use it and, and how does it generally perform? Anthony: Sure. so the next, so as far as specific ad units in the newsfeed, so that's a sponsored content and you have image ads and you have a video ad there, you also carousel ads. And they work just like Facebook carousel ads essentially. We actually start with image ads most of the time. So I know, you know, on Facebook everyone's about video and like video performance better on LinkedIn to start, we often, we always start with, we almost always start with image ads in the beginning because we find on LinkedIn you're usually paying per click. Whereas on Facebook, usually paying costs, CPM by impression. So on LinkedIn you want to reduce the chance of any irrelevant clicks to your ads. So that in one way that is don't be misleading. You know, on Facebook people tend to be very curiosity invoking of like drawing the click in. That could be flashy videos, that could be vague copy that's just curiosity invoking. On LinkedIn you want to be very direct about what's what it is you're offering, who you are, who you're targeting because you don't want people to just curiosity click, okay, Kathleen: You're paying for that. Yeah, that's an expensive click. Especially when five bucks is your minimum. You could have bought yourself a latte at Starbucks. Anthony: So, we're usually starting with image ads because you can instantly, somebody can consume images rather than watching a video. We usually find, to start, videos tend to be flashy and like eye catching and they draw the click more often. So in the beginning we see images perform better. And then once you prove your audience, which audience you should be split testing a number of audiences, once you prove which audience is the best, which ad angle, which imagery is the best, then we can then go turn that into a video or create a video similar to that. And then, at that point we do see often video can outperform images. So in in the newsfeed you have images, video next format that we most commonly use is probably sponsored InMail. Sponsored InMail can be great. It can be expensive as well. So it's mostly InMail charges you per send. I think the minimum 5 cents per send. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it is a lot when you add it up over the size of an audience. Sponsored InMail is great because we do see very high open rates of those messages. Keep in mind a lot of people that are opening those are probably just clearing out the notification. So the offers that work best in sponsored InMail are the ones that are like the, if you have a very appealing offer. So usually we'll start by testing in the newsfeed and if an ad does very well there, then we will take that and go turn into a sponsored InMail ad. Because if it's performing really well in the newsfeed then that means the offer's proven and that we can go take and put in as much with InMail. Sponsored InMail, you know, it's a one, it seems like a one on one conversation and if it's like, if it feels like a personal offer that you're making to somebody usually, you know, sometimes offer a free consultation there or like free gifts there are, do, do better. But it's, it's a good ad format to try out. Next, Linkedin just released conversation ads, which are kind of the next evolution of sponsored email ads. This gets more to be more chat bot like so we do see LinkedIn does follow. It's tends to follow Facebook and a lot of different ways. And you know, we've seen how Facebook has evolved with the last few years. We've seen Facebook Lives, we've seen chat bots and stuff like that. Linkedin is kind of following along the same steps. Kathleen: So can you actually explain how that would work? Cause I haven't seen that at all. I'm super curious about it. The chatbots. Anthony: So it's not, it's not a chatbot, but I think LinkedIn's on their way to getting more towards this. But conversation ads, you will create a chat flow. So instead of just a sponsored InMail message that you send to somebody, it is similar to that. You send the message, but then they have a few options that they can choose from and you can create a, a tree from there. So that if somebody clicks on option a, you know, essentially you can offer them multiple different things in the app. So the reason why we've seen performance improve from it, because you can offer people, you can make multiple offers, Kathleen: Right? It's like a choose your own adventure kind of a thing. Now, does that appear as a direct message in their inbox or how does that appear? Anthony: Yes. Kathleen: Interesting. I haven't seen that. I'm going to have to now search for it, find it in the wild. So, so many different options. Who is finding success with LinkedIn ads? Kathleen: I know you work with a lot of clients. Can you share any examples of, you know, campaigns or companies that you've worked with who are using LinkedIn ads really successfully? Anthony: Sure. so right now, well, just in general the HR space always does very well on LinkedIn. So I'd say for any space, any campaigns that I would highlight, like it's probably gonna be an HR campaign. The biggest categories on LinkedIn are like, I think IT is number one. And I think HR is number two, and then it's like the rest of the tech software world and then like financial services. So if you're in one of those categories, those are the biggest audiences. So those are probably gonna be great campaigns for LinkedIn. I'm always surprised when somebody gives me a very niche audience to target how many people I'm able to find on LinkedIn. So, and pretty much any niche decision maker, any niche B2B targeting, go scope out what the audience sizes. And I'm always surprised how many people I can find in the different niches. But to highlight any campaigns, HR, I'd say just in the last, especially in the last couple months since we've all been quarantined and at home, the HR category has been very active on LinkedIn. So not only have ad prices gone way down the last few weeks, they're down about like 30 to 40% in a lot of cases. Kathleen: Now, I've heard that. I've heard that also for Facebook. And is that on LinkedIn? Is that because basically so many companies have cut their marketing spend and so the demand side if you will, has gone down Anthony: Exactly. LinkedIn is an auction, just like Facebook. Kathleen: Yup. Okay. Anthony: So less, well, it's a combination of less advertisers and then also more eyeballs. Supply and demand there where we're all stuck at home. So everyone's spending a lot more time online. Kathleen: Yeah, I've heard, I've heard a ton of people say they're spending way more time on LinkedIn these days. How to structure your bidding strategy for LinkedIn ads Anthony: A random tip is I always recommend bidding max CPC. Do not use auto-bid on LinkedIn because you just, you say go spend wherever you want it and LinkedIn will go whatever it wants. Set max CPCs for most of your campaigns. We've noticed that we can drop that max CPC all the way down, nearly all the way down to the floor. Each audience in each geography has its own floor so go test in the tool and see what yours is, but we dropped it nearly down to the floor for a lot of campaigns and I'm seeing cost per lead improve a lot. Kathleen: Wow. That's awesome. Okay, so sorry, I interrupted you. You were talking about examples and you talked about HR. Any particular campaigns that you can think of that have done really well lately? Examples of successful LinkedIn ad campaigns Anthony: Yeah, so there's two very specific HR ones I'm thinking about right now that, especially in the last few weeks, that they've done very well. I mentioned how like lead magnet strategy is very important. They both release lead magnets that speak to kind of what's going on right now, how to hire in tough times and how to support your people during tough times. And, you know, COVID messaging might be getting stale now, but especially over the last couple of months, it's been performing super well. So where they were traditionally between a 40 to $60 cost per lead, they're down below $30 per lead. And then the other campaign, they were a little bit more cause they were targeting a higher level of HR people. And they're down below 50 bucks per lead. So yeah, we've seen lead costs like almost cut in half in a lot of cases. And just like HR activities, you know, through the roof. So those ones have done really well. Attracting high quality leads on LinkedIn Kathleen: And then would you say the quality of the leads - I know you mentioned doing almost the opposite approach from Facebook where you're trying not to be click baity cause you're paying by the click. And I'm interested specifically, because you talked about one example that was targeting very senior level people. That's an audience that's usually really hard to get in front of. So can you talk a little bit about what your experience has been if somebody is going after like a C level audience, what are some good tips for being successful with that on LinkedIn? Anthony: Absolutely. That's why you use LinkedIn. Cause a lot of these upper level people, there's just no other place or way to target them without, without buying an email list. Yeah, there's no other place. Linkedin is the best place with that kind of data at scale. And LinkedIn's always the first place that people update their profile when they get a new job or get a promotion. So it's very high quality data and that's the only place, a lot of times, you'll see these people. As far as targeting goes, the LinkedIn audience approach is the opposite of Facebook, I guess. Again, with Facebook you give it, you know, you tend to give it a big audience and you let the AI algorithm go find the best people for you and that audience. On LinkedIn you want to do the opposite because, because you are paying cost per click, you want to exclude any irrelevant ones. So you want to be very niche, very laser focused on who you want to target. As far as lead quality goes, you know, you're setting up your targeting in the beginning. What are the job titles I want, what are the functions with the seniorities? So if you're not getting those leads, the right leads coming through your funnel, go back to your targeting and tweak that up. You don't usually have a problem with lead quality. The quality is always clients. It's always funny, like a client that has run Facebook ads in the past and like, we'll have like our lead tracker set up and they'll see the job titles and company names coming in and they're just like, perfect, perfect, perfect. And sometimes we'll get feedback of like, Oh, this title was a little bit off maybe because you said this, so let's go add this exclusion and then we'll go work that back in. But, well, yeah you know, if your leads that come through on LinkedIn aren't a great fit, then just tweak your targeting a little bit. But you can set the specific job titles in specific industries and company size you want. So lead quality is usually awesome. What is the minimum audience size for a LinkedIn ad? Kathleen: Yeah. now one of the things I've always been interested in and I feel like it's changed, what is the minimum audience size that you can target on LinkedIn because there are some crazy opportunities with LinkedIn ads. I love the idea of you're submitting a proposal to do something for a company and how few people can you target in that company with your ad? Anthony: 300 is the minimum. It Is a little bit bigger of a minimum than Facebook. I want to say Facebook is a hundred for a minimum. So in two cases is yes, it is hard to be that laser targeted in some cases. It's also a challenge when you want to retarget cause if you are building a lead list, you're gonna have to wait until you have at least 300 leads to go retarget them using the email method. So maybe a simple alternative that is go connect with those people on LinkedIn and send them a message via your chat. Anthony's tips for anyone getting started with LinkedIn ads Kathleen: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Well, what tips do you have if somebody is listening and they're thinking they want to get started with LinkedIn ads? Is there anything you wish you knew that would have helped you avoid some mistakes? Anthony: Hmm. Anything that I wish I knew. So I have a number of tips that I usually talk about, so I'll give some of those. Well I'd say the biggest thing I wish, like even if I would have told myself this a year ago I probably wouldn't have listened, is don't ask for too much information from your lead in the beginning. You know, you're starting the conversation. They don't have any reason to trust you yet. Keep it as minimal as possible. And that's going to maximize your conversion rate. You know, I go check out a lot of their ads just because I'm always interested to see, what are they advertising? What are they asking for? What does the lead form look like? I opened some of these companies' lead forms. I'm just like, you have seven imports.Is anybody submitting this form? Questions and stuff like that. I'm like, I should reach out to you and be like, Hey, I know your cost per lead is terrible. Do you want some help? That's the biggest thing is these people don't know you. They don't have any reason to trust you yet. Only ask for the information you need, which is usually like email address to send them the guide and then continue the conversation from there. Various other tips. I'd say the image thing is a big one. We get a lot of people who wanted to just have a folder of videos and like let's use these. Let's start with images first and then get those converting and then move to video afterwards. Some other tips are I mentioned the don't auto-bid. Start with max CPC and bid low and then crank it up slowly until you find the sweet spot. Short and direct copy usually works the best. So now on Facebook, a lot of people write these long copy and a lot of emojis and stuff like that. Short copy tends to do best. Keep it shorter than about 150 characters and won't trigger the "see more" button. Most people don't click the "see more" button. I'm kind of, I advocate in both cases where you want your CTA, you want it to be standalone above the "see more". If somebody doesn't click the "see more" it should still be just as appealing. But for the people that do click the "see more", here's a tip that clicking the "see more" button does not charge you. So there's no harm in having more copy than the rest of your ad for the people that do click that "see more" button. So split test both short and long. I do say, I will say we do see shorter, usually performs better. But there is usually no downside to having more copy there. Kathleen: And then with images, I know Facebook has a limitation of how much copy can you have on your image? Are there any limitations like that in LinkedIn? Anthony: Nope. Actually we use a lot more copy and images. Kathleen: Okay. And then the other thing I've heard with Facebook is that you should have a very active page where you're posting often to sort of like warm up your audience, which I think is interesting cause I feel like nobody ever sees any Facebook page posts, but that's a different conversation for another time. So do you ever, what kind of advice do you give people regarding their LinkedIn company page? Not their ads, but the page itself as far as how that should be used to support a good LinkedIn ad strategy? Anthony: Yeah, good question. So you want to have the basics covered. LinkedIn company pages people tend to have more, more connections and more followers on their personal page. So I'd say put most of your focus there, but you know, if you are running a company page, you should have that company page fully filled out. It should look nice and professional and polished and it should have some activity on there. If you were gonna go hire a social media person to manage your profile, I'd say have them manage your personal profile because you'll have more activity there. Because you have more connections in your personal than typically a company page. But have all the information filled out, have good imagery there, have all your links filled out. And then, to bring back the lead magnets again, a lot of times in the headline or in the about section of the body copy, I recommend putting that called to action there. Download our guide. And while that link won't be explicitly clickable, we do see a lot of people will copy and paste it. Make it a simple URL. Mydomain.com/guide and then they'll go there and get it. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: That makes sense. Great. Well, shifting gears I have two questions. I always ask my guests and I'd love to hear what you have to say. First one is, is there a particular company or individual that you think is really killing it right now with inbound marketing? Anthony: So the company that has been advertising to me the most is outreach.io. So they're a pretty well known company out there, but they just, they must spend a lot on their ads because every time I log into LinkedIn I see them there and I'm always like, that's a good ad. I like that ad. So I'd say that they do a very good job. I think I've probably signed up for a few of their lead magnets because I always scope out what other people are doing. Their content's good and their ads are good quality. And if I was to give people any tip, it's you can go see the ads run by any LinkedIn page out there just like you can on Facebook by going to that company page. On the left hand side, on desktop, there's a little navigation bar on the bottom it says ads and it'll show you those, the ads being run by that company page. So for whatever your industry is, go scope out what your competitors are doing and maybe similar offerings are new. Kathleen: That's a great suggestion. Second question, marketers tend to have a common pain point, which is that so much is changing so quickly. LinkedIn is a great example. I feel like just when you feel like, you know how it works, something big changes and it's, you know, you almost have to start over. How do you personally stay up to date and keep yourself educated about Anthony: In the world of digital marketing? For LinkedIn specifically? I'd say I see there's not much content out there about LinkedIn ads. So the surprising thing, like as I've learned this over the years there's so much out there about, about Facebook and Google ads, like the huge communities and stuff like that, of courses, everything. There's not much about LinkedIn ads. So I've gotten the most by joining a number of different groups and like asking questions to people there and like, and like, just like working one on one with other people who are active advertisers. Kathleen: Any particular groups that come to mind? Anthony: LinkedIn Official Advertisers, a group on LinkedIn. That's a group on LinkedIn. Yeah. I have a small one that I started recently. It's called, this is on Facebook, LinkedIn advertising strategies. Kathleen: And you said that is or is not on Facebook? Anthony: That is on Facebook. Yeah. Okay. Got it. LinkedIn groups overall are still, Kathleen: Yeah, they've kind of like died on the vine a little bit. Anthony: I hope that they put more effort or like, you know, improve them because I think there's a lot of potential. Like we've seen how Facebook has put so much focus on groups and how they've been, like a number of groups that I'm in are super active and super valuable. I hope that it does the same there. Kathleen: So yeah, I was going to ask you about that. It's funny, I'm glad you brought it up cause it is, it used to be so great and then it just, was it just, Ugh. I mean I don't spend any time in LinkedIn groups these days, but I used to spend a ton. How to connect with Anthony Kathleen: So okay, well we're coming to the top of our time. So if somebody is interested in learning more or they want to reach out to you and ask a question, what is the best way for them to connect with you? Anthony: So the best way to connect with me is on LinkedIn. I think I'm the only Anthony Blatner on there. So go look me up. Connect with me and send me a little message in the add now and the add connection requests because we all get tons of them. You can find me at my email is anthony@modernmedia.io and then our website's modernmedia.io. If you're looking to learn more about LinkedIn ads or understand strategy, I have tried to put out a lot of content as I've learned over the past few years, knowing that there's not much out there. I've tried to put out more content to share with others. So we have a number of blog posts about funnel strategy, lead generation strategy and then specifically LinkedIn ads, tips and best practices. We got one about lead magnets and then we have one about all the tips around copy and creative. What works the best. You know what to do next... Kathleen: Awesome. Well, I'll put those links in the show notes so that people can go check that out. And if you're listening and you have learned something new today, which I certainly have, head to Apple Podcasts and please consider leaving the podcast a five star review. That's how other folks find us. And if you know somebody else who's doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me @workmommywork, because I would love to make them my next guest. Thank you so much, Anthony. This was great. Anthony: Thanks for having me.

Do you know when it comes to protecting our peace, there are ways we can remain peaceful even if we mess up? Yes, it's true. When we drop the ball and fall short we can take time to reflect about what we could have done differently. I had to do that yesterday when I messed up during an engagement I had, but I decided to consult God, first. I owed it, then I made the decision to focus on what I should have done in the first place. That's what I'm working on now and great things are coming out of it. What I'm saying is that we don't have to make it a big deal when we disappoint ourselves. We can use any mishap as an opportunity for growth and new developments. In Sharon's Heart Website In Sharon's Heart YouTube Channel In Sharon's Heart Instagram

Summary: On this episode of COMMERCE NOW we will discuss how DN can help FI’s adapt and provide new – or maybe not so new technologies to help with how consumer behavior is changing.   Supporting Content: Registration Link for COVID-19 upcoming May 20th Webinar COVID 19 Landing page Diebold Nixdorf Website Transcription: Jeff Bender:                       00:08                     Well, this is Jeff Bender. I'll be your host for today's episode of COMMERCE NOW. We really are living in some unprecedented times right now, and the longterm impacts of COVID-19 on consumer behavior and the financial services industry in general are truly unknown. We do know that both consumers and the FIs do you want to get back to business and the FIs doing everything that they can to make sure they're helping their customers adapt to what will be this new normal in terms of consumer behavior, whatever that might actually look like. So, today I'm joined by Simon Powley who leads our Diebold Nixdorf Global Advisory Consultant Services organization, as well as Heather Gibbons, who leads our US Regional Software and Services organization. Jeff Bender:                       00:57                     And on this episode, we'll discuss how DN is helping financial institutions adapt and provide new, or maybe even not so new technologies to address these changes in consumer behavior. So with that, Heather, Simon, welcome and thank you for joining us today. Simon Powley:                  01:10                     [crosstalk 00:01:12]. Heather Gibbons:            01:10                     Thanks for [crosstalk 00:01:12]. Jeff Bender:                       01:12                     Heather I [inaudible 00:01:13] the first question to you. The current situation, obviously, a lot of [inaudible 00:01:18] were shutdowns. We see that there's desire for consumers to social distance, not interact in person as much. And in some cases, obviously government is restricting the ability to actually interact in person as much. So how do you see FIs being able to maintain meaningful connections with those consumers through this pandemic and in a post COVID world? Heather Gibbons:            01:38                     Thanks Jeff. Today, we're seeing consumers and retailers across industries modify the way they're doing business. Just as you mentioned, if I even look at how I grocery shop today versus two months ago, I can guarantee that I won't fully go back to the way I did pre-COVID-19. This isn't to say that face to face or retail in-store in the cases of financial institutions and branch transactions, won't take place in the future, but more and more consumers are going to now be more comfortable using technology. And they're also going to realize that some transactions can be done in a more convenient and efficient way than maybe they were before. For financial institutions, this translates to bridging the physical and digital divide, looking at how different consumer endpoints can work better together. I often reference how Amazon and Kohl's teamed up when speaking with customers, because it's really about the physical and the digital coming together and joining forces. Heather Gibbons:            02:35                     In this case, it was for Amazon returns and it makes it much easier, much more convenient. You can pre-stage everything on your mobile device or through online. The same can really hold true. When you look at consumers and small business journeys for financial institutions. If you take a closer look at both of those journey maps, I believe it will really lead to more core integration for better data sharing, access to more information. It's also going to lead to face-to-face interaction through video, and basically a more personalized approach while increasing the types of transactions at the self service devices and through online and mobile. Simon Powley:                  03:14                     Yeah, I would agree with that, Jeff, this is Simon. I think there's a lot of different things going on. I think Heather said it very well. What we're seeing around social distancing is many of the same things that retailers are doing in terms of spacing out people in their branches, certainly monitoring their ability to come in various ways, even taking their temperatures in some cases. And so, that's not the best way to establish a meaningful connection to [inaudible 00:03:37] point. So, when you look at that, I think that there's a real focus on moving the horizon forward, so to speak in terms of digital capabilities and technology. We've done a lot of research on this and people really want to and prefer to transact digitally and interact physically. And so that's been the primary role of the branches to provide those services that can't be done digitally, such as the meaningful conversations about wealth management or taking an in depth look at financial aspects of their life. Simon Powley:                  04:07                     That's done more in a conversation and when we're having this, and we're beginning to see the changes here over the years, and it depends on the financial institution. The large providers, the Bank of America, the Chase of the world have really led this kind of charge. And now it's really come down to the regional banks to really look at how they want to change and interact with their value proposition and to do that, they have to make their digital channels work better and educate their employees on how to use these and how to educate their customers on those. And we've seen a lot of interesting things happen with COVID such as texting customers links to their mobile sites or tutorials on how to leverage their mobile capabilities or their online capabilities so that they can interact or places to find their most convenient ATM machine to get cash or make a deposit. Simon Powley:                  04:57                     And we're seeing adoption being driven to those customers that maybe you didn't see value, or maybe they were laggards in technology, so to speak. They're now seeing more and more interest and leveraging these digital channels in new and creative ways. So, I think there's going to have to be continued education. And then I also see a re-inventing of marketing. I think the marketing capabilities that a lot of financial institutions have invested in are brilliant, very targeted ads. Sometimes we're even as far as [inaudible 00:05:25] based, being able to specifically target offers, that's really resonates with their particular customers, which is a really good experience for them and allows them to learn more about their products and services. We're going to continue to see that evolve and they're using it for messaging now on terms and information about COVID, how to protect themselves, but also messaging on which branches are open or how they're shortening their hours. Simon Powley:                  05:46                     So those kinds of messaging. So you're going to see those kinds of interactions begin to really change where they can continue to drive their value proposition in a meaningful and convenient way for their customers in a digital channel. Jeff Bender:                       06:00                     Well, that makes a lot of sense. And so Simon, how do you see that actually translating to the small business space as well? Is there a role that technology is playing there in relationship with the small business owners? Simon Powley:                  06:11                     Well, sure. I'll tell you what we do know. The first is that small business owners are really the highest users of branches and are very what we'd call branch dependent on that. So they come in more often than a consumer would and in many cases that's weekly. On average, small businesses spend over an hour per week transacting in a branch. And in the same time, less than 80% of them have a dedicated relationship manager for their business and only 13% of them are really truly satisfied with their financial institution in terms of their offerings and capabilities to support them. So, there's a lot of opportunity for financial institutions specifically with small businesses. And they've got to cope with that in a number of ways. First, I think Heather talked about the journey mapping that's really gone on in the consumer space. That same rigor has not been done within the small business journey mapping. Simon Powley:                  07:03                     And so, the first thing financial institutions have to look at is, how are they going to define their journey maps and what can they do to alleviate their business rules and make it more conducive for them to be able to use automation to make their deposits, withdraws. They need faster access to their cash, they don't want their cash cycle disrupted. And in many cases right now, technology does that for them. And so, how do they change their interactions with their small business customer to be able to make that more consumer friendly or more like their consumer journeys. And so, access to those cash from the business rules, locations to be able to generate more activity in those particular cases. In many cases, the hardware now is being made with a deeper throat, so to speak. So more bills can go in there to help with those journey capabilities. Software capabilities need to be able to keep up with that, to ensure that both hardware and software work together to make these journeys a little bit easier for them. Simon Powley:                  08:02                     So I think that the ATM will be a viable road. I think we'll see more cardless cash activities or pre-staging transactions, so employees can interact with those a little bit easier. And what that will really do is allow banks to repurpose their staff in the branches to be able to help them with their financial needs, such as business lending. PPP was a big change and a big process given to banks in a very short amount of time to try to react to. That's going to create different relationships with their small business customer. So, freeing up that FTE to allow them to have those deep conversations is really, really important as well as changing those business rules and enabling technology and hardware for making those checks and cash deposits in a more efficient way. Jeff Bender:                       08:48                     Very interesting. So competition is changing on all levels and it presents both a threat and an opportunity. Simon Powley:                  08:54                     Yes. Jeff Bender:                       08:55                     Heather, anything you would want to add to that? Heather Gibbons:            08:57                     Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. I think I probably just add a little bit to what Simon mentioned around journey mapping, because I do think it's really critical, which is one of the reasons why I had kind of mentioned it earlier. What we see more and more our financial institutions have a really strong focus on consumer experience. And I think just making sure to remember that small businesses is just another segment of consumer experience that they need to really look at, what I do think is interesting is a lot of times those two groups are looked at very separately. Where I think if you started to try to bring them together a bit more, you'll see that you can utilize a lot of the same technology to do the things that Simon just went through. And really when you look at those different types of business rules that I think you can get a much greater return on investment if you're looking at both groups at the same time and utilizing the technology to be able to do that. Heather Gibbons:            09:53                     And Simon even mentioned one really good example of that is the pre-stage transactions. It's not a secret, my family owns a small business so, I kind of see what they go through on a day to day basis. And small business has the words [inaudible 00:10:08] it because it's one of the biggest things that they have to consider because they just don't have the resources that other organizations have. And they want to be able to do things remotely, do them much more quickly, do them in a much more efficient way. These are the types of things that really help out small business owners, because they're just busy trying to handle their customers and their day to day operations that they have. Heather Gibbons:            10:32                     Interestingly enough, when I kind of look at it from that perspective, to me financial institutions with COVID-19 are now kind of finding themselves with some of the same concerns as small businesses. Limited resources, they need to have virtual access to services, to data, along with really reprioritizing the need to transform how they conduct business and really serve their customers on a day to day basis. And I think the key to all of that really comes around automation and doing that through technology. So that's where again, we get into these concepts of CRM integration, core integration, looking at recycling cash at the self service devices to be able to give more access to it for both consumers and in small businesses. Jeff Bender:                       11:21                     And Heather, how does that translate to the roadmap? I know you're in front of customers a lot, you and your entire organization. What are you hearing from them right now in terms of how that's impacting the areas in which they're investing today? Heather Gibbons:            11:34                     I would say we're having more and more customers that are looking at the ATM channel a little bit differently. This is something that every time we go talk to customers, we straight up ask them, how do you look at the ATM channel? Do you look at it as a strategic end point or do you kind of look at it as a necessary evil, you just it to dispense cash and be available at all times. And other than that, you don't see maybe as much use for the channel. What we're seeing with all of this as self service and being able to do things remotely or through digital channels is really having them look at it as a critical connection point between the physical and the digital channels. It's becoming much more important to them. And they're trying to think of ways that they can utilize it maybe a little bit differently than the ways they have in the past. And also look at what they're going to do with it in the future. Heather Gibbons:            12:26                     We're seeing many FIs that are going back to the drawing board, looking at their strategic initiatives, kind of doing sanity checks on those. In some cases they're reprioritizing or speeding up some of the projects that they were maybe looking at for the future and other cases they're revisiting solutions or options they once had passed on. Video, core integration, marketing are all really good examples of that. Simon Powley:                  12:51                     Yeah, I would agree with everything Heather said. What I'm seeing again is moving that horizon forward. I think that the need for technology has never been stronger. I think COVID is proved that out even to FIs that felt like maybe their value proposition wasn't to leverage technology in the way that they're now being forced to, or their customers need to. We're seeing a couple of different things. I'd kind of formated three different buckets. One is what's happening now? From now is what are financial institutions can do and what can they do in a very short amount of time and realistically purchase and implement, to be able to move their financial instance forward and to make this happen, maybe even faster for them than what they expected. And those are low hanging fruit, like deposit automation, right? Teller automation, those kinds of things, or video that Heather talked about. Rather, those are the things that we can implement very, very quickly for a customer and make that come to life for them in a very, very quick period of time. And then on the roadmap, it comes kind of what's next? Simon Powley:                  13:50                     And so next is okay, what are the things that we need to put on the roadmap? It may take a little bit longer than six months for us to be able to completely implement and design due to capacity, or what have you. And then, that's really the core integration. Things that really bring all of these things to life. Certainly the cardless and the contact is there or the recycling. And that's really where I think small business fits into that as well as how do we really gear up and get the functionality ready to go so we can implement that. And then finally, I'd say is then what? What's kind of on the longer term roadmap and what do we put out there and how does that change based upon COVID and that's more as a service models or open banking, digital integration with specialists. Those kinds of things that really need to be done, but you have to of course stagger these things for financial institutions. So, I would say those three buckets are kind of what we're seeing financial institutions reposition as. Jeff Bender:                       14:40                     Oh, that makes sense. Simon Powley:                  14:40                     Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jeff Bender:                       14:41                     Anything self-services are going to be a priority in this day and age right now. Now Simon, just kind of building on that, what are the ways that DN is helping FIs reinvent how they serve customers? It's all about convenience and availability today. So what new capabilities is DN bringing to market to help FIs adapt to the new consumer norm? Simon Powley:                  14:59                     Yeah, I think this is just a great time to be a part of the organization, I think and exciting from my perspective. We really value our partnerships and I think we differentiate ourselves in the market pace by really looking at every FI individually and helping tailor things specifically for them. And what I mean by that is not only with our advisory services group to come in and take a step back and help consultant and look at these roadmaps through that all the way into our teams and the way that they really go into investigate, ask questions and really find out what the pain points are for financial institution. And what we're really finding coming out of those things is things such as ATM as a service. Simon Powley:                  15:38                     Again, those model really changing that and allowing... Not only just shifting the capital expense to operational expense, but really allowing them to focus on their core business. I think from what we've learned over the last several years, that's been trending, that's now just being impacted even more dramatically is banking is very complex and what they really want to focus on is their core business and allowing good partners to come in and help them operationalize. Some of these things certainly change the expense parameters around those things and take some of that weight off their shoulders so they can really focus on their customers and their core business is really critical to them right now. Heather Gibbons:            16:16                     Yeah. And Simon, I think some other things that I would maybe add to this are, the one thing that we've really learned from going and meeting and partnering with all of our customers and really listening to them is, there is no one size fits all model for all of these different financial institutions. You range from banks to credit unions, from customers that have one ATM to 16,000 ATMs. So, there's definitely differences around the goals that they have, objectives, key priorities, resources. So, what we've really been trying to do as an organization is to make sure that we can help them wherever they need it and however they need that. And Simon really alluded to it with some of the different business models that we have around how customers can really consume the offerings that Diebold Nixdorf is putting out there today. Heather Gibbons:            17:10                     So, we've mentioned many of these items and we have customers that really look at hosting and owning on-premise solutions to be able to do things like video and marketing and pre-stage transactions. But what we've really found is there's a subset of the marketplace that that's not what their core competency is. They want others that are the experts in those areas and in this case, we would say, Diebold Nixdorf is the expert when it comes especially to the ATM channel. And with that, they want to hand it over all to us and say, "Hey Diebold Nixdorf, we'd like to really outsource these types of services or capabilities to you." That can range anywhere from software updates, through remote distribution to the ATM, handling the cash management at the ATM. We had a customer in the global solution center and he said, when he handed over cash, it was one of the greatest days of his life. His family immediately within a week noticed the difference in him because he wasn't having to take phone calls all the time with cash at the ATMs and the branches. Heather Gibbons:            18:15                     Security is another major concern, something that we outsource, customers can outsource to us, and we provide managed services around that. And then of course monitoring the overall availability of the terminals as well. What we also see if we've got customers that really have a mixed bag of the offerings and how they want to see them. So, that's something that we've really tried to do with the portfolio itself is to make it flexible from a [inaudible 00:18:40] model perspective. If they want us to handle certain items of the operations of the ATMs, we can do that. They can be as hands on or hands off as they want. Heather Gibbons:            18:51                     And then we're also offering cloud based solutions. So, what this is doing is really making access to more of the advanced technology and solutions that we have much easier for financial institutions and in a more affordable way so that they don't have to really work about the maintenance of servers and the security around all those servers, that they have the ability to really control the solutions and have them work the way that they want and make adjustments on the fly. If that's something that they want to be able to do. Jeff Bender:                       19:21                     That's excellent. Just a good lead and there's a lot that we covered today in this podcast and a lot of different topics, different delivery models, different priorities for different size institutions and Heather, Simon I appreciate you being here. I'd really like to hear more. And in fact, I'd like to tee up for our listeners to tune into a on-demand webinar from Wednesday, May 20th. During the webinar, our DN Global Advisory Services team covers how you can stabilize the operations of your environment, how you can establish a plan of action? And then also how you can continuously assess your execution against that plan? You can listen now at dieboldnixdorf.com/COVID-19. And as always, thank you to our listeners for tuning into another episode of COMMERCE NOW. Until next time, please keep checking back on iTunes or however you listen to your podcasts for new topics on COMMERCE NOW.    

We're switching up the roles on today's pod folks! Our SuperFeast mamma and papa, Tahnee and Mason, take the guest seat as Oni Blecher from the Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond podcast takes the mic to explore reproductive health, the family culture and pregnancy preparation with our fearless leaders. Mason and Tahnee absolutely loved offering their insights in this beautiful conversation, we just had to share it with ya'll. Mason and Tahnee explore: Reproductive health from the Taoist perspective. Reproductive health as an equal responsibility between BOTH the male and female. Preconception planning. Health sovereignty and personal culture. Tips on how to cleanse and prepare the body for conception. The tonic herbs, medicinal mushroom and minerals suitable for preconception. Developing personal and family culture, inviting in sustainable practices that can be carried forward long-term over the lifespan. Children's immune health.   Who are Mason Taylor and Tahnee McCrossin? Mason Taylor: Mason’s energy and intent for a long and happy life is infectious. A health educator at heart, he continues to pioneer the way for potent health and a robust personal practice. An avid sharer, connector, inspirer and philosophiser, Mason wakes up with a smile on his face, knowing that tonic herbs are changing lives. Mason is also the SuperFeast founder, daddy to Aiya and partner to Tahnee (General Manager at SuperFeast). Tahnee McCrossin: Tahnee is a self proclaimed nerd, with a love of the human body, it’s language and its stories. A cup of tonic tea and a human interaction with Tahnee is a gift! A beautiful Yin Yoga teacher and Chi Ne Tsang practitioner, Tahnee loves going head first into the realms of tradition, yogic philosophy, the organ systems, herbalism and hard-hitting research. Tahnee is the General Manager at SuperFeast, mumma to reishi-baby Aiya and partner to Mason (founder of SuperFeast).   Resources: Nourishing Her Yin Event Video The Brighton Baby book Pregnancy Preparation SuperFeast Podcast Episode Pregnancy Health SuperFeast Podcast Episode   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Oni:   (00:00) I'm going to be interviewing Mason and Tahnee of SuperFeast, an ever-growing health initiative based around a variation of adaptogens, medicinal mushrooms, and blends that allow support for the body to return to harmony and thrive. The SuperFeast vision looks at the individual in regards to understanding best practice for educating and spreading the wisdoms of ancient traditions and medicines. Mason and Tahnee have also recently started their own journey in parenthood.   Oni:  (00:25) Look forward to chatting to this synergistic couple for their individual and collective knowledge on attitudes towards health, but particularly preconception health, reproductive health, and looking at the individual, and how social and cultural pressures influence our health-related decision-making processes. We are also excited to hear about their experiences in parenthood and how this new role for them has influenced their own attitudes toward everything in their life. Welcome.   Tahnee:  (00:52) Thanks for having us.   Mason:   (00:53) Thank you.   Oni:  (00:53) Yay. It's so nice to have both of you here. I know that you are not strangers to vocally sharing your wisdoms. You host talks and also have your podcast, and blog-related information. But there's thousands of things I could ask you. I'll have to narrow it down today.   Oni:  (01:11) Well, I want to start with reproductive health and it's such a huge topic, particularly with rising dysfunction around reproductive health. It sounds basic, but what is reproductive health to both of you, or either of you?   Mason:  (01:25) Pretty huge topic. Tahns and I, we've been working together about four years now. I tapped out of being a yoga teacher early on, but Tahnee, being a yoga teacher, her work went into Taoism and my work primarily being in Taoist Tonic herbalism. There's where we connected in our philosophy when it came to reproductive health. In the context of Taoist Tonic Herbs and Taoism in general, there's Three Treasures within the body that we're wanting to tonify through our everyday life, through our lifestyle and through our herbs, Jing, Qi, Shen.   Mason:  (01:56) And we can go a little bit more into those, but that baseline... Think about the analogy of a candle. Jing is like the wax of your candle, and that's associated with your physicality, your skeletal system, but also your reproductive health. And in that reproductive health association, you're associating with the ability to reproduce cells, and heal tissue and heal from trauma, so on and so forth.   Mason:  (02:17) And so, when we're talking about reproductive health, it's not something isolated. It's part of something that's going to be... Yes, it can be sexual reproductive health, but it's also going to spill over into your ability to actually stay physically robust within your foundations up until 80, 90, 100 years old. So, you don't get into that, burn through your telomeres, and your cells lack the ability to reproduce cells, and enter into that death cycle, really nice and early.   Mason:  (02:41) That's where we talk about when you're in your 20s and 30s, and have low reproductive health, yes, you can just be like, okay, well I can deal with that later. I don't want to get pregnant right now. But when you're associating with it, being one of your reproductive health, being associated with one of your treasures, and one of the ideas, in life in general, but we connected from that Taoist philosophy is guarding your Treasures and tonifying, building your treasures.   Mason:  (03:03) You can see that you can't, like in the West, compartmentalise reproductive health and be like, that's fine, don't really need that now anyway, or it's not really that important. Whereas we're like, it's one of the most important things because if the wax of your candle starts... If you're leaking your Jing, and so, therefore, you're not building any wax. You're burning through it faster than you... Than is responsible, or sustainable for your lifestyle. And then, we know, you see that Western flow where people go in lifestyle, you're heading down a route you're getting more reliant on external institutions, drugs, surgeries, that kind of thing.   Mason:  (03:36) Where the path that we like, is one of health sovereignty. It's a longterm conversation. Whereas you take a little bit more responsibility for that, including your reproductive health. That's associated with your Jing, your genetic potential, your lower back strength, your bone strength, your capacity maintain bone marrow, so on and so forth. And so, reproductive health is just a part of who you are.   Tahnee:  (03:58) And building on that. If you think about every cell in the body needing to reproduce multiple times a day, sometimes multiple times a minute or a second. That's what the Taoists identified as one of the roles of Jing, was the reproductive health of the entire body.   Tahnee:  (04:11) So, we really look at this ability to produce healthy cells. This ability to produce a healthy reproductive cell in your body, so an egg or a sperm. These are things that are essential markers of health. So we look at it as like a report card. It's like, if you don't have a great sperm count, if you aren't having a healthy menstrual cycle with no pain and if you're not ovulating and these things, then you're actually... There's something going on that you need to have a look at. And we look at that as in a really holistic way.   Tahnee:  (04:38) It's not that necessarily there's something wrong with you in inverted comma's but it's like that would be a sign or call. From the body that that is something that needs to be addressed and we have such a high stress lifestyle, such a high stress culture. Women are given hormonal birth control very young, men are exercising a lot these days. We've got this culture of activity and athleticism, which we didn't really have historically. If you look back until around the sort of 70s and 80s that we first started to get this physical culture come through and the impact that has on people's bodies when they're working out all the time. It's interesting stuff to have a look at. So a lot of the time we see people that are on really strict diets, they end up with reproductive issues or people that are overworking their bodies and their physiology and they tend to be the ones that maybe in their 20's like Mase said, they'll get away with it because they still have quite a lot of energy.   Tahnee:  (05:30) They can drink the coffee and take the supplements and do the things, but as they slide into the 30's and 40's it starts to catch up and a lot of the time people choose to have children a lot later as well. So you can end up in your 30's and 40's with out anything left in the bank to actually carry a healthy pregnancy through. I study a lot with my acupuncturist who work on how to help people with their fertility journeys and it's not just women, it's the men as well. And I think really tend to focus on women when we talk about reproductive health. But that's something I'm quite passionate about. The men have to take responsibility too. And the amount of times I've spoken to women who are doing the cleanses and taking the herbs and eating all the right foods and their partners are like, I don't want a bar of it.   Tahnee:  (06:13) I think as, as a culture, if we could start to expand the conversation to say, look, reproductive health is everyone's responsibility and if we want a healthy species, if we want to really be the most amazing potentiated humans as we grow and develop, which is what our culture really needs, especially with all the stuff going on politically and socially at the moment. It's on us to create healthy children and that's where this passion for preconception really comes through with us as well. Because we're not just talking about reproductive health as having healthy periods and stuff, it's also this responsibility that if you do choose to have children that you are giving them the best possible start.   Mason:  (06:48) There's a lot to that in terms of men being able to just go bypass going, I'll support you by getting healthy as well. And I'm not one for extremism, so if you're like a lot of the people are like right "I'm going to start preparing for pregnancy" and all of a sudden it becomes this obsession where anything you deem subconsciously as unhealthy, you need to cut out and rararara. But it's just about the direction that you want to go and you want to go into a direction of genetic potential. One that's not leaking Jing, and so men, when we say pregnancy preparation, we don't need to be obsessive, we need to realize that it isn't just like, oh this is just going to be for support. You can get your sperm health rocking and the unification of the parent's Jing is what's going to have a huge contribution basically to the primordial gene of that kid. And so the foundation of that kid.   Tahnee:  (07:32) It's their inheritance. One of the great analogies of Chinese Medicine with this is you might inherit a great car from your parents or you might inherit a bomb. And so we want to try and give them...   Mason:  (07:45) I think the woman has a great responsibility in terms of like housing,an environment where the liver is rocking and so you can handle hormonal fluctuations and you're going to be processing toxicity. You've got a microbiota that's actually going to be... That's another inheritance of the child, making sure that the microbiome is absolutely rocking so your passing that onto the child. Yes, a lot's on the woman but theres lots on the man as well. And you want to be healthy if you're going to be surviving and thriving through those initial years as well.   Oni:  (08:08) What a great a conversation to have with both of you. I wish that you conceived me, in a way. Because I'm sure you probably really looked after yourself.   Tahnee:  (08:19) We're focusing on reproductive and preconception health, but also the wider ideologies around health and how we need to really focus on our individual physiologies and biologies before we start applying these grand perspectives of what people should do or what we should do, what we shouldn't do, and looking at reproductive health as reproducing yourself as the best selves with your cells as time goes on throughout your whole life.   Oni:  (08:46) What do you advise when people are thinking about preconception health regardless if they're soon to conceive?   Tahnee:  (08:54) We typically do hear from a lot of people who are in the early stages of starting to think about a family for the first time. And I think a lot of the time people don't give themselves enough time, so they sort of think, oh, I've met someone and I want to have a baby. And obviously life happens and sometimes we just get pregnant. These kinds of things. And I don't think we should ever be ashamed of ourselves, I've heard from people, they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't do any cleansing before I conceived. And it's like, well that's not always necessary. We definitely, for ourselves, talked a lot about this idea of conscious conception and trying to at least prepare our bodies in a way that they were... Be like having guests over. You want to like get the house looking good and tidy it up and all that thing.   Tahnee:  (09:35) And I think it's the same with... That's how I thought about it with getting pregnant, having my daughter living inside of my body, I wanted to be in a quite a good state of health for that process. And obviously Mason was aware of his roles in that as well. So we worked with a book called the Brighton Baby, which is written by a naturopathic doctor in the States and he outlines this like two year plan, which is really great. So for anyone who's a little bit older and probably closer to having children, that would be something I'd recommend getting a hold of because it really does outline quite comprehensively all these different ways in which you can prepare your body and different tests you can have to ensure you don't have really high heavy metals and these kinds of things because children do take that stuff from our bodies.   Tahnee:  (10:16) So the things that you know you can do just to as a precaution, and that's something we've seen, when you look at the prevalence of things like ADHD and autism and these kinds of things, it's like, well, is this coming from this accumulation of these kind of toxins in the diet? Which is possible because we're eating more of these foods and exposing ourselves to more of these things. So we just think, hedge your bets, you're better off starting, in the best place possible. And then also we think if you're a bit younger you can start to really... Because a woman start to get really in tune with your cycle and start to be more conscious of your period isn't this curse. It's this actual really epic thing that happens in your body every month that has an emotional and spiritual component as well as a physical component. And as men to learn to be more respectful of that flow in women's lives and to really take the time to understand what's going on.   Tahnee:  (11:07) We have such a stigma around menstration in our culture and it's shifting slowly. I think a lot of the younger girls I talk to are a lot more aware of that, but people are so... This idea of sovereignty is really important because you have to take some responsibility. You can't expect a healthcare system to catch you. You can't expect that if you can't get pregnant, you're just going to go and do IVF. I know those are options, but they should be an absolute last case resort in our opinion. We believe in public health care and we believe that that should be available to everyone. But we also believe the individual needs to take responsibility. And so that really looks like... For sure have fun and do things and explore your life and don't be a martyr. That's not what we're trying to say.   Tahnee:  (11:45) But health really is about moderation. It's about getting into the rhythms of nature. So summertime here it's like everyone's feeling a little bit more energetic, a bit more party vibe. Everyone wants to be outside and that's fine. Like in Chinese Medicine, this is the time to do it because it's summer time, we're meant to be expressing ourselves. We're meant to be engaging and enjoying life. Then in winter time we should be sleeping more and resting more and taking more time to be internal and inward focused. And these transitions occur in all of us all the time as well. So we have a circadian rhythm and we're like the birds. We want to be up with the sun and down with the sun and we really push the limits of that in our culture. And we could talk about that all day long, the lights that we choose to use in our homes and all of this stuff.   Tahnee:  (12:27) But whatever curiosity has grabbed you, whether it's diet or whether it's culture or whether it's creating a home that's a sanctuary. Start to look at these things. And this idea of a personal culture is something that we're really passionate about at SuperFeast.   Mason:  (12:39) Brighton Baby was the book that Tahns just referenced. And I think in saying that we worked with a... I feel like it was more like we were looking at it and going, oh yeah, that makes sense. That's good. And what Tahns wasn't mentioning is that she'd had 10 years of healing, like in pretty serious gut stuff. 10 years of liver...   Tahnee:  (12:54) And emotional stuff.   Mason:  (12:55) Yeah. And emotional. And liver cleansing, parasite cleansing for myself. I can go into some of the cleansers, but that had been a big run up. And so basically it wasn't just a... Two years, it's almost a little bit of a rush to be like... Especially to know you're going to be... And there's a little bit unrealistic because you're going to have to go into a huge phase where you're going to have to completely and somewhat unrealistically, like a bandaid, you're going to have to change the direction of your life and your personal culture is going to look completely different.   Mason:  (13:21) And that might be necessary and it's worth it if you're going to be having a baby. However, is that really the context of... You're going to be going and creating a family, we're creating this family culture, we're creating this personal culture and that, in that that talks to the ideological aspects that come in, especially if you are... This area we get to explore cleansing our body and cleansing our spirit or ignighting our spirit, I don't know if our spirit needs a cleanse. But, definitely our emotional selves. In that we become susceptible to ideologies, especially if we go from the point where we've been eating really crappy food and we've been in really crappy relationships and then there's room for extremism to kind of like sneak in, in the preparation stage or if you do get pregnant and all of a sudden you have to kick back and oppose the the unhealthy culture or who you were before in your obsession with getting healthy and protecting your child.   Mason:  (14:10) And it's not the good thing to cleanse, but it's a better thing for you to start thinking about the creation of your personal culture and your family culture. Now hopefully a bit more void of ideology and then the necessity for obsession, exclusion in because you've decided to go and get healthy. So I think that's a real huge one because a lot of people who get into and say, we will look at Brighton Baby preparations. It's just a little bit of, you go on a series of anti-parasitic cleanse, get the viruses out of your body. That's going to have a lot to do with clearing your body of bad calcium and sediment build ups. Which has a lot to do with taking these kinds of things you get into the Msm's, methylsulfonylmethane's, zeolites and possibly taking hydrogen, maybe fulvic acids and these kinds of things which are going to be able to get in and hopefully dissolve these pockets of calcium which are gunking up within organs, within arteries, within joint tissue, within...That's what you think of when you think of arthritis. That's like what I mean by a bad calcium. That's going to be a huge part of the initial part of the cleanse.   Mason:  (15:06) Underneath that you're going to see a housing of viral loads and nano bacteria. It's also going to be that calcium can be mixed in with fungal loads and this is really fun. I guess because I was someone that dove really, really deep in. And you could see I probably did have that orthorexia session of I've gotta be constantly on one of these protocols because there's parasites in me. I'm gonna like... Myself all the time just going into an unhealthy ideological reliance on that as what I do. But at the same time, when you're clearing out those bad calciums, you're going to be maybe hitting some antifungals at the same time, really going to be getting onto like the, the Pau D'arco tea's, Amazonian Lapacho tree, that's the back of that tree, getting into the antivirals like Cat's Claw [inaudible 00:00:15:48].   Mason:  (15:49) And there's many other Western herbs Astragalus's and medicinal mushrooms. Well you're going to start actually doing some deep clearing and at the same time, maybe that's a time to work with a naturopath or someone to see if you actually have parasites or fungal loads or things going on with your microbiome. Then from there you want to start getting in and doing a little bit of all the time you want to be reseeding the gut health and maybe getting in and doing those liver cleanse and getting onto those liver herbs. That's like the next somewhat step. Doing a little bit of a Kidney upgrade. That's going to have a lot to do with your Jing and make sure that you're sleeping. Make sure you're thoroughly hydrated, getting off municipal water, getting a really good filter. Ideally getting onto good spring water. I'd much prefer people getting onto a spring water and that's a huge part of it. Making sure that you're getting into the sun, getting sun onto your reproductive organs thouroughly.   Mason:  (16:32) And these are all things you can start inviting, not with obsession. You can integrate them into who you are and what you're doing already. Rather than just taking that external cleansing identity that's obsessed with health and making that who you are. Because a lot of people here are deficient in Jing, deficient in personal identity. Therefore they start identifying externally with that, with that ideology.   Oni:  (16:51) What I'm hearing from both of you is that to look at what is coming back to nature for you, not just for whatever is trendy at the time. Instead of going, oh what in that ideology suits me? Who am I and then what suits me and then finding things that resonate potentially different traditions. Individual health, and looking in insight instead of looking outside from the shame perspective of something's wrong with me. I need to fix through obsessive health ideologies and getting to learn, what your health identity, but what your identity and spiritual identity is. So Mason, you've got some things to say.   Mason:  (17:29) Basically I like banging on about this topic I can get very excited about the potential you have for cleansing your body. I'm someone that quite often I'll follow the shiny thing, the shiny thing being these idealistic, perfect bodies to bring through these magical little spirits, but a lot of that, they're not truly great, but at the same time does lend itself, one to become a boring person if you get obsessed and a boring couple. But at the same time, what I'm basically driving home here is to not let these... When you're going into cleansing as with Tonic Herbalism, I try and pull these things off pedestals as soon as I can and I'm someone that can talk... people telling me I'm a really good salesman and say I can sell ice to the eskimo's but I can't if I'm not really invested in something, but I also have the vested interest to make sure that these... Integrating something like medicinal mushrooms or tonic herbs or whatever it is, and to someone's local cleansing practices, we want to make sure that it isn't just being sold with this beautiful shiny language, but we're actually able to take it off a pedestal, talk about, get very realistic about what our expectations are when we're integrating these things and make sure that it gets merged with our own intention for our own lives and our own family.   Mason:  (18:39) So it doesn't just come a thing on a list and ambiguous external thing that we should do in order to be right or in order to be valid. In terms of being good parents in our preparation. So I like to add these caveats that when you like, whether it's just yourself or your partner, whoever it is, when you are going down the route of cleansing your body and making sure that you are, you're creating a lifestyle that's going to lead towards real healthy and vibrant self. Make sure that you're not just doing something external and not just following some ideology or diet. Make sure that you are considering the fact that you are creating a family culture, that you have a personal culture and what you do needs to be part of a pattern of what you're going to be doing for many decades.   Mason:  (19:21) For now, not just something extreme that you're going to do now in order to make everything okay. It needs to be very sustainable, right? So think about the diet, oh I'm never drinking again or I'm only going to eat this from now on. Can you do this realistically for the next 50 years? And can you do it within the context of the priority being creating a super beautiful, loving environment, family culture, making sure that you're taking you away from connecting with your partner because that's going to be like one of the most important things. So just make sure that that doesn't create a wedge. Make sure you get your priorities right and just make sure that it merges into your own family culture and not a family culture that's going to be like Instagramable. You know, you can feel this bubble of intention when you're adding things into that family culture.   Mason:  (20:04) Remember that you need to be able to do this for the next 50 years, 40 years, 20 years, whatever it's going to be. So is what you're bringing in and inviting in to your culture, which isn't... This is possibly what you're going to be handing down the way you do things, your intention, the way you cleanse your body, the way you think about food, the way you think about other particular foods. Are they good? Are they bad? Do you really want that to be a part of your culture or do you want maybe greater nuance in how you talk about diet? Do you want extreme rights and wrongs? No. You want just to be able to have beautiful ongoing conversations without extremism and thinking you need to be doing that because that's what you're maybe going to be passing onto your children.   Mason:  (20:39) That's what you maybe pass onto your nieces and nephews if you're not having children. So you may be very precious about that and make sure that you can maintain being excited or doing this thing for the next few decades. Otherwise it's very short term and when you get involved in little short term, things like that, short term diet, short term cleansers, you're burning through your gas, you're burning through your Jing and you're ultimately going to lead. It's not a sustainable way to begin to lead more towards a path of degeneration anyway, which takes away from that land like that potential longevity intention and healthy intention you had to begin with.   Tahnee:  (21:07) And that's what reproductive health is. It's not degeneration, it's regeneration. So it's about ability to regrow the body. Does that, like what I think people forget all the time is like the doctor doesn't heal you. A herb doesn't heal you. No one can heal you. Your body heals itself and you really just have to get out of the way. The block to that healing, which can be physical, it can be emotional, it can be spiritual. Like I'm a huge fan of Seth Godin and he talks a lot about how from a very young age, our children are taught to be obedient. They're taught to look for what other people want them to say as the right answer instead of coming up with their own right answer. Like we can't trust you to know. So you have to find what other people want you to notice that you can be right.   Tahnee:  (21:47) You know, and then you'll be validated and then you'll be approved. And so we do this, people like us and do things like this, right? So we join a club and we become a whatever kind of club you want to join. But you say that a lot in this area where if someone doesn't agree 100% with you, then they get ostracized from the group. And so the complexity and the times when you know we aren't perfect and cause that's human life, right? But we also have to accept that if we want to be sovereign, if we want to be healthy, if we want to like be balanced, we need to actually do the work inside. And that's work for me. A lot of the meditation and yoga practices have been super powerful because I started to realise that yeah, a lot of the ideas of who I was and what I could and couldn't do weren't mine.   Tahnee:  (22:29) They were created by culture they created by family or by even just my own rebellion or response to my life. And so when I started to really examine that stuff, we had a beautiful birth at home. I felt very strong, very powerful through my pregnancy. If I was me 10 years before that, I wouldn't have had the same experience because I'd had so much personal growth in those 10 years that the 30 year old me was able to have that experience that the 20 year old may wouldn't have had, and I remember saying like, I'll take drugs. I don't want to feel anything. I'm afraid of pain. And then I started doing Yin Yoga and I learned to feel pain and then I realized that pain wasn't even pain. It was sensation and sensation was interesting and there was this tapestry of feeling going on in there and oh.   Tahnee:  (23:10) It's actually connected to my feelings and my emotions and dotted auditors when we can really start to grow internally, then a lot of the external stuff just falls away.   Oni:  (23:19) So reframing through experiential learning, I guess.   Tahnee:  (23:22) Yes, which is exactly what you know. If you go and listen to Seth Godin's work on education, it's all around. Don't teach people to look for the answer, teach them to ask interesting questions.   Oni:  (23:32) Okay, perfect. We've covered a range of topics, reproductive health, integrated into overall health attitudes and how to approach preconception, not just in the idea that we'll creating children, but also how to give birth to ourselves over and over again through cell health and regeneration. And I want to ask you too about your own journey in Parenthood and how potentially some of your attitudes have been challenged in that journey or enhanced or expanded. And what was that like for you two?   Tahnee:  (24:05) It definitely had a bit of an idea of what I thought I was going to be like when I was pregnant, which was like vegetarian and all of these things because I was vegetarian for 14 years and then for a few years I to [inaudible 00:24:21] struggled to really integrate it into my life even though I think my body really thrives, eating it, but mentally I had a lot of trouble. My acupuncturist would say that I was addicted to that ideology and I think to a degree that was true. Like this idea for me of what it meant. And even I think the fear of death and participating in death and comfort around death. When I was probably 28 or 29 I did this meditation retreat in Thailand a Tantric one, and we spent quite a bit of time doing death meditations and that was a huge realisation for me of how much I was afraid of that and avoiding experiences with death.   Tahnee:  (25:00) And so I actually found eating meat a lot easier after doing that because I was like, oh, you know, I feel like I'm really part of this natural cycle and I'm studying Taoism, you know, it's so integrated with the earth and humans are this bridge between heaven and earth were supposed to be able to anchor us spirit into this physical body on this plane. It's not about ascension and about leaving this body, it's about actually being here in a spiritual form, but through the physicality of the body. And so I think those kinds of ideas in my late 20's really helped me to transition into Parenthood. And I think my intuition was so strong, like so strong that my daughter came through to us, to me in meditation, she, I knew her name, I knew she was a girl. I was getting all these amazing insight.   Tahnee:  (25:45) But then I was also getting eat meat. I'm going to compartmentalise and put that over there and I'm going to let go. Oh, this stuff's interesting. And I could really feel how my rational mind was interfering with my intuitive knowing self. And I could feel that in birth, I could feel like these waves where if my mind kicked in and was starting to think about the physiology a lot about the body from studying yoga. And I would think, oh my gosh, like there's a bend in my pelvis. Like, why has there been to my pelvis? I have to get a baby through this bend. And then I would get out of that. I need to like my intuitive knowing, which is like, of course this is fine course. Like I felt connected to every woman ever through this incredible portal of birth.   Tahnee:  (26:22) And so I think for me it's really been a lot to do with trusting my intuition and her body's wisdom. Like she'll get a fever and we just let it burn. We let it break and then she changes. You look at Steiner's work and he talks a lot about how illness is like an upgrade for children. It reboots their immune systems and teaches their bodies how to respond and, and she goes through this huge developmental leaps off to these things. So I had to really let go of this idea of like, oh my God, she has a favor. I'm a bad mom. She's sick. And being like, this is really important for her and my job is to support her. So I take time off, I stay home with her, I coddle her until she breaks and then she's fine again. So things like that I think I've really leaned into more and the trust in the body's wisdom and that we don't have to know all the answers mentally that it's just like a lot of the time it's holding space.   Mason:  (27:12) I think you've just knocked it on the head. The main thing that's that's come up. I mean I probably respect the change that occurs in life now more than ever. I don't think I was like a know it als necessarily. I knew everything about parenting until I become a parent. I thought I was going to get that. Those, I think it's definitely been humbling so I'm definitely going with the flow a little bit more made in order to show up the great dad for me anyway, the amount of time more than beforehand. I need to make sure that I've compartmentalised in my life start like a little bit of time for myself so that then I can create more space within the family unit as well so that things can flow a little bit more. Because before that like we were hustling big time.   Mason:  (27:52) I mean we were on before we had Aiya and so to change gears was a bit of a big deal sometimes. Yeah, that's like that's been a harsh lesson here and there in order to find that nice balance between a business that's growing nicely and requiring a lot of energy and then yourself and your own personal practice, your a meditative practice or whatever it is. It's pretty huge. I'm very dynamic in nature. I feel like respecting the fact that I can't just be like okay, in this hour I will meditate in this way and in this area. Like I need space in order to tune into where I am at within for that week or for that phase of my life or for that day. And so the biggest thing I've realised is that I really need to know myself, when you've got the intensity of like, especially now like a toddler, I haven't got a you've got a three year old and right now she's going through something and she needs a lot of space.   Mason:  (28:45) And if I'm not creating a little bit of space for myself, if Tahnee and I are communicating and creating space like space in our relationship, which can be difficult when you've got like 20 business babies and they need time and we've sort of stopped showing up with our family. And so on a practical note and in terms of our family culture, i've started to try and get a little bit more savage with like our time and this is the most important thing and it's, it's my space, our space, space for the baby.   Tahnee:  (29:12) And that goes back to looking after the culture that you mentioned that you're creating. And speaking of which, and thank you so much for joining us. Both of you are so generous with what not only right now today, but through all of your resources. So what are some of your best resources that you can clue us into now?   Mason:  (29:28) Well, in regards to pregnancy preparation, Tahnee and I have a podcast that goes for two hours. We were pregnant when we filmed it. So that's on superfeast.com.au. You can just, if you type in pregnancy, it'll pop up that pregnancy prep and we have... It's called healthy pregnancy is another two hour podcast episode that we did just after we've given birth to Aiya we go through everything that we did, supplementation, Tahnee's exercise routines and all those which just looked like a lot of walking and spaciousness.   Mason:  (29:54) Anyway, a lot of stuff on our pregnancy and then postpartum and birth.   Oni:  (29:59) And that's through your website, SuperFeast?   Mason:  (30:01) All the other super phase podcasts. You can just try and get that on the super face podcast on iTunes type in pregnancy and they should pop up.   Oni:  (30:08) We're so grateful for you, Tahnee, Mason for coming on today and sharing your growing wisdom.   Mason:  (30:13) Thanks for having us.   Oni:  (30:14) And we hope you've enjoyed this episode today on pregnancy, birth and beyond. Tune in next week for more information inspiration, bringing us full circle. You can find our show on iTunes, Spreaker and the usual social media under pregnancy, birth and beyond, and our website at ppmedia.org

Learn more about Sweet FlowerDue to COVID-19 we are no longer asking for financial support for the show, instead you can now join free mentorship group calls with Fabian to get through this together. Join here.Full Transcript:F Geyrhalter:Welcome to the show, Tim.T. Dodd:Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. First off, I hope you're safe during what is being seen as the peak week of the coronavirus here in LA, I guess. Thank you for taking time-T. Dodd:Yeah.F Geyrhalter:Yeah. It's crazy right now. It's crazy.T. Dodd:It's frightening. It's alarming for us all. We are safe. Thank you. As an essential business, we remain open, which has been great. We've done a lot of things in the store to make sure that people... In all of our stores that people are safe, and our customers and our team. We've gone through lots of different training. We've done lots of different things in terms of providing people with safe access to supplies, and gloves, and masks, and of course we were I think the first actually in Los Angeles, or even in southern California to instigate curbside pickup and contactless delivery.T. Dodd:We've been rolling that out, and it's been going very well. There's a strong demand for people. People are at home. They're stressed out. They're scared, et cetera, and they feel the need for the products that we offer, for cannabis, and so we're really trying to provide that in the safest and most responsible way that we can here until the social distancing guidelines, et cetera as well. It's been I'd say a pretty challenging few weeks, but I look at the good side here.T. Dodd:We are still open, which is great. We're still providing jobs for our team, and we're still providing an essential service to our customers. How crazy is it that this is now an essential service?F Geyrhalter:Yeah, yeah. Just think about that two years ago.T. Dodd:I've always thought that, but it's pretty cool that that's now part of this. It's interesting. It's been a really fast evolution in our customer behavior and our store behavior. We've pivoted really quickly, so my hat is off to our wonderful team of Sweet Florists in all the stores.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, absolutely. How difficult was it to fully embrace the home delivery system? Was that something that you already worked on prior? Being in LA, I'm pretty sure you're pretty tech forward.T. Dodd:Yeah, luckily we had. We had started delivery several months ago. It was not a core focus of our brand. Our brand is really about providing the high-touch service in-store, but we had decided luckily to move into delivery Q3 of last year, and really to have that as an expansion of our brand footprint beyond the stores to people's homes. It's asking the ultimate permission. You're coming to someone's house to provide them a service.T. Dodd:You're coming to their front door, and they're giving you their gate code, and all that stuff. Particularly in Los Angeles, we have all that stuff. We have a lot of things that are... There's a lot of permissions involved in that, social permission that's unusual. You're basically bringing drugs to someone's home. Obviously when you think about that, you're like, "Okay, we do really want to do with our best foot forward." We started that last year, at the back part of last year.F Geyrhalter:That's very forward thinking.T. Dodd:Yeah, and we had the tech tools in place. Most of us have got some tech backgrounds, either from the business side or from actually on the dev side. We worked with [inaudible 00:03:52]. Someone actually put a company called Onfleet in the middle of all that. Onfleet allowed us to... Which is an app that's used by lots of different delivery services, but it allowed us to provide a much higher touch.T. Dodd:Customers can text the driver anonymously, "Hey, I'm here. How far away are you?" Et cetera. The driver can text back or call back, even. Or people at home base can do that. We put that all together. It's a very good system. It's worked really well. Frankly, we were, I want to say prepared, but we obviously had a leg up as this all started to unfold the way it did. We quickly took everything that we had in place, and we simply amplified it. We brought on more drivers. Investing in the human capital here is really important.T. Dodd:We brought on more drivers. We made sure that the drivers were safe, first and foremost that they felt secure in what they were doing, provided them with gloves and masks and hand sanitizer inside the car. Hand sanitizer is still a really hard thing to get, so that was difficult.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, absolutely.T. Dodd:Just give me one second. Just [inaudible 00:05:09], okay? Matthew, I'm on a call, okay? Please. Thanks. Sorry. My son was [inaudible 00:05:20].F Geyrhalter:That's okay.T. Dodd:Those things are still difficult to get, so we did all those things. Then since then, we've seen a marked increase in delivery. We've probably seen a 500% increase during the surge of coronavirus panic buying that we saw. We accommodated those orders, and then since then it's fallen back somewhat, which is understandable, and I think frankly reflects people are now staying at home a lot more, but they're not panic buying or surge buying. They're thinking, "Okay, I've got a few days or weeks of supply left, and I'll go and get some more soon."T. Dodd:We see large basket sizes for delivery, and we also see the need to expand our zone, so we've done that. We've expanded our delivery zone from... Initially it was around a five-mile radius per store, but if you think of Los Angeles, we're well spread out. We've got Studio City, Melrose, and the arts district locations working right now. We were also about to open up the Westwood location. Obviously with COVID, we're going to push that back. It's very hard to launch a store in a pandemic, and very hard to know how that looks.T. Dodd:I think optically it also has some problems. I don't think s appropriate right now to do that, so we're looking at how to do that just as soon as it's safe, and we think we can market and launch the store correctly. Even with the current footprint, the five-mile radiuses that we had worked really well. We expanded those very quickly to ten-mile radius from each of the stores, and then we're now delivering basically to all of Los Angeles, so from the Palisades on the west side all the way to Pasadena, deep into the valley, and then deep into south LA.T. Dodd:We're looking at further expansion of that, as well. If there's a silver lining on this horrible situation, it is the fact that traffic has died down so we can now reliably service all of these large areas with more staff, obviously, and more drivers quickly. We can get around the freeways pretty quickly. We're averaging about 50-minute delivery times right now, despite wherever they are. At certain peak times, we might get up to about 80 minutes if we have to do a lot of deliveries around the same time.T. Dodd:We're able to now service a very large part of, almost all of Los Angeles from the stores that are open, all the stores in that time frame. That's been I think a benefit of this horrible situation.F Geyrhalter:Right, right. If one can say it that way, but it's true. People are creatures of habit, so I'm sure people will also get used to getting delivers from Sweet Flower now, and then once-T. Dodd:[inaudible 00:08:14].F Geyrhalter:Yep. Say again?T. Dodd:Okay. All right, I dropped you for a second there. I'm sorry.F Geyrhalter:Okay, okay. What I was saying is that people are creatures of habit, so I'm sure that they get used to during the pandemic to start ordering from Sweet Flower, and then later on they might just keep it up because it's already in the system, it's easy for them to get used to it. Some positive things are coming out of this, as well.T. Dodd:Yeah. I think we're seeing, it's always as I think someone else smarter than I said, necessity is the mother of invention. We're seeing that. We're really now, we're making sure that all the staff is safe. Business continuity, which is really staff and customer safety, has got to be first and foremost right now.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely.T. Dodd:These are really challenging times.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely.T. Dodd:Secondly, just remembering who we are as a company. One of our values is community engagement. Last week, after I made sure that... We made sure as a team that all their staff and team had gloves and masks and sanitizer. We had a number of supplies left over. We approached some of the teams that we work with, particularly in Culver City, where we're based. We went out to the local charities that are in need and donated masks and gloves to them.T. Dodd:We also made some charitable donations to local food banks. That's really important, because we're also moving into a... Right after this crisis, there's going to be, or there already is an economic crisis, and we need to be reflective of that, and thinking about how we fit our company in this emerging new new. This new, not normal situation that we're going to be in.F Geyrhalter:Right. Absolutely.T. Dodd:If food banks are getting hurt, everyone is getting hurt. We're trying to help out, and we're doing that with money, and also with some time. I was driving around on Friday afternoon basically seeing some people that we know around our neighborhoods who are elderly and vulnerable, and making sure that they were safe. Then as I said, we dropped off a bunch of different supplies to some of our local charities, as well, to help them out. We're trying to do our small bit as a local business.F Geyrhalter:Right, right. I think it's everyone's responsibility as a business to just start with community. Even the community is at the heart of your brand. Let's take a step back a little bit.T. Dodd:Sure, of course. Yeah.F Geyrhalter:You have a successful track record as a VC, as well. You're investing from C to series C stages, and you had acquisitions from the $100 to $600 million range. I could have actually had you on as a VC guest, because I only have founders and VCs. Today you're wearing your founder hat.T. Dodd:I am, yes.F Geyrhalter:When I first read about Sweet Flower, I was immediately attracted to it because there is one and a million cannabis shops that actually differentiate, and that create a brand atmosphere, as I like to call it, around them that is specific, that actually stands out, and that sets them apart. For Sweet Flower, it's about being curated by and for Los Angeles. Heritage and community is really your brand story. You were quoted in Forbes saying, and I quote you here, "Souther California brands are some of the most recognized in the world."F Geyrhalter:We're talking about obviously the Googles and the Apples. "Within cannabis, I believe that we can build a best in class retail experience and brand." Tell us a little bit about how you have no background in the cannabis business. How did this came about? How did you set out and say, "We're going to create this LA-first brand?"T. Dodd:While I don't sound like it, I call LA home. I'm from New Zealand, but I moved to the States 26 years ago. Now I've spent over half my life here, and most of that has been in LA. I've been lucky enough to live here for the last couple of decades. I'm really focused in this amazing part of the world that I've grown to love and call home. Beyond that, we take a very non-mythical approach to cannabis. We think it's an industry, it's a business. It's a highly-regulated business. My cofounder and I have got a lot of experience in dealing in high-regulated business environments.T. Dodd:We're both actually recovering attorneys. I haven't practiced for many, many years, since 2003, I believe. That training is still part of it, and we take compliance very seriously. We also are both from relatively humble backgrounds, and so we do believe in giving back. That's, as I mentioned, part of what we are about in terms of the company, and that's part of that our ethos. Beyond that, in terms of California, we believe that California is still the largest legal market in the world. Potential legal market.T. Dodd:There are lots of issues in California which I'm sure everyone's familiar about with respect to illegal operations, and over-taxation, and the complexity of the regulatory environment. I won't agree or disagree on those, but they are definitely things that people talk about. We looked at this and said, "Okay, is there a space here for us to participate in this market?" We looked at that as really taking a classic, I want to say McKenzie approach, because I don't have that background, but just looking as a straightforward business approach, strategy, et cetera.T. Dodd:What is the market size? What is our potential entry point? We decided there is a huge... There is a large amount of people going after a core demographic, the stereotypical cannabis user. A young male in a certain demographic in Los Angeles. There were very few brands, and there were really no retail brands other than potentially one that was out there that was focused anywhere else. In fact, that brand was really focused in lots of places.T. Dodd:We were like, "Okay, let's see what we can do in terms of focusing a brand on a customer that is cannabis curious, has not maybe got into cannabis, but is definitely leaning into trying to understand this." My own experience with this was I ride bikes. I cycled for charity. I had a really bad bike accident cycling, broke my pelvis in many places, and my head pretty well, and walked up... I was medevaced off the top of a mountain in a chopper, woke up in hospital, was released a few days later with a big jar of Oxycontin.T. Dodd:Didn't want to do that, decided to go down to get some cannabis, went to a store. I'm on crutches hobbling around with my head wrapped up. I look like a real mess. It was like, "Well, do you know the difference between Indica and Sativa?" I was like, "Well, sure, I do, but what is the point of that question?" Then I thought about the customer journey that I was having, which is a really bad experience. I was hoping for a wellness experience. What I received was basically a transaction.T. Dodd:Sweet Flower was based on the premise that we can provide a wellness experience to all of our customers, not just a transaction. We want our customers to come to be loyal, to enjoy the experience they're having in the store, to receiving very high service component, and to receive education and engagement. I think we're getting the feedback that I was hoping for. We're receiving extraordinarily high reviews, anecdotal and data-driven reviews that are saying, "Hey, we really enjoyed the experience we had at Sweet Flower."T. Dodd:"We really enjoyed the peace, the experience we had. The products were really good. The service was great. We will come back." Really moving away from deal-driven behavior, we are saying, "Hey, we still do deals." Moving away from people who are trying to sell product cheaply, whatever, and deal-driven behavior. Transactional-driven behavior to loyalty-driven behavior and service-driven behavior. That's really what we're doing.T. Dodd:I view our product, what we're offering is not cannabis. We're offering a wellness experience. I think what we're seeing today is actually some vindication of that. People are selecting us because they want to spend time with us, either on a website, or if they come into the store even today, they're coming into the store because they want to understand the effect they can get. Not just, "I want THC, whatever component percentage flower." What I'm looking for really is, "I can't sleep, or I'm really stressed, or I'm in pain, or I'm anxious, or I want to be social with either, given the constraints of the current environment. I want to enjoy myself."T. Dodd:That's important to people, and that's what we're providing. I've always viewed Sweet Flower as providing a wellness experience. That's what I was hoping for when I hobbled into the store on crutches. That's what I didn't get, and that was a big part of me and my partner in Sweet Flower deciding that we would build this company. In terms of LA, I just believe southern California has a certain creative spirit. I've been lucky enough to work in large, creative organizations in California most of my career.T. Dodd:Warner Brothers, and then Technicolor, and at both places I found a tremendous amount of people who had incredibly engaging careers that were driven from their creative spirit, their creativity. That's a big part of Sweet Flower. We celebrate where we're from. The Sweet Flower love mark, our logo is the California state golden poppy. We have the sun in our logo. People move to LA partly because of the weather. That's part of who we are. It drives our activities and drives all of our engagements with each other, because it's such a great place to live.T. Dodd:We wanted to celebrate that. Then last, the name. We deliberately didn't call it anything too heavy, too dank, too cush, too 420. We didn't really want to have really obvious callouts to cannabis. The flower is not a flower, it's a poppy. It's a golden poppy, but the name itself is Sweet. We're not saying this is a brand for women, but certainly I think a lot of our customer base are female, and enjoy that, and certainly I do think part of marketing is to...T. Dodd:You can put out your brand, you can put out your marketing material. It's how people receive that, and then feed it back to you that's important. You know if you've missed the mark if what you intend to do, your intended audience is not actually what you get.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. Yep.T. Dodd:Yeah. I think in most cases, we've been very successful in terms of defining who we think our audience is, and having our audience say, "Yeah, this fits. This fits us." I think the biggest learning experience I had so far is the cannabis curious. People I think assume that they have a lot of knowledge, and it's been interesting. We've had a lot of people coming in with knowledge about some things, and actually we've educated them. We do have some extraordinarily experienced Sweet Florists, sales associates, in the stores.T. Dodd:That's been a very good experience for us. We're trying to just engage people as they are. When they walk in, they can have a lot of experience with cannabis or not. Initially we did call out the cannabis curious notion a bit more than we do now. We're I think... It doesn't really matter. People are super experienced with cannabis or not at all. There's always something to learn, and there's always new products in the market, particularly in California. Rather than talking about cannabis curious, we're really now talking about cannabis curated.T. Dodd:We have a fantastic buyer, Michelle Mendoza, who has been involved in cannabis here in Los Angeles for I think for two decades, and has ran the original California dispensary in West Hollywood way before any of these other stores came in. She has a tremendous background and a fantastic reputation in cannabis circles here in Los Angeles in particular. With Michelle's help, and then working with Kiana [inaudible 00:21:50] joined us as our CMO. Kiana also has a long history of engagement in cannabis, and before that in fashion.T. Dodd:Kiana and Michelle have really helpful us curate I think a fantastic selection of brands in-store, and then working with those brands, we've been able to curate... Sorry, to create a number of fantastic events and activations. Obviously now in this new engagement we have where we're socially distancing, a lot of it is influencer events that are happening online and on Instagram rather than elsewhere, but we're really doing that at the moment as a reaction to COVID.T. Dodd:With Michelle and Kiana, we're really now focusing on this cannabis curated moment. That, though, is congruent with the brand. It fits the brand. The notion of calling your customers cannabis curious, we backed off that a little bit. I think that that is... I don't really want to call our customers anything. I think all of my customers are fantastic. We're honored to have them in our store. We respect where they're all coming from, whether they have a lot of knowledge of cannabis or zero. Doesn't matter. We want to provide them with that same level of engagement and service.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, you meet them where they're at, right?T. Dodd:Yeah.F Geyrhalter:And people come in with different backgrounds, as you nicely stated. Talking about the community again, and you talked about these events, because to me it's super interesting to think about how you actually activate a community. Do you currently, or will you in the future when things go a little back to normal, or maybe like you said virally, how do you collaborate with other brands? Do you collaborate with other brands? What's in store for your community growth?T. Dodd:Yeah, so we've actually I think been at the forefront of brand retailer partnerships. I just think it's very interesting to have walked into the cannabis industry when we did. A lot of the foundational structure of the industry was getting set up, and some of it was antagonistic. There was a lot of, "You're going to have to pay for shelf space to be on my stores," and all this kind of stuff. We never did that. We never did that. We didn't think it was the right thing to do.T. Dodd:It might have provided us with some extra revenue, but the [foreign 00:24:23] of that is that we're now just leasing shelf space to brands. Instead, I think we actually got a lot more value, realizable value, not just soft dollars, but actually revenue from customers because we decided to partner with our brands. We see our brands, our core brands are partners. Obviously COVID versus pre-COVID, it's a hard cut, almost, because we have not had any events in the store, in any of the stores since this even became a potential threat.T. Dodd:Before that, before COVID, we were working very closely with brands big and small to do activations in the store. We launched a number of products in the store, particularly on our Melrose store, which is a great location, across the street for the Improv, and there's bars and restaurants all around there. We hope that neighborhood comes back quickly once this horrible situation is over. That said, at has always been a core part of our base. Frankly, that allows us to tag our brand's customers as our customers, or as our brands tag our customers as theirs.T. Dodd:It's collaborative, and that's the key here. I don't think anyone gets ahead of this by trying to get around each other. Post-CO, or now that I guess we're in COVID, we're not post-COVID, but in the current situation we are, we launched a very strong influencer engagement campaign with our brands to push delivery just last week. The week before, we had somewhere in the range of 45 to 50 different influencers all based here in Los Angeles that we worked with. All of them got a Sweet Flower branded bag that contained products from our core brands, our core brand partners.T. Dodd:Our brands and us worked together to do that. We worked with the influencers to do that. This is not a paid campaign. This was organic and really came from a similar point of entry, which is, "Let's make sure we do something responsible for push delivery as the new way of receiving and getting cannabis products." That was great. Through that campaign, 50 influencers with a total reach of around 20 million followers-F Geyrhalter:Wow. That's impressive.T. Dodd:A lot of whom... Yeah, obviously some of them around outside of our geographic reach. They're not here in southern California, but a lot of those people are. The ones that aren't are still now seeing Sweet Flower as a brand. They're seeing Sweet Flower as something that's enabling people to be safe at home, and it's also enabling their favorite brands to work with a delivery service like Sweet Flower to drive traffic and engagement, and frankly sales, which is fantastic.T. Dodd:We're now pivoting from being a dispensary that offers delivery to being both, to being just a chain of dispensaries, a chain of retail stores, and also a very robust delivery service. That campaign we did really was all about delivering, and it was all about working with these brands. That was great. That I think will continue. We see a lot of demand for that. On our delivery service, we currently offer everything. Everything in the store is available for delivery. That's really important, so people can get the same products they could-F Geyrhalter:Totally. Yeah.T. Dodd:If they walk in and they can get that to their home, and that's super important. I think going forward, we want to expand that. We want to expand the reach of the delivery. We want to expand obviously its robustness in terms of the tech underneath it. Then if we have more brands to work with, because I worry a little bit about what's going to happen in the brand space given COVID, and given California overall, even before COVID. We want our brands, our core brand partners to have a good foundational business.T. Dodd:We believe that we remain the best channel for them to do that. We're really looking forward to working with some brands on some exclusive launches, some more exclusive promotions, et cetera, yeah, in the coming months.F Geyrhalter:We talked about expansion for a second with the potential... Well, with the Westwood location when the time is right. What are the plans, and how would a brand that is positioned so uniquely for LA ever expand outside greater Los Angeles without losing its authenticity? Would it be online? How do you see that? Or would you ever go outside of LA?T. Dodd:We've already announced we've got Westwood coming, Culver City next, and then we also were a successful applicant... We're one of the top six applicants in Pasadena. That's the current forefront. Beyond that, obviously we are looking at new opportunities outside Los Angeles, but probably staying in southern California for the moment. That's probably not a brand decision. It's more a decision around capital allocation. Where is it smart to allocate capital? I think that those are more at the moment, more about capital allocation and brand fit.T. Dodd:I think California brands play really well everywhere. I look at Vans, Levi's. I look at some of the really strong retail brands that we have here, and frankly the California lifestyle-F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. Absolutely.T. Dodd:Seems somewhat universal, so I think our brand plays well in northern California. I think our brand could play well in neighboring states. I don't have an aspiration at the moment to go beyond or out of state too much. I think when we started this journey, what seems like a long time ago, it was all about being a multi-state operator. That time has changed in the industry. Investors were asking, "When are you guys going to go out of state? You need to be in different states." My pushback was always, "Why?"T. Dodd:LA county is 26% of the population of California, and by far away the most cannabis-leaning and attending population of California. Los Angeles County, if it were to be a state, is the eighth largest state in the country.F Geyrhalter:Plenty of opportunity within, yeah.T. Dodd:It's like saying, "Well, I can see that if I was starting someplace else, you'd be asking that questions, but I'm not. I'm starting here." What's the rationale for that? Is that just a canned question? Lots of people are asking these kinds of... Investors and et cetera.F Geyrhalter:It's a typical question, right?T. Dodd:Yeah, sure.F Geyrhalter:The reason why I ask it was because Sweet Flower, the entire tagline is it's curated by and for Los Angeles. It seems to me like it is so positioned to be not only an LA brand, but also only for LA, right?T. Dodd:Sure.F Geyrhalter:Which obviously you can pivot the brand whenever you start reaching outside of LA and more into southern California, but that's where I was heading with that question, because it has LA at its heart, and right now it is catering specifically to LA. Which I think a lot of people in LA love that, because quite frankly, there is not much in LA that is born in LA for LA, because everything is very global, and everyone in LA is an immigrant. You're from New Zealand, I'm from Australia.F Geyrhalter:We both lived here for half of our lives or however long. I think that there is something really special about a brand that is positioned from a brand positioning point of view just for Los Angeles.T. Dodd:Yeah. I lost you there for a second, so I apologize. I'm not sure what happened. [inaudible 00:32:54] came back on. It's an interesting challenge I think for us to think about it. I do think that there's a great New York City surf wear brand called Saturdays.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know them. Yeah.T. Dodd:It opened up in New York, and now LA, and now everywhere. Still very much a New York City brand.F Geyrhalter:True.T. Dodd:That's the kind of stuff where I think we're not a clothing brand. We're a retailer. I think New York City, where I lived for quite some time before I moved to LA, same thing. Wide acceptance of core brands from other places. I think we're a core brand. You can define a core lots of different ways, but I think we fit. I think we play well in different parts of the states. I don't know where this goes, if we're ever going to be in a shopping mall in the midwest. I don't know.T. Dodd:I think the idea, it would really be that this brand is for now, at the moment, for the next foreseeable, the near future, and frankly prognosticating about the near future is probably really silly given what's going on. The idea is we are a really strong fit for what our vision is for a cannabis retail here in California. I think we fit well elsewhere, but we'll be selective. We'll have to make decisions about... Just I've been very selective, we as a team have been very selective about our locations.T. Dodd:Where we are set up in Los Angeles. I spent a little bit of time in commercial real estate when I was at Warner Brothers, looking at at the time the Warner Brothers real estate portfolio. We looked at 100 locations for these stores. There are six stores currently, and we passed on most of them. Some of them would have been cheaper, and some of them would have been different. Obviously different. A different vibe, a different location. We weren't just going, doing it based on scarcity or density.T. Dodd:We were also doing it based on what we felt was the right building to have, the right province for the brand. Some of these buildings that we've got required a lot of TI, tenent improvement, but they're also really good branding opportunities. They're big with big locations, good locations. We can put the flower on the front of the store, and it's cool. That was really part of it. We've been very selective about these things.F Geyrhalter:Design is super important for you guys, right? The store layout, how it feels, how people enter it, entire customer journey.T. Dodd:Yeah.F Geyrhalter:Overall, your brand design and language, it feels very authentic, down to Earth. It's balanced. It's also gender neutral, even though you hinted at the idea that it's female forward, in a way, but it feels very neutral. You've got this highly curated custom photography, you've got these pastel colors, and that's all key to a very specific visual language for Sweet Flower. All of that is underlining your mission to set a new standard for modern cannabis retail that is inclusive, diversive, and approachable by all.F Geyrhalter:I know branding was super important for you guys from the get-go, but how early on did you invest in branding? How was that journey when you said, "Okay, we got to start thinking about the visual and verbal aspect of our brand at this point?"T. Dodd:That's a very straightforward question to answer. It was immediate. The first thing we did was, "Okay, so who are we? What do we stand for? What's our brand? What does our brand... ?" Once we decided to do this, and then decided roughly, a rough sketch of what Sweet Flower could become, and before we really had the name, and it locked in our heads, I sat down with a design team that I had worked with previously a little bit in a prior career, and came up with who is our customer?T. Dodd:We started with that. Who is our customer? Then what do we offer that customer? Then why does that customer want to come to see us? Simple, basic questions. That helped us frame the central question, who are we? I think we did that, if we started on a Sunday, we did that on a Monday. It was basically the next thing that we did. We invested in the brand, and we invested in the logo, the water marking, the brand ethos, the design, the look and feel of the stores. It's all congruent. The door has to be congruent.T. Dodd:We did not want to do anything that was going to turn off, because we're also in a really interesting situation because we were applying for different licenses in different cities. Some of those cities didn't really, like Culver City for instance, which has been fantastic. That is a forward leaning, thorough application process run by I think a very sophisticated group of people. Again, you're applying for the permission to basically sell a drug in someone's neighborhood. You have to be thinking about that.T. Dodd:You don't want to come in and say, "Okay, this is a right. California has adopted this, and you guys have to do it." That isn't the case. Anyway, it's always the local municipality gets to decide. We've always been focused on who we are, where we're from, and where we fit in that community.F Geyrhalter:That's part of your audience, right? You have to cater to all your different customers, and you wouldn't have the customers if you wouldn't get licensed within a certain city. That is important.T. Dodd:Yeah. You want to have your customers feel comfortable going to see you. If I think of the over... If I could sum up Sweet Flower in one word, it's trust. We want to grant people the right to trust us. We want to have people feel that they feel... To feel good about going to see us, that we're going to provide them with a good experience. They're not going to pay some crazy ripoff prices to staff. They're going to feel good about leaving the store, and going home, and trying these products.T. Dodd:If they don't like them, they can come back, and we can... Obviously, there's certain regs about returns, but we can always work with people about other things. We want to provide them with their trust, and extend that trust to delivery, extend that trust to our community, extend that trust to our drivers, and our delivery people, and our staff in the store, and our store managers. That's really important. I think that's where we want to come to. It's a trusted environment. Safe.T. Dodd:Beyond just being safe, it is an element of trust. That's hard to do. It's really hard to get people to trust you.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. Especially in that space, yeah.T. Dodd:Yeah. You start frankly in cannabis with three or four feet back from anywhere else, right?F Geyrhalter:Yeah.T. Dodd:It's a stigmatized business still, and probably rightly so. We just to have decide that it's not a right, it's a privilege to operate a store in these communities, and you've got to build that trust. If we've messed up, we want to fix things up quickly. I'm not aware of anywhere we have, but people often... These people just stigmatized bad cannabis operators, so they all think we've got green hair and piercings, and we get high all day. That's not who we are. A lot of that is just being visible.T. Dodd:Frankly, when we went to Culver City, the first thing we did was put our corporate office in Culver City. I work out of Culver City, at least I did until just recently.F Geyrhalter:Yeah.T. Dodd:Yeah, every day. We're around. You go, "Okay, there's the... " I'd go to the Starbucks and meet the, you run into the cops. They'd say, "Oh, are you the weed guy?" I'm like, "Yeah, I'm your friendly neighborhood drug dealer," and they're all going to crack up. If you do that 100 times over the course of a few months, I guess, people are like, "Okay." It becomes a little bit more normalized, and you're approachable, and not from some... What they think of as a cannabis person is not who you reflect, and that's important, too.T. Dodd:I think it comes down to trust. That's, like I said, you don't get that overnight. You don't get that over a year. You need to just work at that all the time, and it's super easy to lose, too. We just want to make sure we're that we're always trying [inaudible 00:42:09] as best we can.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. No, and that is the number one thing that people seek for these days in cannabis stores, anyways, is trust. If you amplify it the way that you do it as a brand, it makes a whole lot of sense. Usually as an investor, when you had your investor hat on, let's switch your hat for a second, how early on did you ask startups to invest in branding? Because usually for startups, it's all product, product, product, right?T. Dodd:Yeah.F Geyrhalter:For you, because you're a knowledgeable industry veteran, you understand what it takes. You started with asking all these right questions. Most cannabis businesses never do that, they don't even know what they're about. They just want to sell product.T. Dodd:For a second there. Can you hear me?F Geyrhalter:Okay. Yeah, I can hear you. Shall I repeat this?T. Dodd:Yeah. Sorry. It just dropped for a second. Not sure why.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, yeah. No worry. Look, the Internet, there's...T. Dodd:Yeah. There's ten million more people using it.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, exactly. Exactly.T. Dodd:It's probably not built for this, yeah.F Geyrhalter:Let's put on your investor hat for a second. When you as an investor, how early on did you tell your startups to invest in branding? Because most startup founders think it's a ginormous waste of time, because for them it's all product, product, product. Most investors, for them it's a ginormous waste of money because for them it's all about speed to market, and let's keep the money for the product for later on, and for marketing. How did you advise your startups?T. Dodd:Most of the startups I was working with were tech, and so it was product oriented. There wasn't a significant amount of focus on branding. Some of the companies I was working with or looking at were creative services companies that was more of a B2B player than a B2C player like Sweet Flower. The B2B players did require branding. A lot of that was built around talent. It was their own talent, and so they did invest early in branding.T. Dodd:Particularly when you're dealing with creative services, creative people, you can't stop them. They're very focused on that. I think for us, we had to invest in branding early, because one, we wanted to differentiate ourselves from the pack, and I think we've done that very well. Secondly, we were also in the middle of... We quickly started to apply for licenses in competitive license markets. Having a branding pack, having a design pack, having the look and feel that distinguished us from everyone else is, in those markets, in those races super important.T. Dodd:Now we've gotten not just the branding. We also now have a very strong operational backbone. We feel good about that decision. I think branding is critical for a retail outlet. A lot of people say, "Why do you guys have to brand these stores at all? Why don't you just take whatever name they had originally, and when you move them, just reopen them as that?" My philosophy here was really simple. You follow what works. What works for people is a very, again, building trust.T. Dodd:You have to have a common backbone. You have to have a standard look and feel. When you go to a Starbucks, or an Alfred Coffee, or a Sephora, or a Lay Labo, those are the brands that we were looking at. Analog brands in different sectors. It's very important to say, "Those brands have a common look and feel." We felt the same way about cannabis retail. No different. That was a core part of it, so we invested in branding early. I would not change that decision. I think it was the right thing to do.F Geyrhalter:What does branding mean to you now, now that you've gone through this process yourself? What does branding mean to you, Tim? It's a big question. Big loaded question to finish things off.T. Dodd:Yeah. I'll try and give the simplest answer. I think we're all... I'm not a Jungian psychologist, but we're all kind of powered by iconography. We're all powered by things we see that basically make us reflect on who we are and the situation that we're in. Branding to me is assembling those icons, color, logos. A flower, the sun. Simple things, and assembling those in a way that makes you think, "Okay, that's reflective of something that I like, that I want to engage with." It's possibly just that simple.T. Dodd:We're all basically fairly limbic. You can take away a lot of the cerebral cortex, but really at the end of the day, we're fairly basic animals. I think we reflect and response to things that are appealing to us different ways, right? For us, it was like, "Let's have a very simple brand. Let's use a cool gray palette. Let's apply a little bit of navy for bold." Nothing too shocking. We didn't want to be some super-dynamic motif. We wanted to be very straightforward. Let's use powerful iconography, powerful typography, good fonts, big fonts, and just keep it simple.T. Dodd:That allows people to apply their own feelings to the brand, I think. The brand icons are important, and the love mark that we have with the flower and the poppy... Sorry, the sun and the poppy are really important. I love that. I like seeing it. Every time I see that in a different way, that people are thinking about it, to me, it feels good. There's just something I like about it.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, it's so simple, but yet it tells a story, right? It also tells the story of what you actually want to feel, and that relief, and that kind of a space.T. Dodd:Yeah. Just selling wellness. Yeah. We're selling wellness. We're selling something. It has to stand out a little bit because it's a commercial brand. We're obviously, as you drive down the street, we want to make sure that you see Sweet Flower's logo, and our bold icons on the side of the stores. Yeah. I think it really just comes down to that trust, and that this is about wellness. Beyond that, I think people apply whatever they want to the brand. That's the cool part.T. Dodd:It's like, having people tell you what it means to them when they come into Sweet Flower. We've had some really amazing feedback and testimonials from people. That's really nice to see.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. Where can listeners get to know your brand? Mainly online, because there's a small, small, small part of our listeners from LA, but a lot of international listeners. Where can they get to know you?T. Dodd:SweetFlower.com is the website. We're constantly retooling the website. It also has a transactional component, ecommerce platform on the back of it. The website itself tells a story. I think the best way to think about us, though, for people who are outside of our community is on Sweet Flower Shops on Instagram. Sweet Flower Shops is really a nice component of that. That's non-transactional, obviously, and that really is much more about our brand story.F Geyrhalter:Totally agreed. Yeah.T. Dodd:And our partnerships and other things. That's where we see [inaudible 00:50:25]. I think Sweet Flower Shops is a really nice way for us to get our brand messaging and story out there, as well.F Geyrhalter:Awesome, Tim. Listen, I'm looking forward to following the journey. It's really-T. Dodd:Thank you, Fabian.F Geyrhalter:It's crazy times right now, but it's amazing how you guys are dealing with it, and how you're pushing forward, and how it is all about your community first, your employees, and then the people that you can currently help. Really, really appreciate you taking the time in these busy times. Stay safe out there-T. Dodd:Of course, yeah.F Geyrhalter:For most, be healthy, right?T. Dodd:Yeah, you, too. Stay safe, be well, and we'll see you soon, I'm sure. I much appreciate the time today. It's been great. Thank you so much.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. Thanks, Tim.

Welcome! Good morning, everybody. I was on with Steve Fornier this morning who was sitting in for Jim Polito. We discussed what the James Dyson Foundation is providing to families to interest their kids in Engineering and what the Business world will look like post-COVID. So, here we go with Steve Fornier For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com ---  Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig So what we did is we took the opportunity with her to say, Okay, well, let's do it. Let's make here's a recipe with feeds four people. So now we need to feed six people. So at the age of about five or six, she was doing fractions in her head. Hey, we went through a few more tips this morning. And Mr. Jim Polito is out. So Steve Fornier is sitting in for him. And I managed to work murder Hornets into this morning's interview, so here we go. Steve Welcome back to the Jim Polito show. It is Steve Fornier here in Springfield in for Jim this morning. And again, I a guy that I think is just such a valuable resource at a time like this. Craig Peterson joins us, our tech talk guru Craig. Good morning. How are you doing, sir? Craig Good morning, doing well. Steve First of all, Craig, I want to say thank you for your contributions, and I know that you also gave our radio stations a bunch of tech talk tips that we can use that we can run here on the stations. And I think that's so valuable. So I want to say thank you for providing us with that stuff. Craig Oh, you're welcome. Yeah, it took a long time. Those little features are about a minute and a half to two minutes long talking about the tech stuff. Steve How do you boil it down to just something that's just a minute or two long? That's my entire job, Craig is spitting 40 seconds worth of stuff into a 30-second spot. So I hear you that. Craig Today is National Teacher Appreciation Day, which I think is so important. And you have some cool resources for parents to help the kids out. Can you tell us a little bit about it? Craig Yeah, this one is just totally cool. I don't know if you know, but my wife and I have eight kids, and we homeschooled them. Steve Your baseball team. Craig Yeah, yeah, right. Oh, you know from Canada, so it's closer to a hockey team. But anyway, the whole time up to college in fact, now they've gone on to get advanced degrees. But what you have to do with your kids is look at their interests. We had a young daughter, I think she was about five or six years old, and she loved to cook she loves to bake. And so what we did is we took the opportunity with her to say, Okay, well, let's do it. Let's make here's a recipe with seeds for people. So now we need to feed six people. So at the age of about five or six, she was doing fractions in her head. She was multiplying fractions dividing fractions because she loved to cook—somebody like you, Steve, who loves sports. If you have a little boy or girl that's interested in baseball, teach them how to figure out the statistics. And which stats are better? Is it better to bat a 300 or 400? And what does that mean? You take those opportunities, and that's what Dyson has come up with James Dyson's foundation. He is the guy that makes those vacuum cleaners that are kind of cool some high tech fans and other things. His foundation has put together this list of about two dozen different challenges for kids. And the idea behind it is to get them interested and expose them to engineering concepts. You know, they have some simple things like can you skewer a balloon that's inflated without poping it? How about taking a nail electroplating it? How can you cover it in copper? Well, how would you do that? And then a classic I remember when I was a little kid is plugging a clock into a potato making a potato battery. So all of these things are designed as challenges specifically for kids. They're ideal in the home or the classroom. And the whole idea is to get kids excited about engineering. Steve Yeah, into just give them something to do right to let them put down the fortnight controller and, and be productive. You know, while we're all sitting around. Craig Yeah, I think that might be a difficult one for some people because so many of these video games are very, very addicting, and the whole science behind them is fascinating. But this is great. So I'm going to we'll get them outside. They'll get them in the kitchen. They'll get them doing some things. So just search online right now you'll be able to find it. It's the James Dyson Foundation spelled D Y S O N. Steve By the way, I learned Craig thanks to Final Jeopardy earlier this week. Maybe that Dyson also invented the wheelbarrow. So how about that? What is who is Dyson? Cool there? We're talking with Greg Peterson, and I do have sort of an off the radar question. I wanted to fire at you towards the end. So stay on alert for that, Greg, but can you tell us a little bit about telecommuting. Post COVID-19, it's going to be a little different. How can you tell us out? Craig Yeah, we're seeing some fascinating numbers starting to come out right now most businesses have got some sort of telecommuting in place now. Many of them have been looking at how do I secure it now? How do I make it more efficient, make it faster for people? What we're starting to see from these C-levels and the executive offices, who are trying to figure out what's it going to look like, is that they are serious about moving out of the big cities. So I think you're going to see a lot of the businesses moving from a Boston, for instance. Closer to Western or Springfield, smaller cities, and even smaller towns, some of these corporate buildings in Chicago are already emptying. We've seen the same thing in Detroit for many years. So post COVID-19, we're going to see that many of their employees have ten times more than pre-COVID-19. Ten times more employees about 40% or maybe more will be working from home on a long term basis. Steve Whether or not they want to. I mean, like yes, some people don't want to be stuck in the house all day with their family and some businesses. Craig Some businesses still have their people getting together? What I'm thinking is that we are going to see more people working from home, but it's not going to be five days a week. They may be working from home four days a week or three days a week and going into the office once or twice, but that's going to happen. It is going to have a devastating impact on real estate, the business real estate out there, frankly. But we're going to see just a dramatic a giant increase from January and people working from home on Craigslist, anything. Steve Like I don't know how to say this is the impact that COVID-19 is having in the big cities? Is that a part of it too, because it just seems like, you know, the cities that are being hit the hardest. New York City, Boston, you know, major metropolitan cities, is that a part of it too, just keeping your employees safe, and, you know, understanding the threat that there isn't a big city. Craig So that's a massive part of it. Most of the major corporations are not planning any sort of travel even until the probably next year 2021. And when you're looking at the big cities, it is a considerable risk. You know, as a business, we can't afford to lose some of our best talents, and when Many companies have been placed strategies that say hey listen, you guys cannot be on the same airplane traveling somewhere you cannot be in this location together. And because of what we've seen with COVID-19, there are a lot of businesses that are being Steve all just a whole lot more cautious about having people in one place. I talk to business people who are saying that for them in reality. It has been a big wake up call because having everyone in the office but spreading these germs, even for the flu for instance, but when you've got something like this virus we have today where we don't know what's going to happen, having them all in one office and sharing it the big problem. I have a client who is an HVAC contractor, and they are starting to install air handling units that have ultraviolet light inside of them. They have heavy HEPA filters that put into them all in an effort for businesses to be able to keep the offices safe so that they are not spreading disease in the office. It's going to be a whole new world. Steve Yeah, sure is. We're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech guru and Craig, I do have a question sort of out of the left-field that I think you can help with solve security questions. It is today's world from the eyes of a hacker, these security questions, just don't cut it for me, like, what is your dad's but what is your mom's maiden name? Like? I feel like that's very easy to find on the internet. If you're a hacker, what you know what street did you grow up on? Well, we can figure that out pretty easily on the Yellow Pages calm. Um, I'm to the point now where it's I'm answering questions like, you know, what's your dog's name and I'm answering like purple because I Hope they will get it. Is that the best approach to just sort of lie on all these questions? Craig Yeah, it is, you know, in this day and age of murder Hornets, we have to be extra cautious. But yeah, what I've done for the last 30-40 years. I got my first job ever. I wrote some computer software used for magazine distribution stuff. I came to realize that hey, they are tracking us. So always since then, I have been making up the answers to all of those questions, just wholly random words. And I have been using one password, which is a password manager, to a great one. It's the one I recommend to everybody. There are other password managers out there, but it'll generate passwords for you. It'll store notes securely, etc. So you're doing the right thing, Steve, every website that I go to, that's asking those security Questions. I have it either one password randomly pick words for me, or I just make up something that's completely nonsensical. And sometimes, when you get on with the tech support or PII or help desk people, and they ask one of those questions, they chuckle. They ask, what's that? What's that all about? Now, there is a line. You cannot erase the lease not supposed to lie on certain types of applications. So if it's financial information, if it's government-related stuff, you can undoubtedly make top answers to those recovery questions. But you can't just totally lie about who you are. But I have dozens and dozens of identities, Steve that I use on just random websites. They don't need to know who I am. So I only use some made-up identity, and sometimes I'm a guy, sometimes I'm female, you know, different ages, everything else because they don't need to know that. I don't want the hacker To be able to examine my life on LinkedIn or my website or Facebook and come up with the answers. Steve Yeah, no, that that was my thought is how simple it is. Especially if you have if you're not like a private thing, if you don't have a personal Twitter or a private Facebook, you know, you're opening yourself up to getting that information, the hackers getting that information, and then then you know, they're in. So very interesting. I appreciate that. I have been fighting that battle with the security question thing now. Craig Well, that's not right. Now that's a $15 billion industry, sending out those phishing emails and trying to figure out what someone's information is and using that to do spearfishing. It's all part of business email compromise, which the FBI says I'm more than $15 billion industry right now. Steve Wow. That's crazy. Craig, this is excellent stuff, folks. And if you want more from Craig, you can do that. We'll go with the name, Jim, for consistency, but you can do text, the name Jim, to this number. Craig to 855 385 5553. So let's just text and Jim to 855 385 5553. Steve And as always good stuff, Craig, if you want more information on those different activities for the kids, again, you will find it at Dyson is the name of the company. Likewise, if you get in touch with Craig, he's more than willing to help out. And like I said, Craig, we appreciate you, especially this time. It's valuable stuff. And we understand it. So thanks again. Craig All right, take care. Bye-Bye, guys. Steve Thank you. Thank you. There goes everybody, Craig Peterson. And great stuff. Craig I've been sort of mulling over the security question thing for a while that just like what street did you grow up on? That's specific information to come up with if you're a hacker, it's just to me it just seems way too easy. So yeah, what street did you grow up on honeysuckle? It's not honeysuckle, but that's what I'm, you know, whatever. You're right. Just make sure you write them all down somewhere. And then I'll use the one password it can have secure notes. Don't forget it. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for reaching out to me yesterday. Text Me Me at Craig Peterson dot com. I appreciate that. I got a couple of excellent comments. I think I might be onto something here through something that's going to help you guys out. So anyhow, have a great day. I expect I'll be back tomorrow if I have a decent interview on WGAN as well. Bye-bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Welcome back to fuel your legacy show and today we have an incredible guest on I'm excited every time when I get the opportunity to invite people onto my show. And it's it goes through a selection process of who do I think is gonna be best? What messages need to be heard? And how pertinent are they especially to when I'm watching them? How pertinent are they too kind of world circumstances things like that. So I am super pumped right now to have Kip Kenobi Brooks. Kenobi part is a calling name, but he is a certified Jedi Master and trainer in neuro-linguistic programming. Now if you've never heard of NLP or neuro-linguistic programming, you are going to have your mind blown today, especially going through this sense of world income. And it's essential that we learn how to talk to ourselves, how to communicate to others to others, and then how to stay positive negativity causes a lot offriction, a quantum physical perspective, and a hormonal perspective, a lot of not great things.don't serve us and so learning how to control our environment and the languages that we're using are crucial, especially in this time where you've never had as much time to yourself probably since you've been alive right? Then school all these things now you're sitting at home wondering what the heck to do with yourself and your family because you've never spent that much time together. This is this is huge. So he came from nothing gained it all lost all and now he's traveled the globe helping other clients gain it all in their lives by removing the emotional mental blocks that are often put on their success. Look, guys, you, I can't stress this enough. Now you have time to work through all of these things like now is the time to do it. You're never going to get two weeks off from work again. Just cuz I don't know if you never will. But this is the time to do it. I mean, it's a gift from God, in my mind this whole circumstance. So such a blessed opportunity for us to take advantage of I'm super excited for you guys to hear from Kip Kenobi Brooke so go ahead and give us a little bit more of your background.And help us understand why you want to build a legacy and what legacy you're building. Go ahead and start from your earliest memories and bring us on to the journey.And thank you so much for having me. I love the show. And yeah, for me, it's so I started typical kid, you know, curious about the world.And just trying to be happy and explore around andmake my parents proud and all that good stuff, butwasn't in a, an environment that was nourishing to that type of mindset and was very sensitive as a kid I was very empathic and, you know, I don't have a single memory of my parents ever getting along, or ever feeling like they were even remotely happy in their life in any way, shape, or form. They hated their job. And that just blew my mind because they own their own business and they hated every minute of it.They are happy being in a relationship. So, but neither one would walk away from the business so they wouldn't walk away from the relationship. And so that was just this. Never felt safe or comfortable at home. And by the time I was eight years old,I was having suicidal thoughts. Luckily, I didn't know that was something that could be done. It's just,you know, I would pray every night as I was going to sleep that just make my heart stop. Don't let me wake up tomorrow.And but around that time, I had a younger sister was born,connected with her right away andI just always felt protective, not just of her just of people, I never like to see people hurting or being hurt or anything like that. And so I came up with this idea thatby the time I was 10, or 11, and started learning, there were other options and you know, as far as like,That guy should be here. And I know there were ways toMRI for whatever.By the end, I connected with her so much I had this idea that if I wasn't there, then all this crap I was going through would get dumped on her and just kind of passed on. So I was like, I've got to stay here to keep her safe. At least until she's old enough to you know, and strong enough to survive on our own. And so she was for the longest time.Baby infant sister here was a was like a guardian angel for me.men had a really low point at age 14 anddecided that was it I just couldn't do it anymore.And her life was pretty good. She was the youngest in the family and the only girl so she was a she was baby. She was pampered. She was looked after and love. And I was like, all right, she'll be alright. Do you know?And I was holding a gun to my head pulling the trigger. And then something clicked. AndI just I got really angry, and I wanted, I wanted to be fixed, I wanted to feel better. And I was really upset. Not just that I felt that way. But a kid felt that way as long as I did. And also knew there were other people not happy. I see, somewhere between ages 10 and 12 I had a grandfather committed suicide so it was likepeople shouldn't feel this way. And I made a promise to myself in the universe that if I ever figured out another way to be and found happiness in life andwas able to get up every day and not be miserable that I woke up.I'm going to come back and shine that same light for the people who are in that darkness. I want to show people there's a possibility and but first I got to find it. Well, I wish I could say I woke upThe next day, and it was like Ebenezer Scrooge, yet his breakthrough was like just singing out the window and like, making it rain on the delivery boy.But I was still, you know, a broken lost 14-year-old kid, and no other way and I was still in the same environment and I didn't understand the power of perception and mindset and all that.Andso, stayed around, still trying to like, okay, at least look after my sister and all that and try to figure it out. ButI think as time went on, I was still just never getting there. And thenmy dad passed away was 15 and my mom was getting some security moneyfor each of the kids and when she came to me, I was around 16 or 17. And he was just looking for a turn 17 or think, and I was supposed to graduate at 17Because my birthday was right on the cusp, you know wherethey let me go through so I was always the youngest kid in my class. And she came to me She's like, you know, you would graduate at 18 or 17 but if you could stay in school and repeat 12th grade I'll get another year so security moneyand so I saw this likethis opportunity of all get to love and acceptance now I'm valuable now I'm alreadythat wasn't dreaming. And then it also planted a seed in my mind of that's all I'm worth, you know, to this. This is a mother's love is supposed to be like this justgodly presence in our life, right and constantly, I got to see planted as like, I'm absolutely worthless to this family. And, and then one day I saw the checks and it was like $632And some change. And it's like, that's how my life's work. For a couple of years after that, like about two, two and a half years, that's about all I ever made it any job I had. I didn't realize it for a long time. But looking back, I think I would make between like six and $7 a month. And if I ever got a job, whereas making more than that, I would do something to sabotage it. And I didn't understand it until you know, later on in life when I got into psychology and you know, P and everything.But it's really fascinating to look back on it. Wow. That's, that's what I believed I was worth. Because that's what I saw my mom got for me that was what was made her willing to ask me to intentionally fail. And now it had to be pretty painful for a mother to ask her child to fail. It shows me the Dire Straits we were in at the time, butat that moment in time, I didn't see it that way. You know, I didn't. I wasn't aware of any of that.And so anyway, I did repeat 12th gradeIf she went to do that, honestly, I would have probably just withdrawn from school completely. I didn't see a point in going, I was still pretty suicidal was planning on committing suicide after I graduated or afterhigh school is down once shewhen she asked me to do that, I said, Okay, the money stops at you know, June 8.I might as well as the last value I can add to the planet.a couple of months for that I had.If I didn't show up to school, they would have kicked me out completely. So I had to show up at least a little bit. only needed this half a credit for the second semester of world history class. And I had this rookie teacher was his second year, brand new to our school. And we hit ignore each other the whole first part of the year. He comes to me at the beginning of the second semester, a few weeks in andcomes up home after school.slap some papers down in front of my desk. He's like, I don't know what in the world you have going on, In your head, in your inside. at home. I don't even know you outside the classroom. We've never even spoken in here. He's like, but he starts slapping papers. He's like, no, this is not you. I won't accept this behavior from you anymore. I won't allow you to accept it from yourself. Because if you're better than this, and I was only said, and we sat there for what seemed like an eternity of silence, but it's probably about three seconds. And then he said, You You're allowed to leave whenever you want. That's all I had to say for today.And I got up and bolted out of the room as fast as I could. I felt so uncomfortable. Because you see, I was actually an AP student. All through elementary school. I was always on the honor roll student the month a bunch of times. And then when I went into seventh grade, something shifted and I went from A's and B's to D's and F's. Actually oneOne of my first report cards were like, six F and a D.And instead of anybody seeing them, you know, wow, what happened, what's going on inside? They just started punishing me non stop and I was written offby teachers by the school but my parents are just, you know, a screw-up. AndCoskata wrong was about the first teacher to see past that and look for something else.It wasn't the only one there ended up being another one. But he was the first one actually grabbed me, kind of shake me up a little bit of tough love. And what he did in NLP and psychology is called a pattern interrupt, you know, no one had actually done that. Everybody justshows up, suck it up, you know, pull it together, study harder, you know, whatever. I wasn't studying, I wasn't doing anything. I didn't see a point and no one ever got down to that. SomeSo the day con came did I plan to in my life, it came and it went. And it was a couple of years before I realizedI wasn't supposed to be here past now. I say, wait a minute. And I started looking back trying to figure out like what happened because it's like I would literally for a couple of years, I thought about that day, every single day. And candidate now, I was just so miserable. That was the only thing getting me through it was that I wasn't getting beyond that point.Or, you know, it wasn't going to pass that point as like there's an end to all this. Andfinally, around my mid-20s, I had actually started turning things around and had been at a job for a while and was doing good. And I was making more than that six $700 a month. And I was starting to get it together.Yeah, life was pretty decent was better than I'd ever thought it would be for me.Anyway, and it kept getting a little bit better, a little bit better, I still run into some roadblocks would still like sabotage here and there and mess things up.And wouldn't know why. But like, I would get four steps up, you know, fall two or three back, but then I would get five more, but you know, it was just back and forth. So it was this gradual improvement with some setbacks along the way.And finally, you know, as much as I found I was going to be a parent, I went to work on myself. I was doing pretty good by the end, you know, mentally and emotionally, and doing okay at work.And something triggered me when I was going to be a parent, and it was just,I was like, I know even though I'm doing better than I've ever done. So I know there's some skeletons in my closet, some baggage and I don't want to dress my kids out of the same baggage that I've been carrying. I was like, there's some stuff I need to hear.From childhood and I need to find out how. And I've been going to went to the therapist for a couple of years.psychologists and psychiatrists and things andnever got anywhere really. You know, we have some new improvements here and there but it's such a long drawn-out process. It's something me skips is there's another way Yeah, they would put me on some man I was on all sorts of meds.And it made me feel good for a little bit and they would plateauor drop back down and there's, there's something different there's something I'm missing. It's only back into a journey of trying to discover something and that's when you know p psychology and neuroscience started to enter in my life, I started putting myself in these different spots found out about the personal development world, went to seminars, you know, went to shamanism courses. I took a soul song class, I know what it was barely what it is.Now, when I was looking for anything of like something different than what I've been doing, and whenever I found, you know, being really started dissecting it, because when I first got introduced to it, it was I was only brought into this sales side of it. And which I found fascinating and loved used to work had some great success.But the therapeutic side of itwas kind of just parked away in the shadows somewhere. And when I discovered that and they realize how to link the two and started understanding the barriers we carry from the past and how to release and all that's when it really like triggered inflammation really get amped up. And, and then, in 2010 I had a daughter passed away shortly after birth and her life in it that shehad a brain deformation that was there's no train before. NoYou're in 100% fatal, it's just a matter of time. And that's it. And it's usually very soonthatin her time, the rest of it was perfectly healthy and strong. Andin her time going through that experience,I started learning about organ donation. And we're told she can ever be a donor because the way the laws are written there like it's, it's illegal fora child two years old or younger to be a donor. And, well, that's really stupid. Why is it because donors are needed for that age. And it's just that just the way the walls are written. It's like it falls into this funky little area. And I can't do anything about it. So I went out to change that. And I was like, there are people all the time losing child at this age. And it makes no sense that someone like me, can't help someone like them. It's like, if I can prevent somebody from feeling this, then I feel like that's my duty and soI went to work on that. Andone of the things they didn't tell me was it was just too taboo. And everybody was too afraid to approach that issue.So after it was all done, now there's a protocol set in place and actually the organ procurement organization I worked with them, they do the training and they set the protocol. So there's now a protocol for and they actually discovered the technology of a new way toa new technology bringing in organ donation with this liver cell transplant that actually keepsmany many times a high percentage, maybe even 100%. By now.can keep people from having to get the liver transplant they can actually inject sales from a healthy liver into that and they discovered it trying to shut me up basically, be not so many doors, and confu down. And so it was in Europe, they brought it they found it and brought it to the states and got a lot of funding byIt soso and then the world of organ donation was changed by thisyou know, baby girl that who only lived minutes they said, life outside the womb for her was 99 minutes. And that completely altered everything I believed, deep down.You buried beneath everything that altered everything I'd ever heard and believed about, about our life and value we bring. Because I realized if someone that young lives that shorter period of time could make such a huge difference in the world. I mean, globally, there have been so many lives saved and positively impacted because of her journey.She was able to add that much value and have had much of an impact me that significant to the world. What the heck Have I been doing? And it's like, every life has value. I was like, including mine and I won't live inAnother way ever again. And that was it. It snapped me out of it to this day right now I get goosebumps cold chills every time I think about when I had that just, you know, just clickmuscle like I had when I was 14 it's just so lost and dark. It's like finally all those seeds. Just say that, you know, from that moment at 14 to two and even the moments before that with my sister like understanding that life is valuable. I was seeing it my sister wasn't seeing it myself.And then again at 14 and then with Coach Calderon planting that seed and all these different little things along the way. Finally got through my thick skull, like Lana Tupac she killer would write a poetry about you know, a rose that grew from concrete it's like that's all I had to take the rose busted through the concrete that is my thick skull and finally figured it out. And, and to this day, like when people ask me, what's your superpower? I'm it's the fact that I can seepossibility in every person, even when it can't save themselves, and they just came from I never saw it myself. So once I did, I'm like, oh man, and and I tell people all the time, I've never met a client who is more screwed up than I was. So it's like, if there was a chance for me, there's one for you, you gotta believe it. And we got to get you there. And that's it.Has it's ever since then it's been a year towards, you know, where I'm at now and where we're moving towardsis, I love it. The whole story is incredible. Honestly, what I found about talking to multiple people is when they find their legacy, it really is to help help a version of themselves and also there's nothing like once that Penny drops once the rose burst through the concrete right, once that happens, there's never I don't feel like there's really ever any going back to it. And going back from that experience like there's it's athis this term is probably used to flippantly butIt's a level of enlightenment about who you are and what your potential is and what your purpose is, that can't be contained anymore.That's what I love about the whole process is it's, you're creating now healing for other people. And what I found was a lot of people who have talked to if they specifically do neuro linguistic programming, I'm gonna ask you this question because I am curious your perspective on it. There's, there's many people who I think have used neuro linguistic programming, you probably have a lot of clients who have used it in the past, in my experience, all of the practitioners that I know the people who are like, actively helping people,they all have a story similar to yours, where they truly believe that they're more screwed up than anybody they could ever meet. Or at least they were more screwed up than anybody that could ever meet and they, because of that, they make great practitioners becauseThere's that empathy that there's that relatability that like look there is still hope for you and I think that belief helps it work even more for the people who maybe haven't had that experience to be a practitioner I'm just curious how many practitioners Do you know that haven't had one of these like major life like they went from suicidal toto being an avid like Crusader for the NLP hypnosis things like that help us know so many who haven'tit's fine you're you're just dead on the money. It's the the ones I speak with who have had like these just amazing stories of transformation with clients. Like me my my favorite one is scroll and I have full permission to use her story. She's have tons of videostestimonials from her and interviews and everything. And she's actually a student of mine right now. But Melissa, she was a she was a rape victim. And because of the rape and the way trauma and everything works, the rape left her with asthma, PTSD, phobia, and afflicted allergy. And the allergy it actually left her legally dead for more than five minutes a couple of years ago, down in social anxiety, what else is she had a ton of stuff because she was brutally raped at 13. Andwe work together and like a 20 minute session, and part of it went right before work the other she's like, and she didn't tell me all that, but I could tell because I don't have to share because she was a demo I was I was at a seminar I'd been asked to come present it andsay, and whenever she asked me, you know, eyes were dark, and I could just see you know, pain can recognize pain, you know, andwe can only see and others would. We've seen ourselves a lot of times and so I could just recognize it and Iidea of what it was because this the shifter, persona, body language and everything.So no, not not at all and keep yourself I don't need to know you don't know, it's all unconscious. Let's just get rid of it. And then, you know, she told us, she told us afterwards, butshe had told me before she's like, well, you need to know thatone of my best friends has all the same training needed, and actually maybe simpler. And so he refused to work with me. Because it was too dangerous. And I said, Well, that's his stuff. That's not your limitation. It's not mine. I was like, do you believe it can be done? And she did. She was on it. I was like, can you trust me and trust the process? Yeah. Okay. That's all it takes. And about 20 minutes session. She's done. She's no allergy, none of that. No, PTSD anymore. No phobia, and she was so ready to let it go. And that like it rocked my world. I didn't know how long it was going to take, you know, it's like but if youtakes all night I'm staying here I will not let her lead in that kind of pain that I just saw. And, and what it is I we talked about it afterwards and, and had very similar conversation with where you and I are going it wasthe people and she talked to a few people who've worked with him on a lot of different things from around us but never going near like the allergy and all of that stuff.Andand that was their limiting belief in what it was. And if I have a second superpower, this is it. I've always been too dumb to be afraid. I'm not afraid to go there with a client. So I've had my own darknessand my own pain. And all of that is that yours isn't going to end and I don't mean this in a colder like being a jerk. I think so yours. Your trauma isn't going to hurt me. So why would I be afraid to go there if I can go there with you and help get you out. I'm coming in youThe firefighter coming into the burning building, everybody else is running out. And it's because is that protection thing and it's like, I don't want anyone, I can't sleep at night knowing unless somebody stay in that, you know, thinking it's anything remotely like my was it worse, that you know, the pain I experienced? Because the mental and emotional pain is far worse and physical. Absolutely.Andso yeah, the people she had said that, who would might refuse to work with it or whatever. Like the ones who were friends or whatever. Yeah, they had a pretty good childhood growing up or whatever, and other other practitioners or ones I've had who've come to me I've even had people who actually mentored me, on the way up, come to me and asked my advice and opinion and asked for mentorship, mentorship from me. And even though they have years ofstudy and knowledge in it, but they never had the practice, they never went there. They never pushed the boundaries at theAnd I would talk to them and kind of same thing like they never had the experience of it themselves of, you know, some kind of traumatic event or, you know, deep mental and emotional pain. And the ones I talked to who have had these amazing transformations for themselves or clients talk to us about, you know, well you life like growing up, you know, parents used to beat me all the time, or I grew up in an orphanage or have someone else who actually had a friend who had a great childhood, but then got into a very abusive marriage, and that just took everything they knew about the world, you know, flipped it inside out.And that's it. That's, andit's amazing. It's so healing to actually step into this side of things and start coaching people through that because it's like, it gives that pain a purpose, and that's why we're giving it anyway right? Pain is a huge motivator as a beautiful teacher. So we need to createbring you some of it now, I don't ever want to see anybody experienced like, true hopelessness. That's a pain that no one needs to sink that low toput us like pain can be beautiful. And, you know, prosperity can come from it. I don't just mean when I say prosperity, I don't just mean, you know, money and the monetization of things, to prosperity and just complete health, happiness. Well, you know, that's what true success and prosperity is. To me, it's just being happy and that you're alive. And I just been happy to take a breath, and have beautiful relationships, friends, family,life partner, kids, if that's what you want, and also prosperity and being able to leave a legacy and make an impact in the world and love what you do have passion in your work and all of that and set true abundance. And it's like now that that pain has a purpose, and if you just follow that purpose, that's the most healing thing I've ever done is helping othersTime work with a client there's a little piece of meat it's like give them back noticesomething it's cliche it can be everybody says it there has said it at some point it's in Hollywood all the time but it really is true like we help somebody else that's like a I can feel that little kid I once was like getting a hug, you know, are just getting the lollipop person getting something to bring a smile. Absolutely. So I'm gonna I just love that it's so cool. I'm gonna go over some of these things that stuck out to me about your stories on draw attention to them because this this podcast right is is partially healing for oneself, which is essential and if you've hopefully if you've got nothing else out of his story, you can start thinking I was just sitting here listening thinking man I need to goin certain cases I need to go be the pattern interrupt in some people's lives that I see that maybe aren't doing what and not not not that I think what they're doing is not good or bad, right? It's not about that.But I can see when somebody isdoing something intentional or out of habit. And once they get into the habitual thing that's not serving them, then it serves to have a pattern interrupt and say, Okay, why are you doing this? What's the intention behind this pattern? and help them get out of that. Sothink of that. Those are the things I thought about. But let's talk about some of your, your childhood, some of the thoughts you have, because I think these are very common, and they're in every area of our life. He shared a story of his childhood and what how he dealt with things that way. But I want to address this from a business perspective, from a relationship perspective. A few different things that I'm going to highlight here. But in the beginning, he said his parents, what was the situation with his parents, they hated their business. He felt like they hated him, and they hated being tied to each other. They didn't like each other. They didn't like their business didn't like anything, but they felt powerless to get out of it. They stayed together.Because of the business, they stayed in these bad situations because ofultimately, financial security, and that and that plays another role later on in the story, my story and as you've listened to me on different podcasts, very similar, right, I came from a seventh of 11 kids and in a position of poverty, I mean, essentially there was there was domestic violence, there was a lot of gaslighting emotional abuse, physical abuse, and with that, it's nothing bad to say about my parents or anything like that. I love and respect my parents. They were going through their own things, chemical imbalances, it's hard to raise a family. But the point being is we came from that position. And because of that, I went to study psychology and neuroscience and neuro psychology. So we go through these similar pathways. And what was fascinating what I found in the research, once we got into sociological research is exactly what he highlighted. And that is thatPeople will stay in these negative environments, these negative chemical environments, these negative physical environments, emotional environment, spiritual environments, they'll stay there 90% of the time, because they don't know how to financially care for themselves or the people that depend on them outside of that situation. And so my mission is to help people understand money enough so that they don't have to make decisions based on money, but they can make decisions based on what's best for them. What I'm doing doesn't replace or it complements what Kip is doing, he's helping people more with the mentality of healing through these traumas, that's as it as important or or more important than understanding how money works. Money's just the name of the show, right? The fuel for the legacy. It's not the legacy itself, the legacy itself is the healing that kit provides the fuel is understanding how to financially make those things happen. Okay, so I want to want to add some contrast there and some clarityOne of the things that I loved is when he got his little sister, right when his little sister shows up, and so many people, I mean, I've been using this quote a lot on social media and in different avenues, but that we like, very rarely do we rise to leadership, we fall to the level of our training, that is most cases, okay. And I've had some pushback, somebody will say, oh, there's the exception. Some people do rise, right? Well, Kip is one of those people who's an exception, he's an outlier. He did rise, right? When he was thinking, Oh, man, this sucks. I want out then he sees another person come in, says no, even if I did want out, I can't leave them in this situation. So rather than backing down, right, rose to leadership rose to I need to be alive to protect and to lead and to make sure that my family's okay. And these are the things that in such terrible circumstances. I'm sure Kip wasn't necessarily thinking of whatAn incredible attribute that is, for myself, I have a similar story like I literally when I get on stage, I literally use these wordings because, for me, I had an abusive mom I had. And I felt that the way tothe I was stronger, and these are all like ourselves justifications or our ourselves, building ourselves up, but I felt that I was stronger can handle a beating a little bit better, and could be a better leader than my mom. And so I did that. The unfortunate thing about my story is that rather than leading better than my mom, I became the same type of leader as my mom. So then I didn't get punished, but then I ended up not being nice to my siblings and causing harm to my siblings as a way to impact less pain than my mom was impacting But now what does that increase that incurs a sense of even betrayal from another party if there's there's a lot of psychological mess there, right?The landscapeI know they are. Yeah, but but I did. But the things you don't understand leaders, there are some people who do step up for an occasion most back down some step up. And that's happening in every area of life. And it's not, I want to make sure that people understand you're not bad or wrong or less than, orthere's nothing demeaning about being somebody who falls or or choose to run from the fiery building rather than running into it, right?That's notif that's you don't feel bad, don't sell shame or whatever or feel guilty about that. People are different, they have different roles and have different purposes. And that's okay. You know, it's okay to know that you're different. And we need both people because if everybody ran in the building, we'd all die, right? So we need people who are outside taking care, the people who are outside the building, so that was huge. And then to do that, to be able to do that he had to have anawareness of how others were right, what ultimately pulled the gun out of his mouth or wherever it was on his body. When he was he was thinking that is man. I'm finally at a point where I'm in this pain I now recognize I'm at a point where I think I could recognize other people are in the same pain. Maybe they're either doing the same type of thing in private, or they're thinking about it.Again, he had already set up the pattern in his life to be a leader, as soon as you recognize them, where he could leave, he fell back or rose up rather to leadership and say, okay, who else could? Who needs my help? That's his reason to live now is to find those people who are hurting and to help them and that was decided at a young age, even though it didn't necessarily come to a full fruition till later, I was decided, at a young age most major decisions in your life are decidedor created the patterns between I would say six and 10 years old, most of them maybe even younger, dependent depends on who you ask.But there's a wide range from anywhere for 15. And I like to say, well, let's go a little bit lower. But that's that's the situation there.Okay, this part is that I think the craziest part of I would say craziest, but there's two things that I think could cause the biggest transformation for you who are listening right now.Especially in the the world situation that we're in.The economy is upside down. The economy's like, basically worse than the Great Depression. And I'm not I'm not trying to be a doomsday er, but it just is. That's that's the statistical evidence. We've had worse days than even before the Great Depression and through the Great Depression. Okay. So what's interesting though, is many people are going to lose their jobs from which they were paid based on what their employer thought they were worth. In kipps situation he was gettingused for whatever money his mom thought he was worth.Okay? that his situation and your situation, orI mean, for lack of better words, not to draw too crass of examples. They're identical, okay? You're getting paid based on what somebody else believes your worth. And as long as you're looking or hoping for times to get back to the old normal, where you're just paid what your what somebody else thinks you're worth, you're not getting it. Like I said at the beginning, this is one of the greatest opportunities God could have given us. Our world situation right now, it's time for you to identify your worth. What do you believe your worth is because when this all ends, ends, you're gonna have to go find a job again. But maybe or you're going to start your own business, whatever you're gonna do. And how are you going to say no, this is what I know I'm worth. How are you going to project into those conversations? This is what I know I'm worth and Kip can help you make that transformation because he recognized hesaw what he thought he was worth 600 $700 a month. Okay? And so many people, you decide that you're worth $40,000 a year or $70,000 a year or $30,000 a year right? And it's the saint the numbers different but the mental process is identical. I promise you from a neuro linguistic programming perspective, the language is the same. And so he can help you if you want to level up your income through this whole situation. He's your guy, he can help you do that. He did it for himself. He can help you do that. And share a little bit about that kid because I I know it's possible. I know you can do it, but share a little bit about what that process is. What does it look like?It's funny when you were bringing that up by acolleague, I have she um,she's awesome. We we were, we were working with each other. We've kind of tried it out. I hate you know, you run me through SAS. I'll run you through a session or whatever. And she was focusing on career and theFinance and she's Tell me about all the money stories that she had growing up, you know, and oh, come from a small town people in small town don't make much money 

How does our life look different when we love ourselves and put ourselves before everything else? What I'm going to teach you about using your calendar and getting things done is going to be different than you've probably heard anywhere else. Today we're going to talk about concepts that are counter intuitive to someone who's a workaholic. Like say...a lawyer. So does it feel like a strange thought? Does it feel wrong for you to think about how you can love yourself more and get more done? Good because that's cognitive dissonance. That feeling means your brain is already starting to put different connections together. And I can hear you thinking, well, that sounds nice, but doesn't that mean scheduling massages and making it to the gym regularly? Who has time for that? Right? And how do we do all of that and still get everything done that we need to get done at the office? Listen in to hear how thinking differently will help you create more of what you want in your life and less of what you don't.

Business Day TV — David Shapiro from Sasfin Securities chose Tech Stocks as his stock pick of the day. McCurrie said: "I'm sitting back, even though I recognize there's value this rally has been too quick too soon and I think it can go back maybe not to its previous levels but we have still got to get to the peak of the bad news being reported. Will the economy shrink 6% or 15%, will unemployment in the US be 10% or 80%, will retail sales have fallen 30% or 50%, we just don't know that yet, so I'm going to sit back for a while." Shapiro said: "I'm tech bullish, I looked at Netflix numbers, even though the shares are down they increased their subscribers by double the amount that they expected, nearly 16 million new subscribers. What I'm highlighting here and I'm not saying go and buy Netflix, it's just how much tech has changed the lock down and just how much they've grown. So, just keep an eye on tech all of them are going to get staggering results coming up"

The British romantic poet William Wordsworth is best known for his moving evocations of nature, his celebration of childhood, and his quest to find a shared humanity in his poetry. He’s also widely considered the first modern poet because he turns his experiences, memories, and the workings of his mind (earlier "spots of time") into the main subject of his accessible poetry. That hadn’t happened before, and all of us, who today are either committed to rational thought, sober analysis and reflection or are deep in our feelings, are ultimately Wordsworthians. But what Wordsworth may really be about, I discussed with the brilliant poet and critic Maureen McLane, is whether with knowledge truly comes wisdom, and whether we trade in the ecstasies of youthful exuberance and immediate experience for a more measured but diminished way of living life. Is there really "abundant recompense," as Wordsworth wrote, in recalling earlier "fits of passion" that roiled our lives? Are "our minds [...] nourished and invisibly repaired" when we look back upon earlier experiences of joy and suffering? "What I'm looking for is a golden bowl, carefully repaired," writes McLane in one of her poems in This Blue - but can we trust that things will be repaired after having been lost to the passage of time? (Incidentally, I talked with Jessica Benjamin in another podcast about the human capacity for "repair," and whether we can trust that things can be restored once broken). This question is also at the heart of the Enlightenment itself: whether knowledge frees us from superstition but at the cost of sacrificing the immediacy of experience. Can we turn fights, arguments and turmoil into something larger by placing them into a wider context: do we have the "power to make/our noisy years seem moments in the being/of the eternal Silence"? Or are some things broken by humans never fully recovered, and we are left with grief, and loss, and silence, but nothing eternal? It's an urgent question for our age, when reason, argument and truth themselves seem so easily upstaged by spectacle and the fire and fury of immediate action. Uli Baer is a professor at New York University. He is also the host of the excellent podcast "Think About It" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The British romantic poet William Wordsworth is best known for his moving evocations of nature, his celebration of childhood, and his quest to find a shared humanity in his poetry. He’s also widely considered the first modern poet because he turns his experiences, memories, and the workings of his mind (earlier "spots of time") into the main subject of his accessible poetry. That hadn’t happened before, and all of us, who today are either committed to rational thought, sober analysis and reflection or are deep in our feelings, are ultimately Wordsworthians. But what Wordsworth may really be about, I discussed with the brilliant poet and critic Maureen McLane, is whether with knowledge truly comes wisdom, and whether we trade in the ecstasies of youthful exuberance and immediate experience for a more measured but diminished way of living life. Is there really "abundant recompense," as Wordsworth wrote, in recalling earlier "fits of passion" that roiled our lives? Are "our minds [...] nourished and invisibly repaired" when we look back upon earlier experiences of joy and suffering? "What I'm looking for is a golden bowl, carefully repaired," writes McLane in one of her poems in This Blue - but can we trust that things will be repaired after having been lost to the passage of time? (Incidentally, I talked with Jessica Benjamin in another podcast about the human capacity for "repair," and whether we can trust that things can be restored once broken). This question is also at the heart of the Enlightenment itself: whether knowledge frees us from superstition but at the cost of sacrificing the immediacy of experience. Can we turn fights, arguments and turmoil into something larger by placing them into a wider context: do we have the "power to make/our noisy years seem moments in the being/of the eternal Silence"? Or are some things broken by humans never fully recovered, and we are left with grief, and loss, and silence, but nothing eternal? It's an urgent question for our age, when reason, argument and truth themselves seem so easily upstaged by spectacle and the fire and fury of immediate action. Uli Baer is a professor at New York University. He is also the host of the excellent podcast "Think About It" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TranscriptAaron Hixson: Hey Northridge, welcome to A Little Better, where our goal is to know God better and to do better, so that we can be a little better. Hey everybody, welcome back to A Little Better, thank you for being part of our podcast community. We're so grateful that you join in each week. I know during the middle of COVID, if you're anything like me, I feel like my podcast listening time has been drastically reduced. Not having a commute means that my amount of listening has gone down. I don't know, Drew, are you the same way? What's that going like for you?Drew Karschner: Yeah, I mean, it's difficult to play a podcast right now, it just is. No commute, it takes down my podcast time, for sure. Aaron: Yeah. So anyway, thanks for still listening in. I don't know if you are now shifting when you listen to, you know, whatever, doing the dishes time, or shower time, what? I don't know, is that weird? [Laughing]Drew: Trying to get away from your kids time. Aaron: Yo, whatever, actually that's the same thing, showering. [Laughing.] But, yeah, thanks for still tuning in. And we've actually got some good options available. If you're the kind of person who has found yourself where you don't any longer have time where you can listen to something and feel like you could drive and listen or whatever, we actually had a volunteer come forward who wanted to provide transcriptions for the podcast, which is pretty amazing. So shout out to Sara [stuttering]. Wow, I can't talk. Shoutout to Shara. Drew: Not to be confused with Shara. Aaron: Yeah Shara. Easily confused. Shout out to her. And that's amazing that she's willing to do this. We're gonna make them available as easily as we can. Now, this is a volunteer who's willing to do this. I'm not saying, she has not signed on to do this for the rest of eternity, and we're not expecting her to, so obviously we'll keep you posted about how that process goes, but we're running it as an experiment for now, and excited that we get to have these available. Drew: Thank you Sara. Aaron: Yes, thank you. In terms of how we will make these available, at the moment they are on our episode webpage, so if you're savvy enough to know where the episode webpage is, depending on how you listen to podcasts, there's a million ways to get to it, so I'm not gonna describe all of the ways, but that's a button that you're looking for. Maybe click the details button or something like that, and you'll find an episode webpage. It'll be available there in text format. If you're having trouble finding it, no problem. You know, you can email us, podcast@northridgerochester.com, or you can even just text me or Drew or anybody that works at our church and they'll get you to us, and we can make sure that we get that to you. You can text me personally at (585)484-7636, yeah whatever, I'd be happy to make sure we get that to you. But that's just another way to make it A) accessible for our deaf and hard of hearing community, but then also at the same time, some people just prefer to read instead of listen, so. That's fine. Engage however you can engage. Cool. All right, that was 2 minutes and 42 seconds of housekeeping. Thank you guys for your patience. But Drew, hit me with some stories from quarantine. Have you had any like, funny things that your kids have done or embarrassing work from home moments? What's that been like? Drew: I mean, you know, I got a lot of good stories. My kids are always trying to interrupt my meetings. I think the best one -- you have to understand my office. One, we took the door off way before COVID-19 happened, which was a great move until now. It's wide open, so you can hear everybody going on. And it's right next to the stairs that come downstairs, and so one day I'm sitting in my office. And I face the door to the stairs.And I'm in, I wouldn't call it a super serious meeting, but I would say semi-serious, and so I'm sitting there and I'm talking back and forth with the people in the meeting. And Ruby-Kate comes down the stairs, and she peeks her head out and she smiles, and she comes all the way down the stairs so she's almost looking in the door frame, and she's looking at me, she smiles. She's got her pajama top on, and she turns her back to me. I'm like, what is she doing? But she doesn't move. And then all of the sudden, she raises her hands in the air, which reveals her tiny, cute little butt cheeks, and she starts shaking and she goes, [singing] "shake your booty, shake your booty,” and she's just wiggling her little hiney back and forth. And like, I just straight burst out in laughter in the middle of this serious meeting. I'm like, "Guys, I'm sorry. There is nothing I could do in this moment but laugh." Aaron: You have been ambushed. Oh, that is so funny. How old is Ruby-Kate again? Drew: She's two, yeah. Two. Aaron: Oh my goodness, so cute. Drew: The better question is, what is Ashley teaching her while I'm in the office?Aaron: Oh my word, that's funny. Throwing Ashley right under the bus. Drew: What about you, Aaron, Grayson do anything crazy like that? Aaron: He hasn't bombed many of my meetings. Thankfully, being where I am, he's not really able to get there without some degree of help. If he's gonna come up, Lauren's usually checking my calendar or whatever to see if I'm in a meeting, which is very nice of her. So no booty shaking yet, but he did, in trying to explain to him, specifically with Gigi, who is Lauren's mom, Donna, they live in New Hampshire. He was talking to her about why he wanted her to come or something, he wanted to see her, so they were talking about why she couldn't come, and she said, you know, trying to explain -- how do you explain COVID to a three-year-old? She just said, there's a bug that people are getting, and it's making them sick, and so I don't want to get that bug or whatever. She was just explaining it on FaceTime or something, and then the next time -- I don't know, it was a couple weeks later. She was on FaceTime with him again, and he said "Gigi, are the bugs still outside of your house? Are they still making everyone sick? Where are the bugs? Have you gotten rid of the bugs yet?" And we were looking at him, like, what are you saying? And she's like, "I tried to explain it, this is the best I could come up with." And now he thinks there are, like, venomous bugs waiting outside of Gigi's house. Which, I'll deal with that. I'll take it. Drew: If it was really a bug, we'd be good in New York cause the snow would have killed it a long time ago. Aaron: Very true, very true. We would be hoping for a snowstorm. Oh wait, we had one last week. Unbelievable. Drew: It's only April 19th, I mean, like, no big deal, right? Aaron: Yeah, everybody loves an Easter snowstorm. Drew: Where I grew up, we got 8 inches. 8 inches. Aaron: What? This past week? Drew: Yeah, 8 inches of snow. Like, the power went out and everything. Happy spring, everybody! Aaron: I know. For once we get to say we're so glad we live in Rochester, we didn't get as much snow. Drew: Jesus is alive, spring isn't. [Both laughing.] Aaron: Seriously. It's still in that grave. Come on out. That's funny. But hey, one more -- I realized I have another housekeeping thing I wanted to mention before we jump into sermon discussion, and that is that we're recording this podcast these days Mondays around 3 o'clock. That's kind of our current schedule. We've done some pre-recording in the past, but because of COVID, we're doing it Mondays around 3. So I would really encourage all of our listeners, if you've got questions or comments or anything that you wanna say related to this podcast, from Saturday night services or Sunday services or whatever, if you have anything, just send it over to us, because we would totally engage with it, and now you have the opportunity to do so right now. We're in a phase where we absolutely could be bringing those things up. Like I said before, podcast@northridgerochester.com, if email's not your thing, text me or Drew or anybody on our staff, that will get a question to us. Literally any way that you can contact us, social media, it doesn't matter. Get it to us by Monday around 3, and we'll see if we can include questions or comments or whatever. We would love to do that, and we're in a phase where we totally can even easier than other times. Hit us up. Okay. So, week 1, A Life That Matters. And I have a couple questions for you. And Connor's listening in, so he might have to tune in as well, we'll have to see here. But that video, the title package, did we already talk about this? The title package was Devin Graf walking on 490 right by the Rochester bridge, right? It looks literally like he's in the middle of the road, I was thinking, ignore social distancing, say nothing about that, he's in the middle of the highway. How did he get there? So then I'm hearing rumors that it was a green screen and I don't believe it, so someone prove it to me. Drew: I believe Connor has confirmed it was a green screen. Matt Snyder was behind Devin, and he was holding up a green screen, and boom, magic. It just shows you how amazing our creative team is. Aaron: Where were they? In the middle of 490? Drew: I think they were standing somewhere on the side of 490, and they green screened him into 490. Aaron: So I'm guessing the reason they wanted to do it there was to match the lighting or something so that it would look the same? Connor's nodding his head. Okay. I just, that is crazy to me, because I've seen bad green screening, and that did not look like bad green screening to me, and I wouldn't have assumed we have the ability to do good green screening. No offense to Connor, I just assumed we don't have that kind of cool technology, but apparently you literally just need a green sheet. [Both laughing.]Drew: The green sheet they used to hang in our podcast studio. Aaron: That's right, "studio." I love when we call it a studio. That makes me so happy, because it sounds so legit, and it's a basement. But, okay. Now that that's cleared up, it was officially green screen, which was very surprising to me. Week 1, A Life That Matters. You talked all about how we need to begin with the end in mind, and I kinda want to enter into your experience. I know that this series came as a result of your dad's death. Talk to me a little bit about, we planned super far in advance. This was not the sermon series that was gonna be just post-Easter. I mean, I don't know. A month and a half ago? When did we make that change? That's a very, quote, "last minute change" for us, and I'd love to just bring everybody in to kind of the genesis of this series. Drew: Yeah, I think when my dad died, obviously the point I said, death brings perspective, or crisis, so, I feel like I walked through both of those things, a crisis with COVID, and my dad's death. It has really caused me to reflect on my life and what's important and what's valuable. I often teach out of the overflow of what God's doing in my heart. I just think those messages are more real. That's not always the case. I think there's series we do that we just talk about. It's not necessarily something that's churning in my heart, but this was just a series that God places on my heart. I've just gotta do this. If I don't, I feel like I'm gonna be disobeying God, cause I feel like he planned it in my heart. So yeah. I just, through the season of life I'm in right now, God's been teaching me a lot of things, and I thought it would be valuable to walk our church through it. Weirdly enough, we're probably all thinking a little bit of those things right now, with the crisis that we're all dealing with. And it's really cool, again, how, even if you go back to Unfiltered Jesus and this series, and how God kinda laid it out for our church, I just feel really blessed with how he has planned our series for us. So we could be really relevant and engaging and impactful in this season. Aaron: I agree. I remember when you first said, kinda like, coming out of the fog of your dad's death, with, you know, the first few days or 10 days or something, where your life wasn't normal. As you were emerging from that a little bit you were saying, like, "Hey, I wanna do this series," and I thought, well that's gonna be really cool to hear such fresh insights from you. But at the same time, wondering, I wonder if someone hasn't experienced a death recently, would they find this to be as interesting, or whatever? And then COVID hit, so it was like, we planned this, and I was like, all right, let's see how it is in terms of relevance, and then COVID hit, and it's like, oh. Incredibly relevant. Yeah, been blown away by how it all came together. And we had an original direction related to -- I think maybe the first title you had was like "Legacy" or something like that. Is that right? Or am I wrong? Drew: No, I think it was -- yeah, I think "Legacies" or "Lessons from Dad." Aaron: Oh, yeah. Drew: So I mean, it's quite shaped and molded. And I didn't want it to be completely about my dad's death, you know? I want it to be about what you learn through those seasons in life, and so. Aaron: Yeah, I think it is fascinating how, I can say this from even, death in our family. Lauren's cousin, this was June of -- I'm trying to think, a few years ago. It doesn't matter. A few years ago, her cousin, who's our age, passed away in a car accident. And student baptism was actually that same week, and so I ended up not being at student baptism, cause I was with the family up at the funeral and blah, blah, blah. And I just remember, even in that moment, there's something about a death that creates like an, "oh my goodness, we have to be at the funeral, and we have to process this, and there's so much I'm thinking about, and like what really matters." And there's an urgency to that, that it feels like I'll never forget what this feels like. But for me, I think about her cousin's death. We're leaving the funeral saying "man, we gotta stay more connected, and we gotta talk more, and let's make that phone call, pick up the phone, let's stay connected." And actually, I remember Lauren's brother -- sorry, I'm kinda going on a rant here. But probably about a year ago, Lauren's older brother was facetiming us or something. He was like, "Guys, I feel like we're still not talking as much as we said we were going to. Remember at Dylan's funeral we were all talking about how we were going to stay so connected, and here we are a couple years later, and we're already back to where we were before," almost like, did we learn nothing from this unexpected death? And I thought, yeah. There's something so true about being at a funeral where you have like, just this lucidity about what matters, clarity around -- these people matter to me so much. I would be devastated if I lost them. But it's just so easy to lose that clarity. And so I think it's so key for us to hear from you as you're still in that phase of like, "I've still got very clear pictures of what matters to me, and I wanna speak to our church while those things are still on my heart." Drew: Yeah, I think as people we have to learn how to keep those lessons fresh in our mind, you know? For me, it's easy right now cause everything I do reminds me of my dad, every place I go. I mean, my mom lives with us. But I do think, over the course of time, it's natural for us to just let that fade, or go back to the way it used to be or living the same way. I think we have to learn to create constant reminders of that perspective that death or crisis gives us so we can live in a manner with the end in mind, rather than what's in front of us. Aaron: Yeah, and I think that's a little bit reflective of why Moses' words are "teach us to number our days." This isn't something that we do natively. We don't automatically begin with the end in mind. We don't automatically remember that our lives are gonna end or just even a picture of our own mortality. We don't automatically remember that, and so it takes God's work in our lives to teach us to do this, like, teach me to keep track of the fact that I've got such a short life. Drew: I don't think it's ever a lesson learned, like "Check that off the box, I got that." It's a constant, daily reminder, whether it's a reminder you set in your phone, or circumstances remind you. You know, there's certain lessons in life you have to constantly learn. And I feel like this is one that God teaches me over and over again through the circumstances that I walk through. It's like, "Dude, you've got plans, which are great, they're awesome, but who knows if you're ever gonna make it to your plans." I've been at my Dad's lakehouse this last weekend trying to get things ready for Mom and situated. The constant thing that Mom and the family says is, "We've finally got this place the way we want it and Dad's not here." And this was Dad's place. It's called "Pop's Place." And so, you just constantly need those reminders that, man, life is short. Your plans might be great, but God's might be different, so how do we learn that lesson regularly rather than through the tragic or the crisis? Aaron: Yeah. First of all, once again, yeah, I'm so sorry. Drew: It's okay, man. Aaron: But, that's why Solomon's words are, he says it's better to go to a house of mourning than a house of rejoicing. And I love that you used a wedding as a comparative, because there really is something -- there's something to be learned at a wedding. Right? I mean, if you've got a strong marriage or even a struggling marriage, a wedding can be a great reminder of, like, almost like a vow renewal. If you've got a strong marriage, you're like, "Baby, I love you all over again, I'd pick you all over again." If your marriage is struggling, it's like, "We gotta get back to this." Whatever. There's lessons to be learned there. But it's different than the, like, "I had an unfixable, irreversible reality of death." That's what a funeral is. It's not like, “Let's recommit ourselves to our marriage.” You can change the trajectory of your marriage. Once someone's passed away, they've passed away. There's something permanent that's like, "What am I gonna do differently now?" And so, funerals just have an incredible ability to do that. But hopefully we don't have to go to a million funerals before we learn the lesson ourselves. You know? Drew: That's the hope. But, I'm guilty so many times of going to a funeral. I don't know if I'll ever go to a funeral the same way anymore. And I think I've had such a good life in the sense of, I haven't lost anybody really close to me that has hurt this bad or stung. You know, I've lost people, but no one like my dad, that close to me. And I think, you know, thank the Lord that he's protected me and my family this far, but I'm telling you. There are certain things in life that I just won't look at the same. You know, as a pastor, death is common. People getting sick is common, people having heart attacks. I think it's gonna reshape the way I pastor. It's easy for me to get numb to, "Oh, someone died." Nope. Not anymore. My heart is gonna break for people who lost people. As a young person, I could have easily been like, "Okay, this is part of life." It is a part of life, but that part of life really stings and really hurts. And I think I'll be able to weep with people and mourn with people and hurt with people in a way that I just couldn't. Aaron: Mmhmm. No doubt. That's so real for any life experience. Once you had it. It's the walk a mile in somebody else's shoes, but you can't walk a mile in somebody's shoes until you've done it in certain cases. You can't really put yourself in the same framework as someone who's had a parent die or something like that until it happens, and then you're in a whole new ball game, you know? Drew: Yep, and that's why I love what Moses said about refuge. It's unique that he brought that up. Of all the things as he's looking back at his life, I love -- and I'm learning this -- that God is the best refuge. He offers comfort that people can't offer. In this season, I'm actually tired of people saying "I'm sorry." I'm tired of people saying "Are you okay?" And they all mean well. I'm not saying people shouldn't do that, but there's just nothing like a refuge from God. A place where God just -- like, sometimes even with my own family, when I wanna cry, I don't want people around me. I wanna be with God, and I wanna just mourn with God because he is that refuge for me. I've read Psalms 90 so many times. It's one of my favorite Psalms. It's actually the first passage I ever preached. So my first message ever --Aaron: That's awesome. Drew: -- to a live audience was Psalms 90. And I've read those words, like "Lord, you are our dwelling place," you know. But again, I'm learning this. I think we've talked about this in other podcasts. Those words are so different to me right now in this season in my life. A dwelling place. Man, I dwelled with God in such a real way lately, where I'm just like, "God, I don't want to go to anybody else but you, because I believe there's a level of comfort, and security and stability that only you can give me, and that's what I need right now." Aaron: And you'll come out of this stronger in that sense, your relationship with God, having been to this place with God, it doesn't go away. Your connection to God that is now stronger, better. What you've just described is literally a longer version of the phase "crisis brings clarity." I mean, you now know things you didn't know. You experienced things you could have never experienced. You know God in a way you didn't know him before. And that's a super bitter pill. Nobody wants to take that. You know, that's horrible, but it's God at work in you. Drew: I also think about, you know, a lot of times when crisis hits, people run from God. What I'm going through, I realize that people miss on some of the best moments with God when they choose in crisis to run from God, because they miss out on what I think I'm experiencing now, it's this level of comfort and stability and security that God gives. And when you choose to run from him because you're mad at what he chose to do, or what he was in control of that didn't stop, you didn't like the circumstances. It's crazy that, in the midst of that, people who run miss out of something that's so beautiful that God offers only in crisis, only in the crazy and uncertain times of life. Aaron: I'm not gonna add anything else, cause we're gonna end right there, man. That's really helpful, and I'm trying to do my best right now to believe that, to lodge it into my soul so that, when my crisis, like yours, comes, I'm more ready for it. I'm glad we all get to learn along with you, and this series is gonna be all about that. So, very much looking forward to it. Is there anything we need to know about this coming weekend or that our people should hear from you about? Drew: Couple things. One, we're gonna talk about relationships this weekend. It's like Rodney said. We talk about our relationship with God first, and Rodney said the second thing is relationships with people. And so we're gonna talk about how we create a life that matters through our relationships. Also, we're gonna be having a baptism, so it's gonna be an awesome celebration. Aaron, I believe you have an inside look at that baptism, because --Aaron: Yeah, I do. It'll be a little bit different because we have an executive order from our governor that requires a mask for any time which you cannot socially distance, so it's gonna be the weirdest baptism we've ever done, most likely, but we're gonna try to comply with every restriction and also make sure that we still do more and better. So, I got to be a part of it, and I can't wait for you guys to hear Ritchie's story. It's a great one. I guess I can say, it's already done. That's probably okay to say. Oops if it wasn't. We recorded it this morning on Monday. Very excited about it. You guys'll love it. All right. Let's be done. My friend, talk to you guys later. Thanks Drew, thanks Connor, thanks to our listeners. Please send us comments, questions, and thoughts. We would love to interact with you. We will talk to you next week.

What can startup founders learn from the marketing strategies of high growth, silicon valley tech companies? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Traction Hero founder Kate Walling talks about her experience helping VC-backed tech startups develop marketing and business strategies, and the specific things she recommends they focus on to achieve exponential growth. Highlights from my conversation with Kate include: Kate advises early stage tech companies on their marketing and business growth strategies. When she starts working with a new company, the first thing Kate looks at is the product and business model to determine whether there are opportunities to use product-led growth. After that, she evaluates the company's brand and positioning within the industry, and then focused on the sales team. One strategy that Kate has seen several companies use successfully to drive growth is community, and specifically building a community of their customers, users and fans and allowing that community to mostly self-moderate. To be successful, Kate says marketers need to be a part of the larger corporate strategy conversations around what the product is, how it will be positioned, what the tech stack is, and how sales will go to market. Another effective way to raise your brand profile is to work with industry influencers. Kate says that these do not always have to be paid relationships, and that its important for your marketing team to be aggressive in building relationships. If you have a small budget, one of the best ways to gain early traction as a founder is through a personal email newsletter. This is a strategy employed by many of the accelerators. Send it to friends, family, former colleagues, etc., but NOT clients, and share your journey as a startup founder. You can also use this to ask your audience for help and introductions. PR is another good way to get the word out at a low cost. While you can always hire a PR agency, there are plenty of opportunities for you to directly pitch yourself to local media, and you can subscribe to HARO and respond to those pitches at no cost. Tools like Canva are handy for making marketing collateral that looks like it was created by a designer but really uses templates to look professionally made. Kate's advice to founders is not to try and take on too many things. Find a few channels and platforms that are a good fit with your audience, do them well, test and iterate. Resources from this episode: Visit Kate's personal website Check out the Traction Hero site Email kate at kate[at]katewalling.com Following Kate on Twitter @katewalling Listen to the podcast to get specific strategies you can use as a startup founder (whether you have a big budget or a small one) to hit your growth goals. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth and today my guest is Kate Walling, who's the founder and CEO of traction hero. Welcome Kate. Kate Walling (Guest): Hello Kathleen. I love your podcast. Kate and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: Thank you. I'm excited to have you here. I am going to do a little bit of an announcement for my listeners before we dig in. Um, if you have listened to my last few episodes, you might've heard this, but it's late March, the coronavirus pandemic is happening. We are recording on Zoom and Zoom is having some bandwidth issues. So just saying, if you're listening, be patient with us. If the audio gets a little funky from time to time, we're going to do our best and hope that Zoom holds up for us as we go. But, these are interesting times we're living in. Lots of people working remotely, lots of people using video conferencing software. So it is what it is. But with that said, welcome Kate. Can you please tell my listeners a little bit about yourself and Traction Hero? About Kate Walling and Traction Hero Kate: Absolutely. So let me try to make this the short version of the story. I've been an entrepreneur since a really young age. I started my first startup at 23, which was a consumer facing startup. I've kind of been an entrepreneur since then, although I've had a corporate stint. I'm in the middle because at one point I realized that being an entrepreneur from a young age means that you don't understand corporate structure and you just hit some walls because you have a lack of understanding. So I've also worked in a public tech company here in Silicon Valley and now I'm back with Traction Hero, which is a marketing agency for startup companies where right now we provide a lot of tech companies with on demand services just as they need it. So basically they can email with a quick project they need done and we turn it around in a couple of hours. So it's really good for companies that have large budgets, but not enough team. Basically there's a lot of those. And then we're also slowly building out services that are really focused on the deliverable so that startups can say, "I need a market research study done" or "I need a new identity." Everything is focused toward what needs to happen to get that done. So as you know, when you're doing a lot of projects, you've got to have a writer, a designer, a printer, all these different people, and it's very stressful for marketers. There's not really been a solution so far where they can just cross that thing off the list and know that the whole thing is getting done. So that's what we're working toward, is really solutions that help marketers get stuff done as they need it.  Kathleen: I love that you personally have been a startup founder and that you've done a lot of work with startup founders because I'm personally passionate about that. I have been a business owner. I've started a couple of different businesses. Having walked in the shoes of the founder, I think you described it so well where there's so many things that need to get done. And that's just from a marketing standpoint, right? You're wearing all the hats when you're in a startup. You could be the owner, the chief salesperson and the marketer as well as other things. And in those early days it can be really hard to zero in on, what are the most important things I should be doing in order to gain traction? That is one of the reasons, FYI, that I love your company name. You stay focused without falling victim to shiny object syndrome or you know, working so much in the business and not on the business, et cetera. It's a challenging, challenging time. Kate: It is. And I think, you know, marketing's been already challenging for a number of years because the MarTech stack keeps getting larger and, and Silicon Valley, the budgets keep getting larger, but your team size doesn't. But marketing is getting more and more responsibility for profit and loss. So there's a lot of pressure and I think what I hear from clients is, what you're saying, is that this was a different style with Traction Hero. And that's because I've personally been through the technology accelerator programs. I am on my fourth startup. I really know what it's like. The interesting thing is that I started this agency model in Seattle. I built an agency in Seattle before I came down to Mountainview California and the model works so well, so it's called scrappy face and it was scrappy, right? And we just went in and we helped these funded tech companies and we just moved as fast as we could. And we had a great team. I closed the agency because I went through a divorce and growing a company really quickly in the middle of a divorce in a city that was always raining is brutal to say the least. But the model was so interesting and when I went into corporate tech, what I realized is that I kind of thought their needs would be different. What I saw was just maybe limited, but it really wasn't, it was pretty much the same concerns of "I've got money, I don't have enough people to spend it." You know, "I don't have enough hands." And then marketing has gotten so specialized that you can't possibly hire enough people to do all these things well, like they can't be experts at everything. So, you know, I'm a big proponent now of having smaller marketing teams, but knowing how to get more done quickly and having whatever workforce you need, that's really fluid. Kathleen: I love that.  should take a step back because this topic, when you talk about startups, I feel like it's a Rorschach test because the word "startup" can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. And for some people, they hear "startup" and they think little, you know, two or three person company. And yes, of course every startup has to start somewhere. But then there are startups that are incredibly well funded, VC funded, that go from being one or two people to 20 to 30 people within a span of a month. When I think the conversation we're having, it's more around that high growth startup, not that little company that's gonna slog along for five years. We're talking about, you know, startups that have a lot of potential that need to move fast. I think that's really key here. That's the experience I've had working in startups, is that it's all about speed, especially if you're looking for investment. Because as soon as you bring on investors, there are high expectations. There are benchmarks you have to hit. There are thresholds that you need to get to. And all of that needs to happen really quickly. And you're right, you know, you couldn't possibly hire enough people to do that and you can't have a team that includes the world's best in everything, right? Because you'd need to segment out each little thing you do and hire a different person for it. So what's the best way to move ahead? And the other element of that that, I think, is so interesting is this need to balance brand with demand generation because those are two really important components. And especially if you're in a high growth startup, you absolutely need demand generation. There is no company that doesn't, but brand is really important these days. How early stage startups can quickly gain traction Kate: So like, yeah, how do you do all the things? It's so hard and I mean, you bring up a great point first. Defining "startup" is important. I think right now I do tend to concentrate on the tech startups that are scaling and have money. I also tend to help entrepreneurs that are somehow very well resourced and there's an opportunity that needs to move quickly. Those were the fun ones. That can be anywhere. It's like there's been a regulatory or legal change and so it's presented this opportunity and you've got to go fast to take advantage of that opportunity. So that looks different different ways, but it's typically those two categories in terms of entrepreneurs who are working on a smaller project or evolving it. There's so many tools now that they can use that would save them so much money that I think just having that right tool stack is a better situation. But back to your question about balancing brand and demand gen. It's super hard and I think what I used to do is go month by month, quarter by quarter in my corporate role and say "What are the business objectives here? And so what does what makes the most sense?" So if all of a sudden the sales team is growing from 40 to 90, right? I've got to get the demand gen up and going. I've got to get tools in place to deal with that. And that evolves into other things like what type of sellers are they? How are these tools going to work together? Whereas if the brand is newer or there's been a change in the industry or there's some kind of potential in terms of content or positioning, you go on the brand side. I think you just have to kind of reevaluate it every several weeks when you're, when you're at scale, when you're trying to work with scale. Kathleen: Yeah. It's funny that you say that because I think the last month or two have been the best example of why it's important to reevaluate every few weeks because I can speak for myself. I had a beautiful 90 day marketing strategy that I finished at the end of January. I'm a big believer in planning in quarters and adjusting in months. And so I had the strategy put together and I was starting along my merry way, implementing my strategy and then coronavirus hit and blew it all up. I feel like I, I, you know, I want to do air quotes, "go into work every week." You know, I'm not going anywhere. I'm working out of my house right now. And the priority is constantly changing based on the current fire. And I say that not meaning that like, the house is on fire and the company's in jeopardy. That's not our case. In fact, oddly we have an increase in demand because of what our product does. But, it's about pivoting and shifting and recognizing now it's all about remote work and you know, that sort of thing. And that's different than what I had planned out, but when things are moving fast, you gotta be able to go with it. Kate: You do. And I think, you know, in terms of the virus, it's the emotional roller coaster for us personally. It's the same with business. And I think it's that way with most parts of businesses, right? It's like, "Oh, I don't know if I have enough toilet paper. I don't know if I have enough this or the National Guard is moving in," you know? So it's like, every day, assessing where things are and what your needs are. And I'm seeing that with my clients. The first week was about "What should we be doing? Should we do a campaign?" So we do an email and alert people of what services we're changing. Now it's moved to, "Okay, competitively, what do we need to do? What's going on in the industry? What's the overall campaign, you know, with our overall strategy here?" And that strategy ends up being not just marketing, that's the whole business offering. We need to move products. But marketing from my observation right now, which is, you know, limited in the grand scheme of things, marketing is driving some of those business questions, right? Because you can't go to a marketer right now and say, "I need you to do something about this virus." The marketer has to say, "Well wait, what are we, what are we offering here?" You can't just throw together some kind of campaign or ad without meaning. I mean, this is not a, um, you know, "throw a graphic on it" type of problem. How do VC-backed startups approach marketing? Kathleen: Yeah, absolutely. So let's put the pandemic aside for a minute because I feel like we could have an entire episode on that and I may need to do that at some point soon. My curiosity has been peaked by what you said about how you tend to work with these well-resourced, need-to-move quickly, but potentially bandwidth-constrained companies. I think what is really interesting about that is that a lot of marketers see those kinds of companies that do grow really fast and they think, "What are they doing? What is the secret sauce? What's happening behind the scenes that's enabling them to go so quickly?" Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect it's not that they're just throwing money at the problem. It has to be more of, yes, you need money, but what are you going to do with that money that supports a really high growth kind of scenario? So maybe you could talk a little bit about that and pull back the curtain on, if somebody does come to you and say, you know, we just got VC funding, we've got to triple the size of this company in a year. We've got the budget to do it. As a marketer, what kinds of things are you doing and looking at for them? Kate: The first thing I look at is, is there anything in their model that should be evaluated overall for marketing in terms of distribution or influence? For scalability, like you said, it's demand gen and brand. However, for a lot of things it's, is there something that needs to be built into the product from a marketing positioning standpoint or differentiation to make sure that that scale can happen with the brand and demand gen tools? That's one of my favorite parts and that's where your puzzles come in. So if you're a SaaS company, do you need to be offering some kind of certification program because you need more people using the software? What are the different channels? How is that working? I think getting a grasp on, is there something from a business model perspective that needs to happen? The other thing is, a lot of companies at that point have some juggernauts, right? Like, we're seeing churn is hitting here and it's too high, or we're seeing these little scenarios happen with customers, or our lifetime value is off. So we start trying to troubleshoot some of those things so that, that first step is really about marketing and the product and the operations of the business, and then also what needs to be worked out before you scale. There are usually some major learnings there. Once those kinks have been ironed out, we start looking at where are we positioned in the industry? Where is brand awareness? And then what is the plan with the sales team? So if you've got two sellers and you're going to hire maybe one more, that's a pretty basic stack because you don't want to build anything too complicated until you understand, are these relationship-based sellers, are these more tech savvy sellers? There's a difference in the tools required. So you can do something more basic in the meantime, just getting them basic collateral, making sure they have that stuff on the brand side. You start wanting to do more PR, more on positioning and really claiming your spot in the industry landscape. Then, as your sales team picks up, so when you start getting to like 20, 40, 50 up and up sellers, you're looking at a lot more sophisticated systems. You're usually looking at a change of how sales works. So if you have inside sales reps, how are they working, how are they using your marketing software? You get into really complex software decisions, and that's usually driven by marketing. How can startups use product-led growth? Kathleen: There's so much there. I have so many questions I want to ask you. Let's go back to one of the first things you said, which is that you actually begin in many cases by looking at product. So it sounds like what you're talking about is product led growth, and really going in and looking at what are the opportunities to bake something in -- the product that we have that can itself be a growth driver. I would love it if you could just talk a little bit more about that. Kate: It's both from a positioning standpoint, and distribution comes up. That comes up with SaaS companies a lot. And positioning can come up with B2C, right, of like what is this particular opportunity here? With direct to consumer you see it because you'll see, like, consumer products that are extremely well designed or they're really hip or something like that. So that's where you'll see that brand move play in really big. And, and usually with D2C, that's part of the initial product development. But sometimes that can come in as like, how do we do that? Sometimes it can be, with B2C, how do we build a community around the product, right? So some companies are doing a really good job of using Facebook groups. I think Facebook groups are amazing for marketers right now of, we're going to liberate our whole community and let them build with one another. But what are the rules of that? So I think there's just a lot there in terms of B2C, it depends. If it's a commodity-based business, it's harder. A lot harder, right? You're looking at, how do we feel different to the buyer? How do we provide a different experience? If we're not really offering something different, can we deliver it different? Is there really strong brand value that can go throughout the whole company and how would that be protected? So it really has a lot of different shapes. Think of channel partners or technology partners who are taking our API and installing it. But is there something more? Is there a way to even scale it bigger than that? Right? Like get like a whole group of individuals selling this thing for you. So I think it's really out of the box type thinking. And generally at this point, you know, the startup's been going for awhile, they've had some success, they're ready to, you know, commit, and they're ready to scale. They're leaning that way. So it's a really good time to do this work. How marketers can play a role in the broader business strategy? Kathleen: You're coming in as a marketing advisor. At the same time though, it goes to the core of the business strategy. It's not just a marketing strategy. If you're talking about putting an evangelist program in place or changing elements of the product or building a certification program, some of these are business strategies. So how do you navigate that conversation? Because I think often marketers are really challenged with, we're really comfortable staying in our marketing lane. But a lot of the times, when we get out of that lane -- and sometimes it manifests as, you know, we're starting to make recommendations about sales software, other times it's like the things you're talking about that can get rocky if you don't do it right -- how do you approach that? Kate: Yeah, that's a great statement. It's so true with this early stage stuff that I'm talking about. It's typically before a startup has hired a CFO or a senior level marketer. And so you're working directly with the CEO and they have some marketing resources. They'll have a small agency, they'll have a couple freelancers, right? Part of their problem is that they don't know who to hire. And most of the time what I tell them is you can't make that hiring decision yet. We don't know what the marketing is, so we don't know what type of marketer to hire, you know? So I'm a huge proponent of fractional CMOs because I think it's just too early and you don't want to get the wrong person. There's a lot at stake. And I think a lot of startups at that base, they've got revenue coming in, hire a CMO to come in four hours a week and figure this out slowly. And who realizes that you're going to hire for that position when you know what the direction is? So that's more early stage. And the company usually has maybe five to 10 employees, but marketing's not built out yet at all. Later on is where you get really more tricky. You've got someone in charge of sales and they have a particular way that they're hiring. Then as a marketer, you're supposed to bring in demand gen, right? And the demand gen you need to bring in is a different skillset than the sellers have. And the sellers were not aware of the software that you have to do. In my corporate role, it was a rollout plan. I started with HubSpot and got people used to this idea, this is what's going on and why. Then I moved into Marketo, which is super hard. Kathleen: I just went in the opposite direction. I went from a company with Marketo to a company with HubSpot and I'm like, "Thank God. It's so much easier." Kate: And then with Marketo, the sales team was growing. We had to do much more sophisticated type rules and stuff too, because all of a sudden you can have a sales team and you start bringing in all these leads and a sales team does not care. They don't care. And they're not gonna answer them. And you've got a cultural problem of you have to educate them toward how do you deal with these leads, what it means, their job and that it is, and you have to have support from the management team that this is going to be required. There's a whole lot and it just really depends on who you're working with and what their background is. You have to take it one step, one day at a time. So I think it just depends on the team. It depends on where people are. You have to be pretty fluid marketer. You have to be able to say, "This is what I need and it's going to be a process and I'm going to have to get buy in. And so how do I do that?" So you have to be patient. Kathleen: I think you raised something really important, which is, when you're coming into the job, you're at an advantage because you're working with a CEO. But just one thing I've learned is that when you, when you're in those hiring conversations, you have to, you have to have a conversation about that. I might be making some recommendations that are outside of what you might think of as marketing. How are you going to feel about that? Are you open to it? Are you willing to keep an open mind? You know, really, really figuring out that the personality type of the founder, the CEO, and whether they're willing to listen and, and consider other things I think is so important at that stage of a company. Kate: Critical. Specific strategies that startups can use to drive exponential growth Kathleen: Moving onto something else. You said you started talking about community and I love that topic. I could talk about it forever. And I guess this is, this is part of a bigger question I have, which is, I'd love it if you could share some examples of what you have seen work really well to fuel fast growth in some of the companies you've worked with. And maybe we could start with community because I came from a company a few jobs ago where we built a very large community and it was huge for us and it was a Facebook community. Through that experience I became really passionate about that. So that's just one example but, but there may be others. So, specific things that you have seen really deliver for the companies you've worked with. Kate: It's different for B2B and B2C. So I'll start with B2C because it's the easy, fun one. What I'm seeing right now that I love are these Facebook groups around certain products. This is not a client of mine, but it's actually a product I use. There was, what's it called, the meal delivery company that I was using for awhile when I had really busy days. It was all plant-based food and then they had this Facebook group and you could join it and people were just sitting there and they let people post whatever they want. They can sit there and post like "I really hate this smoothie. How am I going to get through this or am I supposed to do this later or not?" And it's super interesting to watch how that worked because the community moderated the community members for the brand. Brilliant. People will say, you know, "I did lose weight, I did not lose weight. This is really more about health." And so you start seeing these advocates come up and then they would use those advocates for their Instagram stories and other things. So that organic way of building a community that moderates itself is really interesting. Now initially, you have those questions about when do we step in and when do we not, and how do we moderate? I think if you can get by with moderating lightly, but you know, the feel of the brand is so positive, right? So that's a brand value that you have less of those issues but they're going to come up. But I think you have to have a very careful strategy about how to moderate that. The other thing that people are using a lot on B2B is obviously these micro influencers. There's some startups paying a lot of money for this and it's all over the place. Traction on that sort of slowed down the end of last year and now I'm starting to see clients pick back up on interest in that because everybody's at home and online, right? So we're starting to feel like there's opportunity there. I'd say if you can build your own organic community, that would be ideal, right? If you can't, you can use these micro influencers and that's great content as well. I talked to someone last week and their product's working and they're sold out, and they've gotten all this influencer marketing and that helped. But then all of a sudden years later, they don't have brand values. And so when you're needing to do more, you're needing to build content, you're needing to build demand and you're needing to build, you know, other parts of marketing, if you don't have those brand values built out, then all of a sudden you're like, well, who are we? We were using everyone else for the voice. So you'll run into that for B2B. It's true here. I think some of this comes to hiring. So what I've seen work really well is that you become friends with all the influencers in the industry and you sponsor their podcast and you appear on their podcasts and you go to their events and you just kind of make sure the team knows who the influencers are. And then you do everything you can to get involved with people at every level. You'll have local events and you'll bring the people in that you know, in that city and have them share their stories. And so it's a constant kind of industry networking. I've seen that work really, really well on the B2B side. But it's definitely different. Kathleen: It's so interesting that you say that because I've seen that work really well too, where people have formed strategic relationships with industry influencers and sometimes, not paid as you say. It doesn't always have to be paid. It could just be really showering them with love in the form of, you know, having them on your podcast or going on theirs or commenting and sharing and making introductions. I worked for a marketing agency for awhile and they did this exact thing and their way of forming those relationships was by offering to make personal branding websites for influencers. That was a great way to get to know them. Then you've done them a favor. So there are a lot of different ways that that that can be done. I think that's really smart. How to hit big growth goals on a small budget Kathleen: You work with well-resourced companies that are able to do a lot of these things. Any lessons learned or suggestions for companies that don't have those giant budgets? What are some things they can do in the early days? Kate: Oh yeah. I love the scrappy brands and helping startup founders. So I advise a lot of startup companies. I love this part of the work cause I obviously identify with it a lot. Being an entrepreneur for so long, I think, you know, when founders are trying to grow a brand unlimited budget, one thing I always bring up is never forget about email, because if you create an email list of your friends and family and colleagues and anyone that you meet with, those people become very loyal to your process. If you share with them where you are and what you're going through and what you need help with, they will help. It will absolutely help. I've seen that be really successful. Now your tone has to be right because nobody owes you anything and you want to be entertaining and kind of make them feel a part of it. And that's part of the email structure, right? Of like, "Here's what's happening and you know, these exciting things are happening, these challenges are happening. Here's how you can help." That is the basic format that does incredibly well. And that is one of the main marketing tricks that comes out of the Silicon Valley tech accelerators. They have all their founders do a weekly email and it works. I, on my own, I've had open rates of like 90% or higher, very high. Kathleen: I want to talk about that for a second because I'm fascinated by this. I also believe strongly in email. I also think that people think of email as this old, tired, dead strategy, but there's some really interesting things being done in the world of email right now. So you're talking about founders doing a weekly email. Can you peel the layers of that back a little bit for me? What does that look like? Who does it go to? Kate: Sure. So this is not client facing or customer facing. My personal list is maybe 200 people and it's my closest friends, my family members, colleagues I've worked with for years, people that I've met with on this journey. So it's people that know what you're up to and what you're striving for basically. But not clients. Clients and customers would get something different. They don't need to understand the process. So that email list is specific for friends and family colleagues. And what you do is, every time you send, you add more people that you've met along the way. I usually start it with like "Hi friends" or something like that. And then I usually say something seasonal about what's happening in the world and that I'm thinking about them because I am. All these people, they're cheering you on. And then I'll typically say, if you're new to the list, here's a link to the previous email, right? So that there's some sort of context in there drawn into the story correctly. And then I'll put some kind of update about where I am or what challenges are happening. And it's usually interesting stuff because when you're building a business, you hit all kinds of things in the world that are happening. So for example, with Traction Hero, there've been changes in California privacy law, changes in California employment law that have really changed the model. And that stuff is interesting. If you're not in it all day long, it's pretty interesting. So share the challenges you have. And then I usually say, "Here's the ways you can help. So if you just open your social accounts, we're now on Instagram. Would love if you would follow," and people will, they'll do it. Or "If you happen to know a friend who knows anything about X, Y, or Z, would you mind connecting me?" They will. This technique is straight from accelerator programs and it is a good one. Kathleen: Do you add these people to the list or do you ask them if they want to opt in? How does that work? Kate: I add them. I often will mention it to them. Like, "I'm going to add you to my newsletter. Let me know if it's okay." You're not doing it for a business so the rules are different. This is actually a question I'm curious to know. I mean I still send, so my recommendation is, I send it through MailChimp, their most basic template. And the reason why is people can unsubscribe. It does hurt your feelings a little bit more when someone does that you know. It's also interesting because if sometimes there'll be like a vendor or somebody and if they offer, I've actually had this happen, someone unsubscribed and I was like, then you're not interested enough in my story for me to pay you. Kathleen: Yeah. Right. Kate: Like, if you're not interested enough in this email because this is just basically what's happening with my business, if you're not interested in that, then I mean, I don't think that we'd be a good fit in terms of working together. I mean, I'm not bothering you. It's like once every six months, I mean slow, but I used to try to do them once a month. MailChimp's most basic template is perfect. And just text. I mean I throw in, maybe, you know, if I done a new logo design or something, throw it in. But keep it pretty simple. And that way people can unsubscribe. Kathleen: I'm a big fan of not overly designing emails. I mean these days, most people have the images in their emails turned off by default. And so if you've got a lot of design in there, it just doesn't get seen half the time anyway. And it looks crappy to have a lot of those image boxes. Like, "Turn your image on," you know, it just doesn't look good. So simpler is better all around with email in my opinion. Kate: Yeah, I know, I totally agree. And that MailChimp basic template's nice. The fonts big, it works well on mobile. It's, it's a nice one. These emails still take, I'm going to say it like if I'm fast, two hours. They still take time. You don't want to bother anybody and you want it to be entertaining and you want it to be, you know, uplifting, even if you're talking about your challenges. The most important thing is tone. I've seen some of these founder emails and if you use the wrong tone, people are like, "No thanks." Kathleen: So what is the right tone? Kate: I think it's friendly and I think it's engaging. You know, I don't think it's like, "Hi friends, hope you're enjoying this day. Please like my Facebook page, please sign up, please send me people who should be customers." It's not about a million asks. People have a lot going on in their lives. It's more of like, "Here's what's going on with building this startup right now. Here's what I'm trying to do. Here are the challenges I'm having. And that's interesting to people, because a lot of people haven't gone through it or want to go through it. And you know, entrepreneurship is never a straight line at all.  Kathleen: I love that idea. I mean, that's something that really any founder in any industry can do. I think for some it's going to put them in a place of discomfort because a lot of the founders I've met don't like talking about themselves that much, which is kind of funny because you're going to have to at some point as a founder.  But I think that's neat because that's something you can do that doesn't take really any money, that just takes your time. Kate: I'd say founders who have marketing backgrounds definitely have a hand up on this one. In tech accelerators, what would happen is I would send in mine first and then whoever in my batch would typically take mine and copy it. So people need examples of this. Email me and I'll send you one of my past ones because it does help to see some kind of, you know, formula that's worked for people and it's so much easier for marketers. Kathleen: I love that. So maybe we'll put Kate's email in the show notes and you can email her and say, Hey, I need your newsletter so you can see what it looks like. So you had, you said you had some other things to be on that and I took you on a tangent with that one.  Kate: So other things on my list. Definitely write industry articles on LinkedIn so that you're showing industry expertise and what you're learning. I think that's very important just to start showing industry expertise and that you're connected to the industry. The other thing I'll say is look for media stories where you might fit in and ping the journalists. So a quick side story, do we have time for that? Kathleen: Yeah, go for it. Kate: When I started my Seattle agency, I had just been through this issue of what's called domain front running, which is when you go in and you're buying a domain and before you can hit checkout, someone takes it from you. So they're capturing it on the domain register thing. Well, King Five, the big news station in Seattle ran a story about how these guys were making all this money on domain names and how it was such an innovative business. Well, I got the journalist name and I sent them an email and I said, "I totally disagree with you. This is really bad for entrepreneurs. It's, you know, it's not right. There's some negative things happening that are just unfair." So they came to the office and filmed me talking about the story about how someone stole my domain name and then sold it back to me for a lot more money than if I'd just been able to push the button. And that was a great opportunity. I've had a lot of luck. You know, my first startup was around printing cookbooks and I had a lot of luck just calling local news stations and cooking on air. Free PR. I've gotten a lot of clients placed, um, if you have a consumer based business, there are a lot of news stations that their lunchtime, they'll have like a third hour, they have a third hour. It's usually lifestyle and you can get pretty easily placed on it if you have some sort of presence and something to talk about. They need people for that lifestyle hour. So always look for PR and media opportunities. Kathleen: Yeah. And I would say a great resource for that also is help a reporter out -- HARO. I mean that's a no brainer. It doesn't cost anything. You subscribe to it, you get an email, however many times a day with reporters looking for sources for stories. It can be overwhelming, but it also is full of opportunity. Kate: Yeah, if you have gmail, you can put on a label and then go in and look when you have time. But yeah, that's an awesome recommendation. Podcast interviews are great. You find people like yourself and you have similar topics and interests. There are websites like Canva that make building marketing collateral so easy and you look like you know what you're doing design-wise and it doesn't cost you extra money. So by all means, make your decks, make your one pagers, make collateral for all these different use cases. Think about collateral. Kathleen: Oh my God, I have to stop you and just say, I am the biggest Canva fan girl on the planet. I am not a designer. I do not know how to use the Adobe suite to design anything. That's the one thing I've just realized. I'm not, I don't have the aptitude for it, but I can go into Canva and make the most beautiful things and I do it probably four times a day. I love it. Yes. It's amazing. Kate: Yeah. Canva, huge. When you get later on in your startup and you have to have brand differentiation and you know, you don't want to use simple stuff, that's different. Early on, use Canva, print this stuff, have leave behinds for customers. It doesn't cost that much money to just really work on your marketing collateral. I think also when you're on the topic of press, look at your local press opportunities, where can you talk at local events, whatever works locally. We'll end up working in different geographies and at larger scale. So learn locally first and that stuff is free. It just takes time. And also work on your industry. So look, so look at this stuff in terms of, are you being, are you B2B or B2C? So where does that fall in? Then look at your media, look at it local and look at an industry as well. And then you want to start growing your community in terms of media. I see entrepreneurs, it's kind of painful to see that they're trying to do all the platforms and it's terrible on all of them. Just choose the ones that are most relevant and a couple to start and just start figuring it out. There's some great tools. A lot of people are saying, "Well, I don't want Twitter because it's not working." Okay. But the thing about it, the people who are on Twitter right now are really passionate and they stay on it. They're a very, very, very passionate bunch. My favorite Twitter tool for growing a Twitter audience is called Jooicer, which is J. O. O. I. C. E. R. Have you seen it? It's awesome. It's like 30, 40 bucks and will grow your Twitter audience for you beautifully. So you know, find tools like that. And again, like we were saying with Canva, you can make beautiful social media posts in Canva since you now have to have more designed content. Use Canva for that.  Kathleen: Yeah, I love this and I will tell you right now as the head of marketing at a startup, I use Canva, I use helper a reporter out. I totally, totally agree with you on those suggestions. Those are great. Kate's advice for startup founders Kathleen: Well we are running low on time. So any last words of advice for startup founders out there who really want to take that fast path to growth? Kate: Yeah, I think the important thing is to try to not get overwhelmed. And so what I recommend doing is, do a list of 10 to 15 different things. You can try figure out a small test for that, that's feasible. Like, if it's an ad unit, put enough money so it's actually worth the test and go through and test them and concentrate on one thing, like one thing a week, step by step by step. If you try to do it all at one time, you get really overwhelmed and it ends up not diluting the quality of it. So, one foot in front of the other is what I always tell people. Kathleen: Yeah. That's good. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: Now changing gears because I have two questions I always ask all of my guests. We're all about inbound marketing on this podcast. So when you think about inbound, is there a particular company or individual that you can point to that you think is really doing it well? Kate: The first thing that popped in my mind was not what you asked. It was a company that helps people do it well. I really like Unbounce for landing pages. I think you can get a very beautiful landing page up quickly. I would have to think on that. I think, sorry, I was not prepared for this one. Kathleen: That's okay. Unbounce is a good suggestion actually. I can just keep that. Kate: Okay. I'm a huge proponent of Unbounce. There are other cheaper tools, but I really like the quality of Unbounce. Kathleen: Yeah, they're a great company. Second question, the biggest pain point I hear from marketers is that they can't keep pace with all of the different ways that digital marketing is changing. So how do you personally stay up to date with all of it? Kate: Being an agency owner, I've spent a lot of time and resources going through MarTech tools and organizing them. If anybody wants these reports, just please email me. And that helped organize my brain a lot and help me understand if I was doing the right thing or not. So we've done reports where we analyze CRM tools. There's one on website development tools. We've got one on email marketing and one on marketing automation. What those reports did, because in my head I just couldn't keep it all straight, was say here are the solutions, here are all the features that they all have comparatively. And then here are the integrations they have. Because I think what's so hard about MarTech right now is it's not only like I like this product, so I've got 20 products I have to put together. And when you're going out to buy, it's, it's not a great way for marketers to have to spend time of like, which tool, and having to analyze this themselves. So one of my goals to help marketers is to say, here's some reports. Go through everything that you need to know and hopefully you can pick a tool or at least narrow it down to two or three that you should get a free trial on before you commit to it. So I think any website like that, save yourself time on evaluating tools. Find people who've done the research for you. I think that that is really overwhelming. Kathleen: That's so true. It is. It's a lot. There's so many MarTech tools now. How to connect with Kate Kathleen: All right, well we're just about out of time. So Kate, if somebody's listening and they want to learn more about you or traction hero or they want to reach out and ask a question, what's the best way for them to connect with you? Kate: Katewalling.com is my personal website and Tractionhero.com is for the agency. It's a very landing page type website. Right now we're kind of building, um, by doing the work first. You can always reach out to me on my email, which is kate[at]katewalling.com or Twitter, which my handle is @Katewalling. You know what to do next... Kathleen: All right, fantastic. If you're listening and you liked what you've heard or you learned something new, please head to Apple podcasts and leave the podcasts a five star review so we can get in front of some more folks just like you. And of course, if you know anybody else who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me @workmommywork, because I would love to make them my next guest. That's it for this week. Thank you so much, Kate. Stay healthy. Kate: Thank you so much for having me.

So they laid out the three rules that must be achieved before we can truly move toward reopening the state and the rest of America. The first is going to be the biggest hurdle. There can be no rise in the Coronavirus numbers in your region for fourteen days. Two more weeks added to the already lived and experienced five. On this podcast we take that on. Not as a middle aged man whose tires will probably be flattened and his strawberry fields raided. But to be physically present with the requirements and the first one already shouts out failure. Nobody is being held accountable for playing basketball in the school parking lots. I don't care how many golf carts there are on the perfectly paved trails people are still gathering at the tee. The pharmacist at CVS looked at me with a tear in her eye yesterday trying to explain how much it scared her that people have made the choice to use their store as a place to share conversation. They're in separate lanes but it's still being played. When does accountability begin? I've been inspired by the protesters trying to convince their local governments to reopen their states. I love it when people exercise their voice. What I'm not seeing in those places of protest are grown men with golf clubs and basketballs. I was introduced to a new term this morning Quaran-Teaming. People leaving their homes to be with each other. If it truly is to fully live in quarantine I'm all for it. But if its for dinner, video games and or a book club then back home. You might as well be running the Monopoly game bank stealing 500 dollar bills. This isn't prohibition where people gathered to pour some powerful juice into their systems of choice. This is a moment where its time to put on the big boy and girl pants and stop thinking you're invincible. I wish the leaders and news worlds would start painting the picture of life in America 1942. The long lines for jobs and food. Oh that won't happen to us right? Did you see the line of 6,000 in Texas? Accountability. Look it up on dictionary.com and practice it before fate catches up. Oh wait. This daily section is supposed to be motivational and always inviting to the creative mind and spirit. Dang it! Give me a second. Umm. Ok here goes. During the Depression my mother was forced to live away from her family and home nearly three years not because they couldn't afford to have her but she did all she could to make sure her family didn't lose their farm in Wyoming. Moral of the story? What are you willing to sacrifice in an age when Small Business loans burned up billions of dollars in the blink of an eye? Still not motivated? Dang it! Lets talk in 6 months when we're still closed.

So they laid out the three rules that must be achieved before we can truly move toward reopening the state and the rest of America. The first is going to be the biggest hurdle. There can be no rise in the Coronavirus numbers in your region for fourteen days. Two more weeks added to the already lived and experienced five. On this podcast we take that on. Not as a middle aged man whose tires will probably be flattened and his strawberry fields raided. But to be physically present with the requirements and the first one already shouts out failure. Nobody is being held accountable for playing basketball in the school parking lots. I don't care how many golf carts there are on the perfectly paved trails people are still gathering at the tee. The pharmacist at CVS looked at me with a tear in her eye yesterday trying to explain how much it scared her that people have made the choice to use their store as a place to share conversation. They're in separate lanes but it's still being played. When does accountability begin? I've been inspired by the protesters trying to convince their local governments to reopen their states. I love it when people exercise their voice. What I'm not seeing in those places of protest are grown men with golf clubs and basketballs. I was introduced to a new term this morning Quaran-Teaming. People leaving their homes to be with each other. If it truly is to fully live in quarantine I'm all for it. But if its for dinner, video games and or a book club then back home. You might as well be running the Monopoly game bank stealing 500 dollar bills. This isn't prohibition where people gathered to pour some powerful juice into their systems of choice. This is a moment where its time to put on the big boy and girl pants and stop thinking you're invincible. I wish the leaders and news worlds would start painting the picture of life in America 1942. The long lines for jobs and food. Oh that won't happen to us right? Did you see the line of 6,000 in Texas? Accountability. Look it up on dictionary.com and practice it before fate catches up. Oh wait. This daily section is supposed to be motivational and always inviting to the creative mind and spirit. Dang it! Give me a second. Umm. Ok here goes. During the Depression my mother was forced to live away from her family and home nearly three years not because they couldn't afford to have her but she did all she could to make sure her family didn't lose their farm in Wyoming. Moral of the story? What are you willing to sacrifice in an age when Small Business loans burned up billions of dollars in the blink of an eye? Still not motivated? Dang it! Lets talk in 6 months when we're still closed.

James:. Hi, audience and listeners, this is James Kandasamy from Achieved Wealth through Value Add Real Estate Investing podcast. Today we have a special session with Rama Krishna from Zovest Company from California. Hey Rama, you want to say hi to our audience and listeners?    Rama: Yeah. Hi James. Thank you for inviting me on this special session. I know definitely the primary reason is we are attending so many webinars on this COVID19 impact for multifamily, a lot of other groups that we're discussing. I wanted to just compile all that strategies that I have compile and also mine as well. What I'm actually going through right now with my properties, compiling the blog posts and whatever you wanted to talk about it.    James: Yeah. Today's a special session. I'm trying to make all this podcast release. I'm actually rearranging all my podcast releases to make it really timely. So all of you guys, listeners, can we take action from whatever you're listening from this podcast and listening to podcast that was recorded one or two months ago, which is like super boring because all that is pre-Corona. I'm sure all of you guys are wondering what is this guy talking about. 3% rent growth at that time, so this is timely. We're going to release as soon as possible. Rama has done a really good job compiling fifty strategies for multifamily operators and asset managers to tackle Covid19 and we're going to go to each one of those quickly and also in detail so that each one of you can take a pencil and paper and write down what are some of the things that you can use right now. Rama, let's get started.    Rama: Yup.    James: What's the first one?   Rama: I think before even getting there, I'm reading the primary thing that we need to do here is, people lost jobs in the sense that we need to become passionate about the way how things are going. I think we are actually suffering as operators. We also have to put ourselves in the tenant's shoes and they got impacted. Some of these strategies to also have to work with them to see how they can weather the storm, including us, have to weather the storm here. Another thing is, I mean, there are federal regulations right now that we cannot evict tenants. So in a sense, even though, we can do some of these things, but the strategy is what we have before we cannot do it because of the regulations in place and then also shelter in place right now.    The first primary thing that we wanted to do to alleviate the problems of tenants is the late fee waiver. We actually wanted to not to communicate this thing until the fifth, but we did communicate before that itself, just wanted to give some assurance to the tenants saying that you're not going to charge late fee for the month of April and May. That's the first strategy you want to do. Also they cannot; they are impacted. The primary thing we wanted to do, James is when you're working with the tenant that they have an issue, you want to get a proof from them that they got laid off from their job and then put it into your resources, your folders so that in case if you're applying for any other benefits in the future, any ADL program or a PPP program, or maybe a forbearance or forgiveness, you can have all these things noted in your documentation.    The second thing is some of the tenants are not misusing this thing. There is a late fee waiver. There's a flexible payment plan, but if you're not impacted, you're not eligible for that. That's the reason. The second point where we wanted to put them into a payment plan, if they are impacted and then they can continue catching up these payments. The second thing again and then typical guidelines to the tenants saying that you need to do the shelter in place and follow the state or CDC guidelines to make sure that there are protected. The last thing that you need is a Covid19 patient in your properties and then they're spreading and they don't know what, and God forbid there's a death. There are lot of things that you need to do to make sure and also fundamentally you want your tenants and everyone to be safe. Then follow the state guidelines and what you have to do or they have to do somebody tested positive in your property. How they can do self quarantine and how you can help them also.    I know maybe there is one more point in here is to, for us as an operative to disinfect the common areas and especially, I think we'll come back to those points again in the later strategies is to disinfect the common laundry mailboxes and other things, leasing office and other things. The other thing from a financial standpoint was security deposits. When we found out about this program called [05:15unclear] there other insurance programs, even not just for this one later also the operators can use this strategy to actually use in lieu of security deposit. They can actually get into some of these insurance programs like the Rhino or like Nash tag, Lemonade, where in this strategy, James, I think you might already know. Let's say the security deposit is thousand dollars. They need to pay $5 per month as insurance and they don't need to deposit this thousand dollars. So somebody coming in new as a tenant instead of paying first month's rent plus a security deposit of say $2,000. Now the need to only pay $1,000 and an insurance program for $5 a month. If it is $2,000, it will be $10 a month. It covers both security deposits and also any damages that they do, including they haven't officially confirmed but when I talked to rhinos representative, they're saying even wear and tear. Say if we want to do and make ready and there is damage that you have under the unit it covers that. So the way how it works is, so let's say if the tenant vacates and you go and do the move out inspection and you saw overall to make ready of this is twelve hundred dollars, and you do it claim to rhino and then they pay you within 48 hours and they collect from the tenant later because it's still learning deposit. There is wear and tear or some damage happened to the unit.    James: So that is a sayrhino.com, that's what you're saying?   Rama: Yeah.    James: And there are a few other people as providers?    Rama: Providers, yeah.   James: Let me get a bit more structured here. We are on that line item number five, which is basically the first one, is look at late fee waiver. Second is look at payment plans for your residents who are impacted, make sure they are impacted. Third one is a make sure that you communicate to residents and make sure they follow the shelter in place and follow the State and CDC guidelines. Fourth is basically if they are exposed to Covid19 patients who are tested positive you want to do a self-quarantine as well. If you as a property manager knows about whether any residence has been impacted, usually a lot of property management software have given us access to additional fields in the tenant information to mark them as Covid19 quarantined and all that. I do have it recently on my property management software. So check with your property management company, so they can mark it as someone was impacted or quarantined or what's the status.    The fifth one is basically using some of the security deposit for some of the two months rents using some companies like sayrhino.com where you can use it as an insurance for evictions and if they evict out or if for any make ready, if the tenant cannot pay.    Rama: If you collected the security deposit, you can convert to a sayrhino agreement.    James: Okay.    Rama: The minimum is at least they need to have six months more left in the lease because at least whether the new person coming in or maybe like another two months are done in the...   James: But this program already existed before Covid19? Rama: No, sayrhino has 700,000 units insured.    James: So they already existed right now. So you can just use this at this stage, I guess. Use some of the current security deposit and convert it to this insurance program, I guess.    Rama: Exactly.    James: Okay, got it. So sayrhino.com and REIG insurance, call home, [08:59unclear] king.com and these are the some of the providers?    Rama: Yes, there are some other insurance providers in lieu of a security deposit.    James: Okay. Let's go to number six.    Rama: Okay. Let's say from an operator perspective you feel that there is one more point here that we can come back to this. I think I haven't ordered this in the right format, right numbering. The first thing before doing that is to privately segregate our profile tenants. Go each lease by lease and profile your tenants how exposed are they with this Covid19 impacted businesses. Are they in restaurants, are they in travel tourism industry or whatever it is to see what would be the impact of it. Say if you have 50% of your tenants are in medical profession or maybe some other which are not really impacted into that. So at least you will know yourself if you own [09:55unclear] unit, Hey, like, I'm 50% of my tenants are restaurants, maybe. Then you can actually be really alert and also do go to these programs, what we're talking about here. Talk to your Fannie/Freddie lender and see if they have any mortgage forbearance or relief. No, they already have it. Fannie and Freddie already rolled it out, for 90 days you can forbear your mortgage not to pay that. Then how the payment plan of twelve months to catch up on this 90 day payment.    But make sure that there will be some negative remark or agency loan history and to see, make sure you go through all the agreement before actually signing up. But yeah, if you're really impacted, definitely if you're going on water with not being able to make mortgage payments, for sure you should consider this mortgage forbearance.    James: Okay, good. Let's go to the next one.    Rama: Yeah. And then so that is one aspect of it. The other aspect of it is the SBA disaster loans. There is an EIDL emergency loan...   James: I think it’s called Economic Injury...   Rama: Economic Injury Disaster Loan. So that's the loan that SBA is giving up to $2 million for small businesses including rental apartment owners, there is 3.75% interest and then there is some times that you need to pay. The idea here is based on your situation you can actually apply for this a disaster loan for EIDL program so that you can weather the storm for the next three to six months or nine months. There's another loan for a payroll protection program, PPP, which I can update this as well. If you have a payroll that you're running by yourself, you can actually apply for this PPP program to get two and a half months of payroll from the government or if your property management company actually runs the payroll, you can ask them to apply for this PPP loan so that they cannot bill you for the next three months for the property management personally. James: Yeah. I think the caveat is anybody who's applying for it to be having less than 500 employees.    Rama: Exactly. I think they figured out some more than 500, but overall, yeah, up to 500. Yes. And then also thing from I think from a tenant perspective some of this one's four or five points series. If they are actually having some hardships right now how they can use some of these federal programs. They're actually sending a $1,200 to $3,400 checks every person who actually filed their taxes. Also they can apply, if they are a small business, they can apply SBA loan or they can apply a PPP loan and they can weather the storm and actually use that money and then if they get referred, they can file the taxes immediately and use that money to pay rents. Some of these aspects that you can think on their shoes and see how these federal programs can help them as a tenant. Maybe one of your tenant is a restaurant owner, then you can see how the federal programs can help them so that they maybe they can file an employment benefits and then you can tell information about that or you can find local companies which are hiring and then see if some of these tenants that actually wants to find a job right now. Then you can ask them to continue pay the rent.    James: Yeah. Let me add some more things. Some of the apartment association in many big cities have given renters resources, which includes how to file unemployment. What are the resources for them to get different types of help from different organizations. Rama: Yeah. So again, two aspects of our operations, one is income and the other is expenses? Right now we've talked a lot of stuff from income perspective and some are expenses perspective. The other aspect that we kind of brought in is with all these people talking about are expenses. So in the non-essential expenses, even send email like a message to all the tenants, memo the tenants saying that, if you have any emergency only like create a service request, non-emergency service request will be done once the things settle down. Now if you are a light bulb vendor where you can fix it yourself or you leave the light bulb at the doorstep, let them fix it. Instead of you exposing your maintenance staff to more people, either they can fix it themselves or we can drop the light bulb there or they can wait for a few weeks until these things settle down so that you can cut your non-essential expenses and other controllable expenses that you can eliminate and you can close all the amenities, pool, the common amenities so there is no need to continue maintaining them.    James: I think also you do not want to people to use that and spread the virus more.    Rama: Exactly. Those are shelter in place, not using the common amenities, throw a party in a club house then you will have 50 people infected there. Primary thing is the common amenities. You have laundry room, everybody's coming in there to do the laundry, how they can sanitize this thing or maybe one person at a time or have a roster, Hey, this building one to ten people using Monday to Monday 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM some roster so that not everybody coming in Saturday morning to do the laundry. Or maybe some mailbox to see if somebody is there at the mailboxes, have some instructions that say wait for them to leave and then you go, wait for a minute and then you can go and pick up your mail.    Some of this stuff that you can instructions at the mailing and laundry, or in any common areas. The other thing is aspect of income perspective is primarily focused on the leasing aspect. Can you put some deals on renewals or lease modifications or if you already gave notices and then maybe cancel the notices and then pause the rent increases right now to make sure that you're at least a hundred percent physically occupied and then later on 100% how it can be economically awkward as well. At least at this point right now if you can make this a hundred percent thing, James, both physical and economically, you can weather the storm for the three to six months and come back and again go back to your typical asset management strategies to increase the valuation of the property. Right now it's more a fight or flight mode right now. Let's see how to make it smoother for the next 90 days to 120 days is the strategy here.    James: Yeah. So what you're saying is rather than pushing for rent, try to keep people in the units, whether they're paying or not.   Rama: If you renew it, we're going to not increase it, let's say if you renew it in April, May, we're not going to do any rent increases. The last thing for you to do is make this unit empty right now and then we don't know what the situation of leasing activity in that building. So continue withholding rent increases, especially if you renew it in the next two months, we will not increase the rent, for example and the things that were discussed already, it'd be sympathetic and then also profile your tenants, see what jobs they do. Another strategy on this is, you don't need to pay April or maybe May but that rent will be amortized in the next 12 months. That's another strategy they're doing. Hey, you know, you're affected. We're not going to charge you for April or maybe half of May as well, but that $1,500 will it be amortized for the next twelve months. James: Okay, so you'll give them a break for one month and you take that money and amortize over 12. Rama: Yeah. Just like forbearance from a mortgage, same thing. That is amortized for the next 12 months. Same thing that you can do here, but some of these are lease modifications and see how painful it is, but whatever that is kind of, it takes it to get this thing done right and extending the leases. One more thing in the leases we can come back to later on is usually when you do a short term rentals at the three months lease, six months lease, you have a premium. You can actually reduce the premium, no premium for short term rentals. Say, hey, like, we are leasing right now. Hey, you want a six months, and then it will be same as the 12 months’ rent. So at least you can fill up your units by doing that. James: Yeah, even on a month to month. I think they can usually we charge premium for month to month, but you can either reduce it or don't charge that for now. Rama: Exactly. So I think maybe for them also they also wanted to try for month to month, three months, and then they can do an annual release after two to three months.  So you can at least fill them in coming in, let them pay, and then you can think about this after three months. The same topic we discussed before is the go to a local; even though there are jobs lost, some are trying to hire. Amazon is hiring for the warehouses, grocery chains, hospitals; some of them, they're not able to have enough staff. So you can find these in your market, in your sub-market and see and take those information and then send you to your people who actually came, Hey, I lost my job. Hey, why don't you try to go to Amazon warehouse five miles from here, they're actually hiring. That you can help to see if they can come back to the employment at least for temporary for the 90 days until this thing comes back.    A lot of these people are furloughed right now just because they can get unemployment benefits, but if they can get some other job for the next 90 days, because what if just delays more, they can get some job for the next six months and come back to the workforce later. Another thing is something similar is lot of charities and churches and they pay the rent and if they're part of the local church or a charity program now there are so many people paying rent and also their utility payments.  James: To help our residents and one good resource that you guys can use, all the listeners can use. It's findhelp.org, that has all the completion of all the organizations which are helping people in terms of money, housing all kinds of things there, so use that resource. Rama: Yeah.  And like this is the first step. So whatever that's happening for us or for them, the message to tenants is the rent is due, just because we have to have utility payments, we have to have mortgage payments, we have to pay salaries for employees. This is a laser thin business. This is not; we're making 50% as profits here. So we had to send that message properly that we also have expenses. We cannot  just not forego this thing, not paying rent. That's the message that I might not be putting into the right way here, but you have to [21:24unclear] because some of these articles in some of these markets saying, Hey, don't pay rent for three months. So it's just showing a wrong message, but they're not thinking about the operators. James: Yeah and the government or our mortgage providers did not give us a break on our mortgage. The rent is still due, we do sympathize with all the residents. Let's work out some plan. But rent is rent and it still needs to be paid in some way. So we have to figure that out and see. Rama: Then another thing is if you're doing renovations, if you have draw requests, it's already competitor immediately do the draw request because there might be some delays right now because of this demo here, the inspector might not come in to verify that renovations that you did to approve the draw request. Submit your draw request as soon as possible so that your money, you had to pay your vendors. James: So this is the capital or replacement reserve, what we're talking about here?  Rama: Exactly. So you renovated like say five, ten units and usually the bridge loans, other loans which we have escrow money. Get the draw request and then get the money at least and then you can pause. The idea here is to release what you did to now, get the money, pay your vendors and pause your renovations for some time until this is done. Another aspect is until it is utilities, because now everybody's at home. They're going to use all their deliveries for the maximum, the water, the electricity, the heaters, the air conditions, and the internet, everybody utility company is right now maxed to the capacity. So just keep it down on the utilities and see how things are going on that. All bills paid or you're doing the reps program. Do you need to increase the reps? Like whatever it is, just keep an eye on it. It'll definitely be a much higher. James: Yeah. I think because everybody's staying at home right now and the one or two months when the utility bill hits to everyone is going to be much higher and now I appreciate why all this spend people go to work, somebody else is paying for their utilities when they are at work. Now operators do feel the heavy load here, but it is what it is.   Rama: And also the load on this, if you're continuously using something like your HVACs maybe break broken, or your water, something that issues that you need to make sure that you do the regular maintenance of these stuff and then make sure that you have ducks in row. Like, hey, we're talking to the Water Company, talking to your Plummer, talking to your electrician or HVAC Company, making sure they're ready for any service request that comes in. Because if the HVAC broken or some water broken, last thing is that the tenants are not happy.    James: Correct. Correct.    Rama: So I think we discussed it the month to month of high risk tenants, rental increases on this. Yes. Pausing all upgrades and the distribution side. Another thing is we've talked about lenders, talked about the tenants but you did not think about the investors. If you're syndicating this deal or if you have the private money that you raised or whatever that you have investors in your deal, make sure that you inform them about what's going on and how well your assets are performing and what are the things that you are doing as an operator to get some of these strategies are what your strategies that you're already applying to whether this storm and maybe there are some other great topics, uncomfortable things that you need to talk to them. Say there might be some pause on distributions because we don't know what's going on here. We need to preserve the cash, preserve our reserves right now, what if this goes beyond 90 days. So maybe pause or reduce your distributions or pause it for now and then you can catch back once everything kind of settles down. That's one of the conversations you should have. James: Yeah. Make sure, I mean, just a caution to everyone who's listening. Make sure that any operators are communicating to the passive investors more frequently than what they used to know. This is very important right now. Just because everyone knows Covid19 is happening, the whole country is in a lockdown, doesn't mean that you can't communicate. So make sure you communicate all your plans and what are you doing to your passive investors? Rama: I think we kind of came through this reprint reserves. We need to make sure that you're are person maintenance; so make sure that now is the time that you have a pause. So you can actually flag kind have all your depreciated items, have HVACs these other things. Make sure that you have all of them done properly. Also, again, the same thing, use audit, full use audit to categorize your employers. So their dependents are at risk or not. James: Yeah, I mean, you can do a general lease audit as well because most of the time, right now our offices are closed for public. Most of the apartment office. So in my company, most of my staff are doing lease audits. Just as part of the normal thing, but to keep them busy.    Rama: So this is the right time, everybody give it time we are running, now is the best time to profile your tenants lease audits and make sure that what strategies that you can employ to make them in place and again, same thing as utility, like just how you can do savings of utilities. Is it a new water leaks that are happening. Let's see your old bills in the last six months or one year. See any patterns that you can identify or any other measures that you can save utilities because the utilities will be stressed in the next a few months. Again from the expenses side, completely renegotiating all your contracts and [27:30unclear] every insurance, everything that you spend, your controllable expenses like non-controllable, property taxes and mortgage. You cannot do anything. Maybe yes, if you can refinance now if you have ability you can do that, if the rates are low. But if the controllable expenses you have the negotiating ability, your pool vendor, hey, pause for a few months or maybe renegotiate the contracts, go through every line expenses that you have and try to get renegotiate these things.    There are even companies it seems, which can do like this, that can help you go through all your bills and then find anything that you can renegotiate the contract. The thing is noise notices because now everybody's home. There will be a lot of complaints. Hey, like my neighbor is making a lot of noise. Make sure that you again send it across back to the tenant notification saying after nine o'clock it is a quiet time for what it is like in the night. Any of the notices that you want to do, the courtesy notices to make sure that everybody's people are working from home. Whatever it is and again, so a lot of people kind of saying maybe on the section eight, what's yours? Maybe this is a time to think about rethink...   James: It's the best time to get section eight vouchers because that's guaranteed income for now.        Rama: Exactly. So if your property is already approved and you have a few tenants in section eight now go through, go to your city and say, hey, do you want any more? We have vacancies right now. Hey, absolutely we have so many people are looking at it and we are already approved as section eight for your property, they'll let them send your way. And you can fill up easily and these are at least for the next one to two years, it'll be like in a way standard and then not all section eight is bad, just make sure that you profile your tenant properly and then...   James: Yeah. And I also heard that the government provided a lot more funding for housing people so there could be a lot more section eight vouchers coming in and what you're saying, they're not bad people. I mean they are definitely a lot of good people there you just have to make sure that you screen them properly and make sure you get the good ones.    Rama: Yes. I think we kind of briefly touched based on this too about the [29:57unclear] and all the forgivable loans or the loans and then property managers can use some of these loans. Each LLC, that own asset can use this. Check with your lending terms to see that it's not violating any terms. There are a couple of things, I got it from the CVRE webinar, make sure that you have fire productions on the building equipment and backups and mission critical operations that you have. These are kind of into the back-end of it that we already usually ignore. Make sure that all the buildings are inspected properly by the fire inspection because now that everybody's at home, there are higher chances of some of the stuff they could make big dormant happen. Do you have your backups of emergency?  And then any mission critical operations your cooling any heating water or anything, we have redundancy on these things. Make sure that you're building physical aspects of your buildings, make sure that you do those and then if you don't have credit card payments, for rent payments, make sure to enable them and also inform tenants that you can pay rent through credit card or maybe in that you can actually give back the money or the transaction fees. Usually in a credit card payment there is a two and a half percent transaction fee. Hey, you can use credit card. If you use a credit card, let us know. We can refund you the transaction fee.    James: Yeah. That's something that we are happy because we moved all to online payment for the past one year. So now it's so much easier during this kind of thing because...   Rama: Especially if you're not yet on the credit card payment option, make sure that you talk to your property management software and enable that and then also inform them, Hey, like you already have ACH but you have an option to pay through credit card. That's another thing and also another incentive is, I think Neil was using his, if you can give some credit, if they pay the rent before fifth of the month, or if you pay April and May upfront now you'll get a $100 off or $150 off. Give them incentive to pay for the next two to three months upfront. So that if somebody has that capability to do it now they can use up the program and they can get, they can get a credit for that and make sure, again, this one is, I think should be the first stop. If you're working with the tenant, either a late payment waiver or a traded audit, lease modification, any other that you're working with them, make sure that they show the letter that they lost their job. Otherwise people will make use of these features that you would actually giving. So that's the primary and then the couple of things we already talked about the short term rent leases and renegotiating the contracts and other one is primary, the model unit. Now that nobody's coming in and seeing the units, maybe you can use your model unit as lease apartment for short term, but this is the [33:07unclear] idea and lease to traveling nurses because right now with the Covid a lot of these hospitals are actually getting healthcare professional from outside, from other towns, other places and they're hiring more people as a temporary staff, but these traveling nurses and healthcare professionals need to have some place to stay. You can go; I had to find this link, James. I'll talk to Ellie and then send it to you as well later on; you can put it into your notes.   James: Is this a link for traveling nurses?   Rama: Yeah, there is a way to find out these people and then post your apartments there. Hey, if your apartment is say five to ten miles from a hospital major hospital and you can actually use these resources to actually post, hey, we have available short term rentals, maybe for lease or not, we can give you this for the next 90 days to 120 days. That's another way to actually fill a unit. James: That's awesome, it looks like we went through the list. So let me add one more thing, which I just remembered. If you have never done a virtual 3D tour of your units, you want to prepare right now, there's a lot of photographers out there that they can do a virtual 3D two of the units. Right now that's very useful because right now we can't use our leasing agents to go and tour the units, we just tell them to go themselves or drive around or look at the pictures or look at the videos. But if they have a really nice virtual 3D picture, there'll be a really good way to attract leases to you. Rama: Rentally has a self-touring technology. You can purchase webcams. So if you're using Rentally, also Rentally is also an app into existing property management. You can put the webcams there. You don't need to be there, your leasing staffs are not exposed. So they can come in 24/7, you'll send them the lock core. You'll open the unit and you can monitor from your leasing office or whatever desk you are and then do that, Rentally has that. James: Yeah, I did look at that as well. So that's awesome. Rama, thanks for sharing this. Is there anything else you want to mention to the audience and the listeners? Rama: Yeah, I think we have some light on the other end of the tunnel. The government is helping us. Hopefully I think this will pass and we'll back stronger and stay safe.    James: Yeah. Yeah. Multifamily is still one of the best asset classes to invest in because there's so much help we are getting from all our different sauces. Imagine if you are an office or warehouse or industrial or everything is closed down, or hotels. Right now things are doing really badly in that asset classes. But shelter is part of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, food, shelter and safety. So absolutely everybody needs housing to stay on and live on.  So thanks for coming in and hopefully we can add this as soon as possible and that's it. Thank you very much, Rama.    Rama: Yeah. Thank you, James.   

An enhanced podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Episode 741. Apple may acquire live event VR firm. The "next" MacBook Pro update. Apple and others to stream 'One World: Together At Home'. Apple could pick-up Martin Scorsese's next film project for Apple TV+. Rumors of "Widgets" coming to iOS 14. Apple over-the-ear headphones soon? 2020 iPad Pro doesn't have U1 chip. More teens have iPhones than ever. iPhone SE soon? Beware of iOS "Fleeceware". What I'm playing on Apple Arcade. Two-Factor authentication questions. Thing of the Moment: Anker 10 Port 60W Data Hub Special thanks to our sponsors: Linode - Cloud Hosting for you CacheFly Shownotes in: HTML or OPML Subscribe to the Podcast Feed or Get the MP3 or Enhanced AAC

I'm a survivor. What? I'm not goin' give up. What? I'm not goin' stop. What? I'm goin' work harder. What? I'm a survivor. What? I'm goin' make it. What? I will survive. What? Keep on survivin'! Find Paul and John on Twitter. Full episode archive

“When something is meant to be, when something is for you, you can always, always find a way to make it happen!” -Amie Tollefsrud We were *literally* a couple minutes away from living a completely different life right now. Crazy, right?? Today I have a big announcement and this episode dives into ALL the juicy details. My hope for anyone who listens is that by the end, you'll be confident that the universe can and will serve you something better than you could have ever imagined for yourself if only you’re brave enough to say “fuck yes” to the magic it has in store! What I'm currently reading: The Happy Pocket Full of Money https://amzn.to/2JMdEUC Take a tour of our new home! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atPrRaL6xjY Join my FREE Workshop for New + Aspiring Nutrition Biz Owners: rebellenutrition.com/sixfigures Was this episode helpful for you? Take a screenshot and share it on Instagram (+ tag @rebellenutrition!) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rebellenutrition/message

1:02 Why stats are important when competing in basketball and in business. 1:37 Why I started to dive deeper into the business's numbers.2:45 Explaining how session capacity (first metric) is vital for any basketball training business. 3:30 What I'm focusing on during the COVID-19 isolation. 5:24 Explaining how profit (second metric) is vital for any basketball training business. 8:25 Conclusion on the two main metrics and what the numbers are telling you for your personal basketball training business. Make sure you join me and a community of other verified basketball trainers who give FREE advice in The Basketball Trainer Mastermind Facebook Group - facebook.com/groups/hoopsinstitute The Basketball Trainer Mastermind Facebook Group Myson Jones’ Instagram --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/basketballtobusiness/message

How are you feeling? It's a really common question to get when you're pregnant. But it has a whole different layer to it when you're pregnant and about to give birth in the middle of a global pandemic. I recorded this solo episode of the Gotcha Mama podcast when I was 36 weeks pregnant as I prepared to give myself some time and mental space to enjoy my new baby and family. What I didn't anticipate was that the Coronavirus would change so much about daily life. And of course, plans for the delivery of my son. I talk about: What I'm doing differently for my second pregnancy  How pregnancy the second time around at the age of 40 has really been for me mentally, emotionally, and physically Thoughts, feelings, and changes to plans during the Coronavirus pandemic And how I'm preparing differently for postpartum this time around For show notes and resources mentioned: http://www.gotchamama.com GOTCHA MAMA INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/gotchamama/ GOTCHA MAMA FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/gotchamama/

“Why would I pay $2,500 for a testimonial video when I can just get my students to record one on their phone?” Brian was calling it the “spider web” testimonial. When he asked me for feedback about his offer, I really couldn’t see the price justification. And so, he had to explain to me why his weren’t normal testimonials, they’re much better, etc. I eventually ended up working with him and he did 10 testimonials for High Ticket Courses. It’s because of a simple reframe, a tiny shift in positioning. This “shift” will allow you to sell high-ticket to cold audiences. I’ll tell you about it in a minute. Mind you, it’s not like his product wasn’t legitimately better than a regular testimonial. He had one of my student record 2 versions. One, the student recorded with his phone and it was the usual. The second was much more polished. It was edited. You could tell he was asking the student questions. The testimonial was methodical and had a logical progression. “The reason why my stuff is so great is because I'm uncovering gaps in the sales process for my clients when I'm interviewing their customers.” Jackpot. Now, we’ve got a high ticket offer. Tools Vs. Models A Tool is a commodity. Tools can be shopped around. People can get several quotes and compare prices. It’s hard to sell a tool at a premium. And good luck selling a high ticket course for one. A Model is unique. There’s only one of it: yours. People can’t shop around for a better price. The price is whatever you say it is. Look at me, for example. If I told you “I want to teach you how to create a webinar,” my competition is the hundreds of low-ticket products on the market and thousands of free videos, articles, and podcasts on the topic. But if I told you, “I want to teach you how to sell your course for $5,000, $10,000, or even up to $25,000,” there’s zero competition. This is a fact. Let’s take Brian as another example. Brian doesn’t sell testimonials. He sells: Discovering gaps in your sales process. Revealing the real reasons why customers buy from you. High-value sales material that can be used to get more customers Any one of these things is worth $2,500. A “testimonial” costs nothing but the time it takes me to get my student to record one for me on his phone. This brings me to my final point… Don’t Leave It Up To Your Customers To Figure Out The Value Of Your Products Don’t leave it up to me to figure out what I can do with “testimonials.” If you do, the value is low. Instead, tell me: “What I'm really doing for you is developing compelling sales material that new prospects are going to relate to because it's coming from your current customers' mouths.” No more price objections. No more, “Why am I paying $2,500 for a testimonial?” Conclusion If you're having a hard time getting prospects to buy your high-ticket offer, chances are you’re selling a Tool. And there are a hundred other businesses selling the same tool, all competing on price. Turn your Tool into a Model. Show your prospects a process and what their life looks like after they complete it. Now, you have a compelling sales argument for why your product is priced at a premium. Don’t leave it up to your prospects to figure out the value of what you provide. Their response will be, “Why should I pay so much for that?” Instead, demonstrate your value in detail so there is no doubt in their mind that your product is worth the investment. Are you selling a Tool? How would you turn that tool into a Model? Tell me in the comments below and I’ll give you feedback on how you can improve it. Helpful Resources Join our free Facebook group, Million Dollar Course Marketers. Want to launch a High Ticket Course to grow your business without adding more work? Watch our brand new mini-webinar. Interested in working with Joel one-on-one? We’ll deliver a finished mini-webinar funnel to your OR will give you a detailed Game Plan you can go implement yourself. Check it out. Follow Joel on Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin.

Here we are sheltering in place and socially isolating because of the pandemic. How are you managing the anxiety? Here are a few stories about friends and how the fear around the coronavirus is impacting them. Keep going outside, be in nature, move your body. What I'm realizing is that our collective anxiety is at a fever pitch. What has been your experience? Not wanting to diminish or belittle people's fear, but I want to address what is happening and be a place of peace, be a beacon of calm. How can we tap into our collective wisdom and act out of our better selves not our compounding anxiety?

Time Stamped Notes:0:00  If your eight year old you 0:01  could walk right up to you and ask you one question. Just one question. What do you think he would say 0:11  to you? 0:28  Come on play for change. Welcome to playing for a change. This is your host Brandi Heather. This podcast is dedicated to navigating life's messiness and unpredictability where we use play 0:41  as a catalyst 0:42  for change and connection. Come on in this playground is for everyone on the playground today, I think we need to talk. 0:53  There are a whole bunch of really frightening things happening in the world right now. And we need to talk about about the importance of staying in play during times of crisis. 1:05  Do you know what happens to inclusion when people feel afraid of what will happen next or something unexpected changes their way of living or they feel vulnerable to loss or massive change. Inclusion does not flourish here. 1:25  Maybe you remember a time in your childhood when someone told you you had to share a toy or a treat or candy or a friend or a parent. I remember one of my first teaching experiences was in an elementary school classroom. 1:42  There was a young man who had just arrived from Ethiopia the week before and he was a student in grade one. It did snow that morning and his eyes. I will never forget the complete stop in your tracks look of awe and wonder this Young men looked at that white cold magic coming down from the sky and was standing in utter amazement of what it was. 2:12  About an hour and a half after an outside break, the students were writing at their desks and I started to see a puddle forming under the desk of this young man. He had not noticed and when I went over to see if there was something I could do, I whispered and brought a paper towel, but he had no idea looking everywhere for a source. And then he reached into his desk and took out what was left of a very small snowball. He just looked up at me and said, This is mine. 2:51  You see he had made a snowball outside and had snuck it into his desk because he was afraid that we would take it away. Make him share this treasure. And this snowball was melting right in front of his eyes and tears started streaming down his face as he felt we had taken it away or made it go away as a punishment for wanting to have it all to himself. 3:18  As children sharing is a learned skill and a practice skill. How many people remember hiding something you didn't want to share in a place you thought no one would find it. You see often if we have something and we believe there is not enough for everyone. We will keep it close. That's where the saying "Did you bring enough for everyone?" came from. 3:44  That includes things like snowballs and the best spot in the theater and a great job and money and cars and our best friend and food and water and toilet paper. When we are worried we will collect all of those Things that are most important. This is called scarcity. And like it sounds, it often makes us feel scared. 4:11  Scarcity also includes social and emotional factors, including connection and respect, time, advice and kind words and yes, inclusive practices like tolerance and flexibility and adaptability and resilience. Taking the time to ask before judging or assuming what someone intends or taking one more minute to explain. scarcity also sometimes leads us into dividing us and then good and bad, sick and well smart and not smart, etc, etc. 4:53  Because when we feel overwhelmed by our needs for physical and social safety, we feel need to divide and box similar things to make sense of them t shirts in one drawer and underwear and another and socks in another that's why we have drawers so instead of taking the time to consider the perspective of others where they're coming from are trying to explain we put people in drawers just like when we fold their clothes and put them away. Why do we do that? So we know where things are. It's predictable and the same with people. 5:34  When we are overwhelmed we go to a drawer system 5:38  Young people are this 5:40  and old people are that 5:41  and sick people here 5:42  and all the people from there and 5:44  all the people I don't know 5:46  and all wheelchair people 5:47  and all gay people 5:48  all men 5:48  all homeless people all front desk people 5:51  administration all nurses 5:52  all doctors, all welders, all plumbers 5:57  Do you see what happens? 6:00  What drawer are you in? 6:02  Let's see, I'm in the white cisgender female straight privilege mom, artists business owner, teacher mentally ill short but sharp dresser drawer. But it depends on the lens you choose to see me with? And at what moment. 6:21  So how can we afford to play in a time of scarcity and dividing and drawers and hiding our most precious things and protecting ourselves physically and socially and emotionally. I would argue this is why we need to find it and hold on to it. Because play is where we can be authentic and make connections and laugh and be vulnerable to something new and different. And try and fall down and get back up. We find resilience here. in play. 6:57  We find determination and relaxation. And we do things that soothe the drawers and dividers. Research indicates that play deprivation can contribute to a reduced sense of personal control, reduced ability to control emotions, increased social isolation and reduced happiness, all of which are associated with anxiety and or depression. In a time when we are reducing social contact and increasing social isolation. Let's consider what we need to survive. It's not just food and water. Without play and playfulness we will struggle to come up with the creative and innovative ideas, resilience and persistence The world needs. And the world needs answers and I believe the solutions are always in play. 7:50  They are there but we need to provide a space for them to grow. I know you may be worried about what is next, and what tomorrow looks like or What is happening in this moment? What I'm asking you to do is to hold on to the things that give you that moment to smile across the room at someone having a difficulty. to pop a bubble with your gum and giggle that you did it in a place you probably shouldn't have to disconnect from the pace and notice something small you are grateful for. And to build a fort out of cushions and have a picnic with your kids or someone you love. We can't afford not to play. 8:35  That's all from the playground today. Thanks for playing. Remember, this playground is for everyone. Thanks for playing today. If you want to hear more about how finding your play is connected to mental health, business, and education, subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast play for a change AMPED2PLAY was founded on the belief that everyone has active movement potential. That's an AMP, in which movement encompasses our ability to move ourselves physically, mentally, socially, or emotionally. Movement is change and whether in community health or education or corporate sectors, our goal is to deliver education of active movement potential. Find your AMP today. 8:35  AMPED2PLAY INC. www,amped2play.comBrandi Heather brandi@amped2play.comTranscribed by https://otter.aiFind your play and remind yourself and others that finding it is a gift…In the show notes I have included phone numbers and text lines that connect you to International mental health resources and crisis lines.Resources in CanadaI'm in crisisFind a crisis centre in your province or territory.ementalhealth.ca to find mental health services, and support in your community.Canadian Mental Health Association - find your local CMHA office to access support and resources.Kids Help Phone - visit online or call 1-800-668-6868 to speak to a counsellorI need to talk to someone (if you are not in crisis)ConnexOntario to find services for drug and alcohol, gambling or mental health issues.Canadian Mental Health Association to find your local CMHA to access mental health help, support and resources.Kids Help Phone - visit them online or call 1-800-668-6868 to speak to a counsellor.Transgender Crisis Line: 1-877-330-6366.Find a therapist in your local area.How to find a psychologist.If you are in high school, speak to a counsellor, public health nurse or other relevant staff at your Student Health Services.Most Canadian colleges and universities provide free counselling to their students.Resources in the United States of AmericaI'm in crisisLocal crisis centre.National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - call 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) to be directed to a crisis centre closest to you.National Hopeline - call 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433) to speak to a crisis counsellor.The Trevor Project - provides crisis and suicide support for LGBTQ youth, 1-866-4-U-TREVOR (1-866-488-7386).I need to talk to someone (if you are not in crisis)If you are in high school, you can also speak to a counsellor, public health nurse or other relevant staff at Student Health Services for additional support.Suicide Survivor Support Group Directory if you've lost somebody to suicide, locate a support group in your area.Talk to your family doctorLook in your local phonebook to locate a counsellor, therapist or local helpline near you.Resources outside Canada and the United StatesInternational Association for Suicide PreventionInternational Suicide HotlinesSocial Media ResourcesIf you have seen suicidal content on social media, you should contact law enforcement and (if applicable) officials on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr directly.The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline also assists users on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. 

IDK who needs to hear this but babe, you’re sitting on some magic that the world needs right now that could heal others and yourself in the process! it’s up to you to hone it, master it and share it.Not sure how to show up and be of service right now?We talk howta lead from LOVE and magic.How to use Social Media for GUUUDD.How to be of Service to those who need whatchu got!It’s time to hone your craftThings may look daunting, scary and uncertain outside but, it's inside that counts. We create the reality we live in from the inside out and MAMA if you've been dreaming of co-creating a world where people givea shit and care about all the beings on our planet you've got your chance.I'm not saying that you have to go become a badass leader and start the revolution. What I'm saying is that you get to dive in, hone your craft, share your dreams for the future of the world and believe that it's all possible.Use this time and this podcast episode to intentionally create the world you deeply desire.What would you love to experience on the other side of this global pandemic? What are you willing to do to help grow that reality?If you're looking: to ground down...to let go of your worries about all the things you can't control... Get down and ground --->CLICK HERE TO LISTEN to a meditation I made for youCheck out IIN and get your free MASTER CLASS here - https://geti.in/2pbO2GRLet's connect on Instagram here - https://www.instagram.com/iammegthompson/Get Access to my Free Biz Guide - https://meaghanthompson.podia.com/my-must-have-free-online-programs-for-running-and-organizing-your-coaching-businessI'd love to support you with your Soul-Led Service Based Biz Baby - Apply for a free call HERE

Okay, my friend, it's happening. My business is struggling so bad that I am totally making a massive pivot. Huge pivot, and I'm going to tell you all about that in today's episode and help you discover if maybe you should pivot to. [00:00:18] [00:00:18] [00:00:33] So yesterday I spent a good deal of time journaling out how I wanted to come through this really difficult time in my business when it was clearly not going to be making it. I'm losing income. My members are canceling because they're, they don't have any money to pay for the membership, and my sales have slowed to a complete stop. [00:00:55] And so I don't have much money coming in. my income is down a ton, and I know I'm not the only one for whom that's happening. [00:01:03] But I knew I needed to take some time to really examine what that meant. And there's kind of two ways you can approach this. Like one, you can think about all the costs that you can cut and you can think about how you can pull back. And I talked to my bank and I talked to them about all the different options we had there. [00:01:19] And there's always the option of taking on debts. And. All this stuff that I just, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it, and I will, and I have in the past, but I just really hate focusing on the reduction airy stuff because it feels. Hopeless. There's only so much you can cut. I prefer to focus on abundance on on growth, and what can I do to make more money in a time where I have an online business, I have a lot of skills and just because my photography business is not working right now. What I'm doing in the photography industry isn't working right now because that industry has been chopped off at its knees. I mean, it is not doing well. It's not my fault. Doesn't mean that I can't make something work in a different area, in a different niche. [00:02:09] And so as I was thinking about how I wanted to move forward to read this, I realized that I wanted to move away from thinking about all the things that I was going to lose and all of the things that could happen if money stopped coming in and think about how I could bring in additional income instead. [00:02:27] Now. I didn't want to completely give up my business altogether because I genuinely believe that when this is done and people can get out there and start doing photography again, that there's going to be more online entrepreneurs and influencers than ever. And so personal brand photography is going to flourish. [00:02:43] Like I think after this, it's going to be amazing. It's kind of like when winter comes and everything dies and you know, it's all, it's not debt, it's dormant. All the leaves fall off. The snow covers everything and. The life just feels God. It is. It's a really hard, dark black and white kind of season, but then the snow melts off eventually. [00:03:07] I wish it would melt off here sooner and the the leaves start to grow again. The grass starts to grow. Grit again. In fact, I already have seen some Moss peeking through the snow on a few rocks and it just brings me life. It makes me so happy. I'm super obsessed with Moss. But life is going to come back through this, and in just a few months, everything's going to explode with growth and it's just going to be a totally different transformed environment. [00:03:35] And I feel like that's what's happening right now within the personal brand photography industry, is that everybody's at home. Nobody can do photography right now, and we're just sitting dormant and all the stuff that we've lost and all of the things that have fallen apart. Are being covered by snow and they're laying on the ground and they're going to decompose and that through this challenging long, silent time that feels really dead and depressing and difficult. [00:04:04]There's going to be beautiful growth that happens. Like all those things that go down in the ground and decompose are going to be the exact elements and fertilizer that has been needed to fuel this new beautiful growth that's coming. And so I don't want to give my business up completely because I know that once things turn around. [00:04:25] Everything is going to be so much easier. Like I think this is just going to take off like nuts. So I don't want to completely close my business. I have a friend who's doing that. She's literally shutting the doors to her business in about a week. And , she's happy about it, which is great, but it's scary and I don't want to do that. [00:04:43] I don't want to completely give it up. But. I need to find something else to bring in income right now. So as I was thinking about what I wanted to do during this time, I started thinking about all the different things I could do. So one, I could do some freelancing. So I'm a really great copywriter. I'm phenomenal at community management. [00:05:04] And I thought about offering to work for whoever might need. Even I had a friend, even I had a friend, I had a friend even offer to hire me as a community manager during this time because they're looking for help on that. And. I thought about it and it just didn't sit right. Not because I don't want to work for my friend. [00:05:21] She would have been phenomenal to work for, but because doing freelance work right now for me, felt like it would kill all the momentum that I'd been building in my business and in my personal brand because I wouldn't have the same amount of time. To podcast to work on my own business, you know, whatever it is. [00:05:38] And one of the things I want to pivot into is obviously growing my personal brand and I really want to help people create real movements, not just audiences. And I really want to help people understand how to activate their communities and grow them. Cause that's one of my super powers. I am so good at connecting with people and helping people connect with each other and building that engagement. [00:06:03]Within a business, I can get people to engage like crazy. , so this morning I was watching a Facebook live from Stu McLaren and he happened to bring me up as an example for something, and I was chattering away in the comments and I kind of offhandedly had mentioned that I'm thinking about doing something within the community space and helping people really grow thriving communities or pivoting in some way during this time until I'm able to come back to this. [00:06:31] And my lovely friend Lisa Kay, she was there and she chimed in and she's like, yeah. I am your ideal client. I would love that. I would definitely want to be a part of that if you want. I'd be happy to hop on a call with you and talk through what it is that I would love to learn and all my issues, and basically let me pick her brain so that I could figure out exactly what my offer could be. [00:06:55]. So we jumped on a video chat right then and there, and we ended up spending two hours talking back and forth about what she needed in her business, how I could help, what would make this a win for her. [00:07:09] What kind of messaging resonated with her most? what my framework might look like, what the format might look like, all of it. Like it was the best two hours I have spent in my business in a long time because I learned so much information in such a short amount of time. That was such a gift to me, Lisa, and if you're listening to this. [00:07:31] Thank you. Thank you, thank you. I know it was a win win because you learned some stuff too, but if you guys can talk to the people you want to serve and allow them to speak to you about what they're struggling with, what they really want. learn their language for what they say. Cause I was thinking about building movements and she's like, Oh, that's heavy. [00:07:52] I don't want all the social justice stuff behind it. And I'm like, Oh yeah, there's kind of this idea of what a movement is. And it's different from what I consider a movement to be like. It can be both. And it was like, Oh, using the word movement is not the best messaging for this. And so we talked through some of that and it was so, so helpful. [00:08:14] And I just. Use that time with her to really help craft my offer. I even said like, which of these would appeal to you more like building an active community or learning how to engage people in your business? Because so much of what we offer isn't like the actual content, because the content would be the same. [00:08:33] Either way. It's figuring out what language the people who really need us would use and resonate with so that they want to buy what we have. And so I'm probably going to do a Facebook group for, I don't know how many weeks. I'm going to guess that it's going to be six weeks, maybe it'll be eight weeks. [00:08:52] I'm going to do it totally beta style, and we're going to cocreate it. I'm going to bring people in. I'm going to do it exactly like I launched by personal brand photography course. It's going to be totally off the cuff in that I'm going to do it live. I'm going to have a huge. Big picture like topics, but I'm not going to know exactly what lessons I'm going to do from day to day because in part, that's going to depend on the questions that people are asking and what they really need to know. [00:09:19] Because what I know is that when we are really good at something, we take it for granted and we forget what people don't know. Like for us it's like, Oh yeah, well that's obvious. Of course we do this, or for me it's like, Oh yeah, well, when you start a group. At the beginning you have to drive that engagement, but at some point, , things get easier and other people start to own the group and feel ownership towards it and engage with it too. [00:09:43] And then more and more people begin to comment and build that up, and then you can step back a little bit. You still leave, but you don't have to be the main person leading all the stuff. And then as more and more people adopt that. You go into this phase of them inviting their friends, because now they own the group, they feel a sense of ownership towards it, and they're super engaged and they think it's awesome. [00:10:05] And so now they naturally want to bring their friends in even without you asking them to, and you go through this period of really fast, big growth. And then you come to a point where. There's old people who are kind of upset that it isn't as intimate as it used to be and that there are all these brand new people coming in asking the same question over and over and over again instead of searching, you know what I'm talking about. [00:10:30] Right. And. It gets so big that it's almost too big and you kind of get this divide. It's not the same. The old people are upset. The new people aren't really getting engaged in the culture fast enough. And then how you handle that can determine whether the group totally falls apart and becomes disengaged or if it actually morphs into something better that can grow further. [00:10:53] Well, this is stuff I like take for granted. I don't even think about it anymore cause I've just know it like I've seen it happen with several groups. I've learned that and she's like, Oh my gosh, that's gold. And if you forget, if you don't talk to people. And so I was really excited about the idea. Of doing this together and co-creating this course around helping people get engagement and build communities of people who actually show up and communicate. [00:11:18] Because from memberships, if you can get people to stay engaged in a community and to actually do the work that you're doing and if they do it, they're going to get results. If they connect with people there, they're going to be less likely to leave. It's a beautiful retention strategy. [00:11:33]But also if you have a free group, there's ways to do it so that those people actually become buyers and aren't just freeloaders, are just there to pitch their own stuff. And for most people, I know they're afraid to do a free group because it's a burden to them [00:11:47] And they don't know what to put in a free group versus what to put in a paid group so that they're paid. Members don't feel like they're missing out. And like, there's all this stuff that I've thought about and that I've, that I've done, and that works really well for me and my business. And it's not just Facebook groups, like I know how to engage email lists and social media accounts, and it's just what I do naturally. [00:12:08] And the more engaged your people are with you and your business, the more money you're gonna make. [00:12:12] I just get really excited about the idea of helping people, like you create communities and places where people go first to spend their time during the day. So many people are online right now sitting at home during this Corona virus stuff. Where are they spending their time? I want them to be spending time in your groups, on your platforms, on your social media accounts, engaging there because when you have their attention, you're going to grow. [00:12:41] You just are. The more you can do that, the better. And so many people get a ton of engagement and a ton of activity around a launch. And then it just kind of Peters out and they don't know how to keep it going. They don't even know how to do conversations with them or build that engagement or get people to connect or any of that stuff. [00:12:56] So that's what I want to do. Like we talked about this for two hours, you can probably hear how excited it makes me because it's totally my jam. Like I love this so much. So she really helped me craft my offer. She helped me realize that I actually want to work with entrepreneurs who already have a business and a product so that they can accelerate that. [00:13:14] Like she's been doing this a long time. She's got a podcast, she's got the email, she's got a book, she's got a product, she's got the stuff. She doesn't need to learn how to build an email list. There's plenty of people out there teaching that. She needs to learn how to engage those people in a deeper way. [00:13:30] And make them most of the assets that she's already created so that she can start really leveling up. She's like, I've done all this stuff, but I'm just not making that progress. And I'm like, I can help with this. I know how to do this stuff. And engagement is the key, not just in a group, not just in a community, but in your entire business. [00:13:50] , I love this stuff. I love. This stuff. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm absolutely going to beta launch this course as soon as I can possibly get it all together and I move fast. The only thing that's going to slow me down is I am determined to podcast through this all so that if you are sitting there and you're thinking that maybe you need to make a big pivot, maybe you're a photographer. [00:14:13] And you're like, you know what, I love photography, but I need to be doing something else right now. Maybe you want to do some graphic design teaching or teach people how to use their images, whatever it is. Maybe you have an idea for a course that you want to sell and you just don't know how to do it. [00:14:28] How do you even launch that? Maybe you like to knit or quilt like I do. I love to quilt and maybe you want to do some quilting tutorials or something and you want to put something out there. Bring a community along to do it with you, [00:14:41] notice me. The way I do things is in community. It's what I do. So I create courses in community. None of it is done. I mean, I don't even have the big outline of any of it yet, but it's coming. It'll come, and I'm going to be very upfront about that. You can actually go back to some of my earliest episodes here on the podcast. [00:15:01] [00:15:01] If you go back to episode 10 from season one of the podcast, you'll actually hear exactly how I launched my personal brand photography course as a beta launch. And then episode 11 is going to tell you why you should beta launch as well. Why this idea of selling something before you've ever created it is actually way better than creating it first and then hoping that it's going to sell. [00:15:27] It's a really great. Set of episodes. So go listen to those if you haven't, but I'm literally going to walk you through this real time for free right here on this podcast, even though I know I could probably sell this as well, because I want you to see how it works, and I want you to hear my thought processes. [00:15:45] I'm going through it, and ideally I want you to join the course with me and learn how to continue engaging this audience. Once you've. Launched your own thing because the more you can get that beta group involved and engaged, the more likely they're going to be to actually do what you're teaching them to do and get results, which means that you'll then have awesome stories and testimonials that you can use to promote it when you do it again in the future. [00:16:09]That is like the best part of having a beta group. So I want to basically show you what I'm doing. I want to bring you along so you can see how I'm doing it inside this group, and I'm going to give you all the systems and processes and things that I use to do it. It's going to be so much fun. I'm so excited. [00:16:26] I can't even sell it to you right now because I've got nothing to send you to. I've got literally nothing to send you to. So my goal, I'll share a couple of little high level things that I'm thinking of right now is to use this in part honestly, because I know there's a ton of people out there who are wanting to launch something online cause they got all this time they're sitting at home, some of them have lost their jobs. [00:16:48] Some of them are really trying to figure out, you know, how can they get this course out into the world and make some extra money online and they could use this to do that. They can follow the formula. It's, I'm really excited about that. But also , I'll probably run a few Facebook ads, really low dollar, maybe Instagram ads as well. [00:17:07]To the podcast to help build some audience. I don't really have much of an audience here, like I said, but right now, because everyone's online and because people are struggling, the cost of Facebook and Instagram ads is way low and sending people to something that they just get to consume and listen to you without an opt in or without selling something is like mega cheap. [00:17:28] And so I will take a little bit of money. I don't have a ton extra to spend, but I do believe that. , even , a couple hundred dollars, which I could probably even spend less than that, but using that to send people to this podcast to listen is probably a really good use of my money because I'm going to sell this for four 99 and so. Even if I just spend $499 on ads, I feel pretty confident that I'm at least going to get one extra sale because of this. So I'm definitely willing to spend at least that much. That's probably going to be my budget. [00:18:00] We'll see. Who knows? I can always turn it off if it's not converting, but I'm thinking that this would be a great thing to send people to because they have time to listen and they might find it really helpful. I'm also probably going to talk to some of my friends and cash in a few of my networking chips and the hopes that they will mention it to their audiences because there's a lot of people I know who have the type of person who would find this really helpful. [00:18:24]And. I really believe that this can compliment a lot of what's already out there without directly competing with it, and so it's a really beautiful way to hopefully, get a few people to send me some of their audience so I can serve them well as well. [00:18:38]we're going to see how it goes. I'll keep you updated on how everything is happening. I'm going to walk you through the entire thing right now. It is literally just an idea. All I've done is spent that time with Lisa earlier today. Thanks again, Lisa. Really picking her brain and talking through it, and I'm so thankful she offered to do that and she, it just helped me bring so much clarity. [00:18:57] I have 13 pages of notes, and so I'm going to go back. I'm going to review those notes and really use that to help write up my offer and shape. What I'm going to you like what I'm going to say to get people into this, cause I'll probably do a few Facebook posts and I'll probably do a Facebook live or two and I'm going to need a name for this thing. [00:19:13] I kind of suck at naming things, but I'll hit up some of my friends who are good at naming them. summer and Levi, I'm looking at you. You're going to get hit up for help with naming, but I love calling my friends out on my podcast anyways. I'm excited to share it with you. We'll see how quickly I can get it out. [00:19:29] Like it's really a race to do this. ideally, I will have this out the door in the next few days and we'll start a week from Monday. So like a week and a half from now, I'd actually be starting creating content with people. Not sure if that's realistic or not, but that's what I'm going to push for. [00:19:44] So zero audience, zero outline or anything. It's just the stuff I got to extract from my head and set up. And no assets created in a brand new niche. And if I can beta launch a new course, hopefully make some money doing it. I know you can too. Now, I might not make any money doing it, but I feel confident that I absolutely will get at least a handful of people, and honestly, I don't need a ton. [00:20:07] I'd love a ton. When I did my personal brand photography course, I got a 167 people. The first time around. That would be a mazing. But even if I don't get a ton, even having a few people would just be fantastic for helping with cashflow right now, but also for helping me to hone this so that I can teach it again in the future. [00:20:28] So that's what I'm looking at. that's where I'm at. If you're wanting to make a big pivot, come along with the journey. If you're finding this interesting and helpful, would really love it if you would share it with a friend who might also need it. Leave a great review for us, and if you haven't yet, definitely subscribe. [00:20:43] I'm going to be doing a lot of podcasting over the next few days. I can already feel it. I'm excited to share it with you and I definitely want to take you along for the ride, so thanks so much. I will see you in the next episode.

Zach sits down with former StubHub and Facebook alum Bärí A. Williams to chat about intersectional identities. Bärí also talks about her upcoming book "Diversity in the Workplace: Eye-Opening Interviews to Jumpstart Conversations about Identity, Privilege, and Bias" dropping March 31st. She shares what inspired her to write it and talks a bit about the challenge she faced in efficiently categorizing so many intersectional identities when it came to the 25 people she interviewed for the book.Pre-order Bärí's book on Amazon.Connect with Bärí on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Check out her personal website by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? This is Zach with Living Corporate, and, you know, you know what we do, right? It's a Tuesday. Hopefully you're bunkered in somewhere, not panicked--what's the word? Oh, using an abundance of caution and, you know, keeping away from folks that don't wash they hands. You already--okay, anyway, we're not gonna talk about that. The point is you're taking care of yourself. Maybe you're listening to some smooth jazz and you realize, "Oh, snap, I need to listen to the Living Corporate podcast," and here we are, so what's up? You know that we are centereing black and brown voices at work, and we do that by having authentic conversations with folks across a wide array of industries, okay? I'm talking about energy to transportation to telecommunications. I'm talking about lawyers and doctors and professors and, shoot, hourly employees, activists, influencers. I mean, anybody really, as long as they're willing and ready to really talk about the folks that are most impacted, most marginalized, in this world that we live in, and today is no different. We have Bärí Williams on the show. Bärí Williams, you know, she's a lot of different things to a lot of different people. You know, for me to try to, you know, wrap that up in a quick little intro would be inappropriate, so we're gonna get to know Bärí in this conversation and talk a little bit about what she has going on, and we hope you enjoy it. And with that being said, Bärí, what's up? Bärí: How are you doing?Zach: I'm doing really good, I'm doing really good. I know we were talking off-mic about, you know, staying rona free. Bärí: Man... that rona.Zach: That rona. [both laugh] It's not playing doe. They said Chuck got the rona?Bärí: Yeah. Yeah.Zach: Chuck got that rona... When Tom Hanks--Bärí: Tom Hanks got the rona.Zach: When Tom Hanks--when Tom Ladarius Hanks got the rona I said, "Okay, we need to slow down."Bärí: Fire yourself. [both laugh] Tom Ladarius. But also yes, because he's from Oakland.Zach: He's from Oakland. And this is the thing, when he called [?] I said, "Oh, okay."Bärí: Oh, no. So here's the thing. The funny part about that is Tom Hanks was in my uncle's graduating class, in the same high school and all that. So that's a real thing. Like, Tom Hanks knew about [?].Zach: Man. Well, see, I knew--so, you know, the apple don't fall far from the tree.Bärí: That doesn't explain Chet Hanks though.Zach: We not gonna talk about Chet? [laughs]Bärí: I don't have anything for Chet.Zach: Man. Boy, that blackness went away when he realized his parents was sick doe.Bärí: Right. That patois was gone.Zach: That patois was--I didn't hear--no patois ting--[laughs]Bärí: "Mom and Dad are sick, guys. Thanks for your prayers."Zach: Snap. He was tatted up doe. But yeah, [laughs]--Bärí: He tried.Zach: He did, he did. But yeah, okay, okay, okay. Look, there's a variety of things we could talk about, right? Like, a lot of stuff is going on. This is not typically a current events podcast. I do want to talk a little bit about the book that you have.Bärí: Yeah, yeah. Out March 31st. Diversity in the Workplace: Eye-Opening Interviews to Get Your Conversations Poppin'. I interviewed 25 different people, and what was super interesting about it was it was 25 people that I picked, and I got probably five or six interviews deep and I told the editor, "Hey, I know we want to segment these into five different categories, but all of these people are intersectional. So you can figure out where you want to put 'em. I'm not gonna make that determination." Because who am I to say that somebody being LGBTQ and Christian outweighs, you know, maybe how they're genderfluid or express themselves? I'm not gonna--Zach: Yeah, you're not gonna rank that.Bärí: Yeah, or how when I talk to two black women in the spirits industry I'm not gonna rank whether they feel that they're black first or a woman first. "So you put them where you want them, but here they are."Zach: You're absolutely right. I mean, I think when you force--I think about, like, Feminista Jones. Like, she talks about this from time to time. It's, like, this idea that you make black women choose between their femininity, their womanhood or their blackness, and, like, that's violence, right? Like, you need to let people be all of who they are.Bärí: I totally agree. I would say what's hard for me with that though is that I can only speak for my experience, but I have always been black first, and the reason being is that all of the experiences in my life would not be different if I were still black and a man, and that's, like, wow.Zach: Let's talk about that. Break down that down a little bit for me.Bärí: Child, we can talk about it. My mama literally just texted me and said "I feel asleep reading your book. This is really good. I didn't know people were out here living like this." [both laugh] But yeah, I feel like--and I've been told this before, and it probably isn't a secret to you. I can have a bit of a dominant personality. [laughs] And that is--but I feel like that is not abnormal for black women. Period. Zach: It's not. My mom is like that.Bärí: Exactly, and my mom was like that, and my son's mom is like that. Which means me. [both laugh] So... I mean, if you're used to it you know how to deal with it, but the harder part, at least for me, is working within that framework in a corporate environment. What does that mean, to be a strong black woman in a white, predominantly male, sort of passive aggressive environment? And the answer is I still don't know, 'cause they say they want one thing, and then when they get it they're like, "Ooh... this is a little-- This is more than I thought."Zach: Well, I think a lot of folks do say that they want certain things, but it's like--you know, when you finally experience this, particularly when it comes to--you know, people say they want diversity, they want inclusion, and it's like, "Yeah, but until you're--"Bärí: Until it makes you uncomfortable.Zach: "You're in a room and you're doing a presentation and then three people who don't look like you raise their hand asking you a bunch of questions that you weren't prepared for. Then all of a sudden you ain't really like that," right?Bärí: Yeah, that's exactly it. And, like, I touch on that a lot in the book. So, in the book, it's segmented into five different categories. So it's Race, Gender, Age and Ability, Religion and Culture, and LGBTQ. And when I say that there were only--I interviewed 25 people. I actually interviewed more than 25 and let the editor decide what she thought--the editor was also a black woman, which was, like, fantastic. So, like, she got me, and that's very rare, particularly in publishing. And she read it and she was like, "Yeah, these are really, really good, and this is hard to figure out where to put folks," because you have people who are, you know, dealing with issues around culture and race, and then you have issues dealing with, you know, sexuality and race, and then you have people dealing with gender and religion, and so yeah, where do you put them? So out of the 25 people that we ended up selecting, in the end, only two sit cleanly in one bucket, and what was interesting about that is they were both Asian men. Zach: Okay, yeah. Bärí: Everyone else, you know, fit into multiple categories, and that's one thing we talk about is, like, how do you navigate being in multiple categories and fitting into a predominantly straight white male able-bodied world?Zach: And, you know, I think also, like, it pushes up against this narrative of, or just this binary mindset that we have about everything, right? You're either this or you're that or it's this or it's that, and it's like, that's just not the way the world works, and, like, people are really complex, but I think, like, part of, like, this decentering of whiteness, particularly white male straight able-bodiedness, is forcing people to realize that not only--like, these concepts are not new. It's just that certain things are happening now where you can't ignore those non-white male groups anymore.Bärí: Yeah, and I think people are very, very uncomfortable with that, very, and so part of it is in the book there are takeaways from each chapter. There are key--it starts with definitions in terms of, like, what are some things you're gonna see in here that people have said in their interviews that's gonna be prevalent and super relevant? Like white saviors, okay? And I didn't feel afraid to go there. Like, I know some people are gonna be like, "Ooh, white savior? So you're insulting--" No, I'm not, but you also think you're wearing a cape and you can save us all, and that's now what we're asking you to do, and also, like, you need to know that you're doing this. It's white saviors, it's understanding the difference between, you know, being cis and--like, people just--just terms and things that people may not be familiar with and to get them comfortable with the idea of that terminology and then how to use it.Zach: I think that's really important too, right? So, you know, we talk about white fragility. There are different types of fragility too. Black men can exhibit a certain level of fragility. I think, like, people who are in any position of relative privilege--relative privilege, now. Relative privilege. Have a potential to exhibit fragility, and I think folks don't necessarily like being educated when they're wrong. So, like, having something, a resource... and, like, Google is free, y'all, so don't... but anyway.Bärí: Child, I tell people that all the time.Zach: [laughs] Even if, like, getting corrected in public or by another human makes you uncomfortable, I mean, you could at least--I mean, you could engage with your own fragility in prviate. But anyway, the point is, having a book--Bärí: I will tell you, my husband is a product manager for Google, and he works on the Android wearables team, so he doesn't even actually work for the search engine, but when I ask him a question and he thinks it's dumb, he'll just send me the link--I'm trying to remember the acronym, but basically the acronym stands for "Let me Google that for you." Zach: Yeah, somebody sent that to me one time and--like, but this is the thing about that... and that's cute, and that's your husband and stuff, but let me tell you something. I remember one time I was at work and I asked somebody a legitimate question--Bärí: If somebody did that to me at work though I would want to fight.Zach: I said, "Wait a second. Let me tell you what it's not gonna be. You gonna answer my question, okay?" Don't play. Don't play with me. [laughs] Bärí: Like, there is a whole song out here in the Bay that was made that's called "What You Ain't Gon' Do," so... [Zach laughs]Zach: That's 'cause if I didn't have to talk to you I wouldn't, so don't--Bärí: Go YouTube that, and you might want to make that the outro music, 'cause--[laughs] 'Cause yeah, it's fine for Jamie to do that to me, but if somebody else did that to me I would probably roll up on your desk. Zach: [laughs] "So explain this. Why did you send this?"Bärí: Right? "So let's talk, Bob. Let me tell you what you ain't gon' do."Zach: And what ain't gon' be. Okay, so no, that's--let me ask you this. So, like, what was the inspiration to write the book?Bärí: Many things. I think--and this is gonna be long-winded and, but I remember being five years old--and my mom is a retired teacher from the Oakland [Unified?] School District, and she and a couple of colleagues sat around our dining room table in our apartment and they created what ended up being the oratorical festival, which to our surprise was made into a documentary on HBO last month. And she didn't know and I didn't know, and she was like, "Oh, look at this!" And I was like, "Yeah! Also, why are you not in it?" But I let that go. I let that go. I'ma let that go and let God. [both laugh] And she actually--what's funny about it is she was like, "I don't care." Like, if somebody's talking about this and it still exists, like, that's enough. Like, that was her goal. And so I remember sitting there looking at that, and I remember participating in the first year, and I won in the first grade for, like, my category, and I was like, "Did you rig this?" And she was like, "No," but what it did was it gave me a voice, and she cultivated that throughout my entire life when I wasn't, you know, doing debate time in high school and junior UN League. Like, all of that. So I always felt like I had something to say and, you know, everything doesn't deserve a response. I mean, I'm still learning that at 40. [laughs] But she taught me, like, when something does deserve a response, make sure you have a very calculated thing to say about it, and so I started to do that, and then I decided to write, and it was writing articles and op-eds in New York Times and Fast Company and Fortune and Forbes, and it made me think, "There's a [?] there, and there are things that people are not discussing in these tech companies that I see because I'm in them, and we can't fix it if more people don't know it's a problem." So that's what led to it, but it was more than that. It was like, there are other people going through different struggles and different departments in other companies, in other industries, and what does that look like? And that's why I ended up talking to, you know, two black women in the spirits industry. The spirits industry is dominated by older white men. And these are two, you know, 30-something-year-old black women with their own spirits, and they're Christian, and so that was one of the things where I told the editor, "I don't know where you want to put them. Do you want to put them in race or gender or religion?" But yeah, they've had people ask them in their church, like, "What are you doing? This is wrong" They've had people talk to them in the spirits industry, like, "Hey, girl, do you know what you're doing?" You know, they get it on all levels, and then I was talking to [Rabya?]. She's fantastic. She's the woman who did the defense for [?] in... what is the name of the podcast? I'm blanking now. That's terrible. Serial, and she talked about being, you know, a woman, being Muslim, wearing a hijab, and people--she knows she's a good attorney, but people would want her to write the briefs and do the background work but not show up in court. Zach: It's interesting, 'cause that's the kind of stuff--there's a pattern of that, right? Of exploiting black labor or using black folks' thought capital, wringing them dry for it, only for you to then take center strage and publicity and really interface, right? like, you see it--I'm sure that you've--'cause you've [?] in tech. Like, you've been with StubHub and Facebook. Like, you've been all over the place, right? Like, you've seen where, like, a lot of times black folks will come from, like, these HBCUs or, like, with these engineering degrees and then, like, work in the back in security. Security, y'all, is not--like, not tech security. Securing the building. Anyway. [?, both laugh]Bärí: I will tell you the funniest thing to me when I got to Facebook was it was 2014--Facebook started in 2004, so it was 10 years afterward. I was the first black woman in legal. There weren't black people in legal, so I was the first black person and the first black woman. There were no AKAs at all in the company, so I was the first AKA in the company. They had no Links in the company. I was the first Link in the company. Like, what are you doing? Like, if you want a highly qualified workforce, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated will get that done for you, The Links, Incorporated will get that done for you. And there were only, like, three Deltas in the entire company.Zach: Shout-out to my sorority sisters. What's up, y'all? You know, and my mom is also an AKA, but you're really repping. Like, you really got on this podcast and, like, inserted that plug. I respect that. I like that a lot. Bärí: You know, plug plug plug, but that's the thing that I wanted people to understand too was, like, if you want a highly qualified workforce--and yes, they may not have direct, on-point experience, but we all have analogous experience from doing this non-profit work, and that's the thing that people discount or don't see. So, like, you want to hire Brad in accounting and he, like, did an internship for two months at his dad's firm. Like, what do you value?Zach: Right? Well, when you start holding them accountable--so when you hold them accountable to the standards that they give you, right? So if you say, well, "You know, you don't really have X, Y and Z. Show me somebody else who does have X, Y and Z experience." Bärí: Yeah, show me what's comparable. Zach: Yeah, and they pull 'em up and it's like, "Yo, this person was... he was, like, a DJ, or he worked at a GNC. Like, what are you talking about?" And so then things just crumble because it's like, "This is not about this." Like, you're creating rules--Bärí: Yeah. Like, that's not really what you want, and that's fine, but, like, let's call a thing a thing.Zach: I think, again, it just fits the meta narrative of white people, like, creating new rules for marginalized people. Bärí: Well, it's something that I actually told a long bost and said, like, every time I hit the benchmark, you move the goal posts. Are you aware of that? And he was like, "What are you saying?" And I said, "What I'm saying is what I said." Zach: I just said it, first of all.Bärí: Yeah. Like, child, when I tell--and that's the thing, like, my mom should've never told me I should advocate, because I literally said, I was like, "No. I hit this benchmark, and you told me if I did this it would be that. If I did X, it would be Y, but now you're saying, "Hm, but in order to get to Y you really need to do--" And I was like, "Nah, bruh. You said this, and I have it in writing." And I did that. So now what are we doing? And he was like, "Why are you so angry?"Zach: What do you mean?Bärí: I was like, "What do you mean? I'm not angry. I'm just telling you this is what you said and now you're going back on it," and he's like, "But you're angry," and I said, "I'm not angry. I'm just holding you accountable, and maybe you're not used to that, but that's also not my job. Like, that, you should go home and talk to your mom or your wife about that."Zach: But you know what though? Like, just as a thought exercise, let's just say I am angry. Okay. Bärí: Then what?Zach: Then what? I am angry, because you said you were gonna do something and you didn't, or you said it was gonna be one way and it isn't, or I have written documentation and you're gaslighting me by acting like this isn't real. So yeah, maybe I am angry. Does that make my point less valid?Bärí: And it doesn't. Like, these are stories that people go through in the book about how people gaslight them in the same way, whether it's about them being a woman or about them being black or about them being LGBTQ. There is such a powerful story in there from a woman who's Asian who talks about, like, how her family essentialy made her feel like she had to whitewash herself to be successful, and then when she got to college it was like, "I don't know how to relate to Asian people now." And then when she got in the workplace she's like, "Now I have to relate to both, and how does that work?" I mean, that's real. Like, you know, how you're socialized is how you end up projecting yourself to the world.Zach: That's right, unknowingly or unknowingly, and that's the scary part, right? Like, you end up doing this thing, like, where you're raised. You're just growing up. Like, you're raised a certain way, and then you hit the real world and you realize like, "Dang, I have a lot of internalized depression and, like, I didn't even know that." Bärí: Mm-hmm, and that is--that honestly is one of the--it's funny, 'cause my son, he's now 9-and-a-half, but when I had to finish this book towards the middle of October, I was so tired. When I tell you, child, on the last day before I had to hit the bit I was like, "Ugh." I stopped to watch, like, a Real Housewives marathon, and he came to me. He was like, "What are you doing?" And I was like, "Excuse you?" And he said, "Mommy, what are you doing?" And I said, "I'm taking a break." And he's like, "Are you done yet?" And I said, "Do you understand what break means?" And he was like, "Well, you let me take a break, but you give me a time. Like, you've been watching this for, like, three hours. Have you hit Send?" And I was like, "No, I haven't," and he's like, "Okay, so then you get one more hour and then you need to finish." But to me, what I took that as was, like, he wasn't being defiant, he was actually imposing the rules that I put on him, which I was like, "Oh, so my parenting isn't totally failing."Zach: No, he has internalized that level of accountability and he is giving you that same energy back.Bärí: Yeah, but the same energy I had to give him was, like--I listen to so many stories about, you know, marginalized communities, interviewing these folks, particularly black men and their experiences, and you don't get to mess up, and I've told him that, and so he's like, "Why are you sitting here watching a Real Housewives marathon for three hours? You haven't pressed Send. Like, girl, get it done." And I was like, "Okay, yeah. You're right." But it's that same energy. Like, you have to be twice as good to get half as far, and that story was all of these people in the book, which was crazy, because it cuts across everything. It cuts across disability. It cuts across sexuality. It's like you have to make up for who you are by doing more work.Zach: You know, I think about a conversation we just had with Ruchika Tulshyan, and we were talking about how black men are often times left ot of the corporate D&I initiatives, right? So now, sometimes people think they're being really radical when they talk about "the angry black man." It's like, okay, I get it. That is a thing, and that's real, but, like, just the larger conversation about how black men are treated, and like you said, we don't have opportunities to mess up, and the same thing could be said for black women of course, for sure. It's just this idea of labor and, like, having to do more just to--Bärí: And you're not getting farther. It's just--Zach: Oh, my gosh. Thank you. It's like, "I'm not doing more to get further or to get farther ahead. I'm doing more just to be equal. I'm doing more just to receive what I've earned," right?Bärí: I can tell you, my husband, he interviewed at a former employer of mine. My husband is 6'6" and, like, 235 pounds on a good day.Zach: Oh, he's lean lean.Bärí: Eh... I said on a good day. [laughs] But the way that he's built though is, like, very Michael Phelps. So he's broad. So he looks bigger than he is, and the feedback that they had is--and also, because of his size and because he is black, he has been socialized--and also he's light as hell. Like, I've had people ask me multiple times, "Oh, so your husband's biracial?" No, he isn't, but people just assume that he is. And so based off of his profile, he's very light-skinned, he's 6'6", he's built like a swimmer, and people--so he has been socially conditioned to basically... I don't want to say tamp down who he would be, but he's more docile. Super reserved, which is why our dynamic works, because I'll be, like, the person in your face, and he'll--Zach: Yeah, it's tough to be big when--yeah, I've learned that in a variety of different ways, but yeah. I keep that--I would say I'm probably more like you, Bärí. I'm like, "Ayo," but I'm like, 6'2", like, 280, so I'm like, a big dude. [laughs]Bärí: And you know that scares people.Zach: And I'm not that--and I'm lighter-skinned, but I'm not, like, light-skinned, right? So it's like, you know.Bärí: And that is so scary for me with our son, because our son is--he is darker than I am, and I'm brown-skinned, and he's already 5 feet and he's 9. Zach: Yeah, he's gonna be a big boy.Bärí: Yeah, he will be. And I believe he'll be taller than his dad, and even if he isn't, it's like, if you are 6'6" and you're a brown-skinned boy and you're in Oakland, I have to keep you safe. And so everything I do is about "How do we keep you safe?" And that sucks, 'cause, like, I wish you could just be free, but--Zach: And it's not... and not even to be a super downer, but I say this as someone who, shoot, maybe by the time of this podcast my daughter's gonna be here, but, like, I think about having black kids in this world and, like, there's the physical safety, but then there's a certain level of, like, psychological safety that you really can't protect them from, and, like, there's certain things they're gonna just have to--again, I'm not trying to be fatalist or, like, super down or whatever, but they just have to go. They're just going to have to experience. And it's, like, the feeling of being isolated or alone or otherized or not quite fitting in spaces. Like, that's a thing, right? That's a thing, and somebody that I really admire--like, there are a bunch of folks I really admire, but I think about, like, Bomani Jones, right? Like, he's somebody I see, like, in these spaces, and he never, like--on his platforms, like, ever talks about being one of the onlys or whatever. And some people are just built like that. He's just like, "I don't really whatever." He doesn't come across, like, really vulnerable in that way, and I don't know--and this is not about Bo specifically, but I think about, like, other black men in media or, like, in these really big profile spaces, and I wonder, like, to be successful in these hyper-white spaces, do you just have to have, like, a certain level of just, like armor, and just almost be really calloused?Bärí: I think you do. That's one of the things also that I learned from doing interviews in the book, and that's not even unique to us. Like, the folks who are dealing with LGBTQ gender issues and gender expression, they had to deal with that in terms of, like, people questioning them and, like, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? Like, all of that stuff. And full discretion, like, I know Bo. Like, Bo and I are cool, and we've had that conversation, and part of it is like--to your point, it's not intentional. He doesn't mean to not say that. He just is like, "I am who I am, and you're gonna take it or you're not." And honestly, I've talked to him and have said, like, I want that energy for my son. I don't want him to feel like you have to have the burden of all black people ever on your back. Like, [?] does Bo, but he still reps us, and that's what I want, and that's what I want. Even, like, that I see with my husband. It's funny because I look at him--we're very, very different. He has had probably every advantage you can have in life. Like, he has gone to private school since he was born until he graduated. Like, he literally went to private pre-school, then he went to a private elementary school, private high school, he went to Harvard and then he went to Stanford, and I was like, "Bruh. You do not know, like, what it's like to live in, like, a real dorm." But he still came to--like, and he's from here too. He's from Oakland and came back and, like, tried to get in the valley and couldn't beat down the door. [Zach: Hm.] Right. And this is what everybody says that they want, right? These credentials. [Zach: Yeah, you know, he's checked every box.] And also, this is a light-skinned dude, right? So he's less-threatening. Zach: Right, and I'm sure he talks very proper. He enunciates his words well.Bärí: Child, I call him MC Carlton.Zach: So, like, literally his only knock is that he's black, and light black at that. Diet. [laughs]Bärí: Well, not even that. Also that was one of the things--so when I said my former... I had an employer who interviewed him. He got to the end of the round, and they decided that they didn't want him. They cut him. Like, they were hiring between him and one other person. They cut him because they said, "Oh, he didn't show enough passion. He wasn't willing to bang on tables." So when they gave me that--no, no, no, when they gave ME that feedback, I said, "Okay, so let's stop and envision this. Do you want a 6'6" 235-pound black man banging on tables? You're gonna be comfortable with that?" [Zach: And they said what?] They were like, "Well, what are you implying?" And I said, "I said what I said."Zach: Yeah, don't play with me. I'm not implying anything.Bärí: I said what I said. I didn't imply anything, I just said what I said. So if you saw that, you would feel safe? You would be cool? Zach: I mean, real talk. Would you? Answer the question.Bärí: They were like, "I mean, he just didn't show passion," and I was like, "That's not what I asked. What I asked was that if you saw a 6'6" bald black man banging a table to motivate engineers, you're cool with that?" And nobody could answer it definitively, and I was like, "And that's why you didn't hire him, so thank you, and I'ma go catch the shuttle." Like, I'm not gonna participate in this. This is bull. Zach: Yeah, this is ridiculous. It's super ridiculous.Bärí: 'Cause he's super reserved, and he's super reserved because he knows that he is a large black man and he can't do that. Zach: I remember I applied to--this is when I was first getting into consulting and it was between a few different firms, and one of the firms--and they were all, like, Big 4, right? So one of the firms I applied to, I went through the process and they said, "Oh, he was too passionate. He was too excited about the job. He smiled too much." So I'm just laughing at you, laughing at this situation, because it's like, okay, so you can't win for losing, right? I literally was the one smiling talking about how excited I was, and they said, "Well, he looked like he knew what he was doing, but he just seemed a little too smiley, a little too excited. He was a little too passionate for us." Bärí: But if he had been extra excited y'all would have been like, "Oh, my god. The black guy scared me because he's so big." [Zach: Exactly. [laughs]] And what I hate about this is, like, having to teach my son these rules of the road, because it's different in certain ways. He has my complex--actually he's darker than my complexion and he has his daddy's stature, and so you're gonna be extra targeted because you are a super brown boy and you're gonna be very tall, so you have to be on your P's and Q's at all times. Zach: Yeah, you're not wrong.Bärí: And he's so mad, because he does Kumon in addition to his regular schoolwork, and he's like, "Ugh, Mommy, I'm tired all the time," and I was like, "What do you think my life is? What do you think your daddy's life is? What do you think brown people's life is? Like, that's what it is, and like, I hate to tell you that, but you have to do more and do it faster and do it better, and you're gonna have to do it even faster and even better than your dad, because your dad gets some sort of benefit from having been, you know, a Harvard legacy, and he's light-skinned. Like, when you're light-skinned--light-skinnned [?] go farther, I'm sorry. It's true.Zach: We have yet to talk about colorism on the podcast, like, explicitly, but we need to talk about it because--Bärí: Let's talk about it. We can do it right now. [both laugh]Zach: I want to respect your time 'cause we went over, but nah, it's a global phenomenon, right? And I think, like, it goes beyond just, like, the African diaspora.Bärí: That's true. That's so true for our Indian comrades. That is very true for our Latinx comrades. Like, that's just the truth.Zach: I was in the HEB. HEB, for the folks who are not in Houston, is a huge grocer. So I was in HEB and I was getting some different, like, sauces and stuff, and I was in, like, the cultural food aisle and walked right on by some lightening cream. You know what I mean? So it's super common, and I think, like, even when you look at, like, these corporatized D&I groups, the Latinx folks are typically European--like, white-presenting, you know what I mean? Like, they're not, like--you don't see a lot of... again, it's common, but because it's so pervasive and--I don't want to say subtle, 'cause it's not subtle if you're paying attention, but it's just common, right? Like, the lighter-skinned people... it's hard to be dark and in power, you know? Bärí: Yeah, and that is for me just a personal thing that I want my son to embrace, and the reason being is, like, you know, everybody--my mom is light-skinned, and my dad was not, and they got divorced when I was three, so I don't even remember--like, I have no memory of living with them together, and so it was really my mom and her family, and everybody in her family is light-skinned and I'm the only brown person, and I was like, "What's going on here?" Yeah. But what's interesting here is my husband is light-skinned and I'm brown. Our daughter is lighter than my husband and our son is darker than me, so it's like... they don't match at all. [laughs] Zach: I love that y'all have, like, a whole kaleidoscope going though. Bärí: We do, and we actually have shirts. I have a whole shirt. Like, I need to send you one. It's real--it's ghetto. [laughs] It's a unicorn throwing money [?], and there are different shades of the unicorn, and I picked the different shades off the people in our family. So yeah, but I mean, like, get this money. Do this work. You can do it whatever shade you are. That's my point. But for him, I want him to understand there's gonna be different restrictions for you, because you're likely to walk out of here one day when you're sixteen and you're gonna be 6'6" and you're gonna be super brown, and you're really fine, and people need, you need, to be aware of the danger. And then opposite is like, "Your sister is light-skinned. She has very loose, curly hair, and so people are gonna treat her in a completely different manner and think she's fine even though she may not be, and--" Not that I'm saying she's not cute, she is, but I'm like, "You know, people--" Zach: Yeah, there's biases that come with being [?]. Yeah, there's a certain aesthetic that she could fit into that then makes it easier.Bärí: And she does, and I want to make sure that she doesn't buy into that and, you know, that's what we're dealing with her, and that's what I deal with in the book, like, how do you handle this? You have people in multiple categories. What are the proper terms? What are the issues that are around them? How do you deal with it? Like, even something as simple as the fact that I literally have never had braids or crochets or anything in my entire life, and I decided to get it last summer because I was tired of doing my hair and then my daughter's hair. And my daughter has a looser curl than I do, but her hair is thick. Like, I'm not spending three hours on a Sunday doing this, so I took her to the salon so that they could do it, and then I started getting crochets, but now she's like, "I want to go to the salon!" So now it's like, okay, now we have to reset in terms of privilege, right? Because everybody doesn't get to go to the salon. Like, my momma did my hair until I was 13, so holla at Grandma. [both laugh]Zach: So let's get back to this book, right? It's coming out March 31st. Eye-opening interviews. The goal is to help jumpstart conversations about identity, privilege and bias, y'all. The book is called Diversity in the Workplace. Listen, y'all, make sure you check it out. Right now, maybe because of that rona we might be having these conversations on Zoom or Skype. I don't--Bärí: Now, I think you're gonna be quarantined 'cause of that rona anyway, so you might as well read this while--Zach: You definitely should. You know what, why don't you challenge yourself?Bärí: And there's an audiobook version too if you don't even want to read it. Somebody can just read it to you. Zach: Come on, now. Like, challenge yourself to read the group, and then that way when you go back to work--Lord say the same, the rona won't be here forever, okay? So you eventually will have to go see people, right?Bärí: I mean, the rona won't. It will be replaced by something else.Zach: Oh, goodness. You're right though.Bärí: I mean... it's Trump, so...Zach: Yeah, that's true. [laughs] Bärí: Something else might kill us in the meantime, I don't know.Zach: Who knows? I don't know. They said they got all these locusts over in Africa. There's, like, hundreds of billions of them over there. I don't know.Bärí: I saw that too, and I was like, "What disease are they carrying?"Zach: Listen. Bärí: Okay, I'ma let that go. Zach: Shutter the thought. [laughs] So look, y'all, this has been Living Corporate. We do this, right? We have conversations. We're really excited and we're thankful--you know, all jokes aside, please make sure you're washing your hands, okay? We have information from the CDC in the show notes. You know, hopefully you're washing your hands as you listen to this podcast. Like, wash your hands, okay? Soap is important also. Now--Bärí: Very. Water is not--Zach: Water is not soap. I want to--hold on. Sound Man, put that little record scratch in here. [record scratch] Water is not soap, okay? So you want to use some--you know, use the hard, industrial stuff. Use that Irish Spring if you need to. I personally use [?] because I am bougie, but you can use--Bärí: I use Olay, but, you know, whatever.Zach: Use something that is frankly a little abrasive, okay? Get that first, like, half-layer off your skin. Like, wash your hands, y'all. And then, you know, just take care of yourself, you know? Fist bumps and head nods only. You know, this would actually be a good opportunity for allyship and learning.Bärí: Well, here's the thing. So even with the fist bumps... so with the social distancing blah-blah-blah, it's supposed to be six feet. If you bump into someone, no, you're not within the six feet.Zach: You know what, you're right, no fist bumps. So this would be a good time actually for those--Bärí: Head nod at people and wave.Zach: So we all know how to do a head nod, but this may be the time for my less-melanated folks, my aspiring allies, to learn how to effectively head nod. Don't throw your neck out of your body when you do it. Bärí: Oh, I didn't know that was a thing.Zach: Just nodding too hard, right? Like, the head nod is supposed to be subtle, nuanced. Right? Like, maybe it's a cultural thing. I feel like in the South, like, our head nod is different, and I definitely believe, between the various melanin levels, head nods can be various levels of aggression. That's all. That's all I mean. Maybe a little salute also, with two fingers at the head. Just "Hello, I see you over there." But just be careful. Take care of yourselves, and we'll get through this together. In the meantime, make sure y'all check out the links in the show notes as well for Diversity in the Workplace: Eye-Opening Interviews to Jumpstart Conversations about Identity, Privilege and Bias written by Bärí A. Williams. Until next time, y'all, this has been Zach. Peace.

What changes should you expect for your online business in 2020 with the paralyzing fear surrounding the current events? Is now a good time to start an online business? I don't cover the exact online business ideas in this video as I've covered that at length in this post - www.youtube.com/redirect?v=BycnpjKIgIk&event=video_description&redir_token=PIiDJ4XZjugNYA9mDQPcVPQTsFV8MTU4NTI3NzQ0N0AxNTg1MTkxMDQ3&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.milesbeckler.com%2Fbest-online-business-ideas%2F For specifics on how to start an online business watch this video - www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUbYBsuvaaE This is really about observing the cultural shifts going on currently with the fear surrounding the coronavirus in 2020. What I'm most interested in for the sake of this video is where will people STOP focusing their time, attention and money... And of course, where are they going to START focusing their time, attention and money... User behavior is changing... Culturally we are changing in significant ways. The results of these significant changes won't be fully understood for some time now... But we can theorize about where the attention, time and money from BILLIONS of people changing their behavior will end up going. That's what I cover in this video here... This video is actually an expansion of an email I sent my list recently... Which you can find below: There's no doubt that many people are currently paralyzed with fear... The bombardment about what is going on is nonstop... From mainstream news to social media… From the stock markets to the grocery stores. Evidence of fear is everywhere. And as an entrepreneur, it's important for you to look beyond the fear to the other side... What is our world going to look like after the fear subsides and we read to turn to a new state of "normal"? This is where I've been spending a lot of time thinking... And this is why I believe Internet businesses, e-commerce, marketing consultants, affiliate review sites, e-sports, twitch and YouTube are all going to experience huge growth... I'd like you to logically think about this for a minute, through the lens of "Social Isolation" and "Flatten The Curve" If you don't know what these mean, it is essentially avoiding large groups, going out, events, etc... Let's start with everyone who's been going to a local gym for years… Do they want to continue going to that sweaty smelly gym for the other people? Are they going to stop working out? A simple logic exercise leads me to believe they will be funneling their money, time and attention from 24 hour fitness and planet fitness to online gyms... Possibly hiring a virtual fitness instructor instead of an in-person one. Sounds bullish for the fitness and weight loss niches... Sounds bullish for the fitness and weight loss niches... What are they going to do? My personal bet is that they will learn new hobbies... From chess to crochet. From cooking to gardening... Where are they going to turn to learn about these new hobbies? Google & YouTube, right? Yep! Bullish for niche blogs and YouTube channels focused on being of service to niche audiences. And with more time hanging out at home, logic dictates millions of people will spend even more time gaming, playing E sports and watching twitch... How about buying things... Want to go to a big box store with hundreds of other people around? Probably not. E-commerce is going to see a bump from this too... And all the mom-and-pop stores who have been ignoring digital marketing and e-commerce? Well, they'll either have to commit and build online or they may not make it through... Which means there will be even greater demand for marketing services, designers and consultants. Finally, what about the millions of people now going to work from home? They will probably be watching videos on how to telecommute, how to use zoom, how to host webinars, how to share a virtual whiteboard, how to do remote project management, etc... Yet another HUGE opportunity for consultants... From my vantage point, it seems like the cultural shifts from this episode in human history is going to push more and more people deeper into the digital world... I hope you've been building your foundation already... And if not... I hope you get started ASAP. Because there is not only a great chance to gain market share here... But pouring your heart into keyword research, writing epic blog posts, making great videos.... Essentially HELPING others... Is a great distraction from all the fearmongering that is going around. Stay safe & stay smart... Miles "The Logical Entrepreneur" Beckler

Books Mentioned:  After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid Buy Yourself The Fucking Lilies by Tara Schuster Virgin River by Robyn Carr Your Truth Or Mine by Trisha Sakhlecha A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin   What I'm drinking: Sadly, at the time, nothing! Upon editing, a VERY strong Captain Morgan Rum and Coke!   Love Island Cast Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/love-island-cast-unofficial-loveisland-uk-usa-australia/id1466715135 Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/BooksnBooze Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/booksboozepodcast/ Twitter:  https://twitter.com/BooksBoozePod iTunes:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/books-booze/id1422517563 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4JFh2YkXtEA1qa5QnJa7yl Stitcher:  stitcher.com/podcast/books-and-booze/books-booze-2   My Book:  https://www.amazon.com/Was-You-Jade-Lee-Wright/dp/1729087469      

Please take our very short survey! http://survey.libsyn.com/debtproofliving This episode was recorded in February 2020 prior to the widespread economic effects resulting from COVID-19 stay-at-home regulations. 0:01 It’s the same thing with money... I'm promising you. Welcome to Debt-Proof Living with Mary Hunt it's all about life money and how to live well and thrive below your means. Today on Debt- Proof Living with Mary Hunt, we continue along our journey based on one of Mary's best selling books 7 Money Rules for Life, How to Take Control of Your Financial Future. That book is available online or wherever fine books are sold. This episode is part two of our series, How to Take Control of Your Money. 0:38 Mary: Hi everyone! This is Mary Hunt. I'm so happy you're with me today for this episode. We are putting together the series basically for how financial intelligence is going to improve your life. I know that sounds so academic, doesn’t it? This is just basic basic rules for life having to do with your money. Think about this. If you have children or wherever a child yourself which I guess includes every single person you know. We grew up with rules. Probably the first one I ever remembered  0:56 having to do with your money think about this if you have children or wherever a child yourself which I guess includes every single person you know we grew up with rules and probably the first one I ever remembered learning was crossing the street. 1:10 There's a rule - you just don't run out, you stand there. Are you with me? You look left. You look right. You see if a car is coming and then you can proceed cautiously.  We all know that. We don't have to relearn that every day of our lives. We just know it. It becomes instinctual. How about -oh, I don’t know- touching a hot stove? You'll do it once, maybe, but that'll be all.  Managing money is, it is very similar to that. There are underlying rules that, if broken, if not paid attention to, can really really mess up our lives and if you haven’t listened to part 1 in this series 1:50 you might want to do that because how do I reveal just exactly how not following rules or in my case not knowing the rules— I didn't realize that there was a fine art to managing money that we all need to know about.  So make sure you either go back and listen to that or a read about it. Whatever. But we're going to pick up today and I want to talk a little bit more about how to look at this. As we proceed and I only know this about you because I know myself.  It's going to be easy to see everything I talk about and we discuss here through the lens of your current financial situation. 2:32 I don't know what that is but mine is much, much different than yours. It's very unique.  You might have some student loans. You might have a couple of past due bills right now. Perhaps you're out of a job. Your situation is huge and it's easy to say there's just nothing that'll fix it now. It's too late. It's not too late. It’s not. Believe me. So what I want you to do. I want us all to mentally do this. I call it clean sweep and I only take that because that was the name of a television show on cable years ago. (I loved it.) 3:13 The premise was that the show would go into the home of someone who is having trouble with the organization, had a big mess, maybe even on the brink of being a hoarder. It was called clean sweep and they would come in and the show would do a clean sweep. Re-organize. At the end of the show everything's perfect. You know they walk in and their new home… oh it was fabulous and I loved the show. But the premise was this. They never attempted to organize clutter. It's impossible. So taking that principle here to our series here on how to manage and take care of money.  3:52 In your mind I want you to just do a clean sweep. Just push everything out of the way. All the debts. Are the challenges. Whatever your situation might be. Even if it's fantastic. If you've got so much money in your savings account you don't think you'll ever ever ever have to worry or learn how to manage money. Get rid of that part too. Let's get just a nice clean canvas as we proceed. OK, ready? Here we go. 4:20 Rule Number One. It's not difficult. Here it is. Spend less than you earn. Five little words.  They become so, so unthinkable in our society and where we are in the world today. Do you know credit has become such a huge part of our lives? I shared with you in part one just how it affected my life. This first rule is so simple. I hope it doesn't prompt you to just blurt out- oh come on Mary everyone knows that. 4:51 Well, I promise you not everybody knows it or at least lives according to that. So the first money rule for life is so logical but so misunderstood that so many people miss it. There's a lot of competition for your mind and your wallet these days and there's a big world out there that would rather you not pay too much attention to this first rule. Spend less than you earn. Let’s talk about that. 5:30 There's many ways that people might refer to this. One of them is live within your means. If you live within your means, what that indicates is that you don't spend more than you earned. So let’s say you earned $1000. If you live within your means, you spend $1000. Ok? Of course you could spend less, but that's your max. You can spend as much as you have. If you spend less than you earn which is our rule. Spend less than you earn. 6:09 It means that you spend LESS than $1000. Now am I splitting hairs? NO.  I'm talking about a principal. The difference between what you spend and what you earn is a gap. OK, is it $1? Maybe it's $100. Maybe it's $500. I don't know, but there's a there's a gap there. Here's the principle. It’s in that gap that you are going to find financial freedom. It’s the money you don't spend that is going to allow you to live the life you love. That's the principle of rule number one. 6:50 So live below your means— is correct. Spend less than you earn. Live within your means means that you can spend it all. All right! The principle is we were looking at that gap. That part that you are not spending. Because… if you're following along in the book you're going to see some simple charts there that I hope will be very revealing. It’s in the a gap that you're going to be able to build an emergency fund. It's in the gap that you're going to learn how to start investing. It is in that gap that you are going to back away from debt. You're going to be able to pay off your debt. You’re going to be able to go forward to live debt free.  7:30 You're going to eventually be able to live in a mortgage free home. See all those things are available if you stop spending all that you have or even worse— spending more than you have by going into debt. All right. So that is rule number one.  Let’s talk about how we do this. Oh my goodness. First thing we have to deal with is: what's the difference between needs and wants? That has become so blurred in our world during the last— oh I’d say— couple of decades. 8:03 but even more so in the last year or so because we're living in an amazing economy in the US. I don't know how long this is going to last, but people are working. Unemployment is almost unheard of thing. People are getting raises. The wages are going up because of supply and demand. When there are fewer people to work employers must pay more to get good employees. So it is just part of life. So, it's easy to think: Oh you know what? Let's move into a bigger home. Let's let's get some new furniture. Things are going so great. We’ll be able to pay it off in a short period of time. 8:42 A great economy doesn’t necessarily mean that we're going to stop spending more than we have. In fact, just the opposite is more likely. So we need to get rid of our ugly attitudes of entitlement. You know, I deal with that a lot when I when I wrote about my book for children: How to Raise Financially Confident Kids. We need kids to get rid of those attitudes of entitlement, but you know what? Adults have them too! Do you know— oh me, I just got an awful old iPhone 8 I need the… What what's the latest one, Julie? 11? 12? 14? 98? Julie: I don't even know cause I have a 6 Mary: Oh dear, I don’t… you know….they do become part of our lives. That’s a subject for another time. 9:26 but…just think of all the things that our lives absolutely do not depend on, that we find the absolute needs not wants. Dealing with needs and wants is not easy. I got to tell you what I did when I was in my really rough time when I was making this journey myself. I want to tell you about a quick little flow chart that I created years and years and years ago when I was in, that you know, dealing with this whole issue of coming out of that dark night of financial distress. There is a copy of it on page 57 of the book if you’re interested. 10:04 You could photocopy it. Write it up yourself. It's just a flow chart. It starts out, do I need it? If I say yes, then I go on to can I afford it? But if I say do I need it, and the answer's “Well, no, not really.” Then it is the end. I just saved myself from making a foolish purchase. These little tricks really, really help you do to do that. I also want to talk about widening the gap. At first, there's many of us who are making tremendous progress if we can end up on the next payday having not spent one dollar, a single dollar, from the previous paycheck. 10:43 That’s a start. That's a tiny, tiny gap. There are so many ways to widen that gap.  So I just want to go over a few of them and these are from my history folks. These are the things that really, really spoke to me. Helped me. I wrote them all down. The first one is borrow and share. Rather than feeling like I had to buy something new. Always have to own that movie. It’s a change of mind for me and I have to tell you that, yes, my watch word was Blockbuster and I know probably don't remember that, but do you know there was a time…? Julie, she shaking her head. Do you remember Blockbuster? We would actually walking to the store look at all the movies.  11:22 Julie: I do remember it and actually that was… my husband was working there when I first met him. Mary:  Really? Julie: Blockbuster is close to my heart. Mary:  Yes, yes. For me, that started mind a mind-altering kind of thing because I realized I didn't have to own things in order to enjoy them.  Something else, this is easy now because a lot of people don't like to go to the mall. But years ago when I was going through this the mall was my place that was my antidepressant. That was my happy place. That was where I could get away and take my kids. I’m sorry. I’m sorry boys. I took you to the mall way too often.  12:04 I had to stop that. I had to see that, that was like a slippery place for an alcoholic. It was, it was my bar! Gosh, that's so hard to say. But it was the absolute truth. Something else that I did was to limit my exposure to advertisements. I had to stop looking at women's magazines. Now, this was a time, yeah,  Internet wasn't that big of a deal. But I could go through a woman's magazine… in a fact, there’s something you maybe not know, Julie. Do you know that I was a contributing editor for Woman’s Day magazine for 10 years? 10 years! (Julie: Wow) 10 years I wrote for them. 12:40 So I kind of know I would see all that.  I would have to stop reading magazines. I couldn't trust myself. It was like I was a spoiled brat. Something else, and this is still true today, much harder than it used to be, I lived with cash. I'm talking about your day-to-day walking around money. What you have in your purse. I had to learn, I could not carry plastic with me. I could not. My drivers license I considered paper, but no, I'm talking about debit, credit, gift cards, all of that. I had to put them away because if I had them too handy, I was mindless with them. 13:19 In future episodes we're gonna talk about living with cash. There’s some great great tips and tricks. I'm gonna teach you. But back to our list here. Spend free days. Oh my goodness! Do you want a wake up call? Do you wanna see into yourself? Do you want to clear your vision? Come out of the fog? Determine, and this is gonna be hard. I know you can do it! We can do it together. Let's all do it. OK. Commitment. All right. We are going to start by naming a get a spend free day. I don't I will let you know, but we’ll think about it and let you know. Julie and I will try this out. 13:56 Here's how it works. You can plan ahead. That's fine. For one- 24 hour period you are not allowed to spend. And that's in any way! You can't pay the mortgage. You cannot pick up milk on the way home from work. Whatever. Can't go online. Can't go to Amazon. Spend-free day. (Julie: Nothing.) Nothing! Can't eat out. Nothing. You can't believe what’ll happen. Another way to do this is to save the difference. This just goes in a lot of different ways. What I'm talking about is if, let’s talk about the grocery store. You're shopping. It's not your spent free day. You have some coupons and you’ve got on that’s for $1. $1 coupon! I love it when there are 3 digits in a coupon. 14:40 So you pick up whatever that item is. You take it to the check out. You get your dollar off. You save the difference. You get it. You just don't let that dollar you saved melt into the atmosphere. Just take it put that one dollar into a secret savings place. It's great great principle. 15:02 Here’s something. Stay healthy. There’s nothing like medical bills to obliterate any gap you might have in your life. How about this one? Cook in. Stop eating out so much. Julie, have you been to McDonald's lately? I went there recently. Julie: it's expensive for a family, for a person. Mary: I almost had a heart attack.  I took my two grandsons. The three of us went for lunch. Two little boys, well sort of, and me. It was, it was like almost $30. I can't believe it. What? Of course, I let my kids pick what they like. I'm telling you I am about… I about… I couldn’t even finish a sentence just like right now… so expensive. Cook in. Oh my goodness. You can't believe the money you'll save. 15:50 Pare down. You know we're overrun with stuff. Just get rid of stuff. Pare down. Number 10. We’re getting to 12 here, so we’re almost there. Don't pay retail. Oh I love that! That’s my watch word when I go grocery shopping and I plan my meals and so on. If it's on sale, yes. It's not on sale, no.  We’ll wait till later. We’ll wait until it does go on sale and then we’ll get two to last till next time. Number 11—unfriend the Joneses. Does this happen to you? You’re having a wonderful day. You drive home and see your neighbors just drove up and parked a brand new SUV. There your car is and it’s a little scratched. Kind of old. Needs new tires. 16:35 That’s just an awful feeling. I hate that. That wanting to let my neighbors, allowing my neighbors to determine my decisions and so on. Just unfriend them. Not really. Not in true life. Don’t tell them! Just stop trying to keep up with them. And number 12— increase your income. Yeah, that'll help with that gap and less you keep spending up to the limit there.  Finding new ways. Get a side hustle. Do something. So many things and by the way if you're not getting my blog post every single day (www.everydaycheapskate.com) You are missing out on so much. We talk about this a lot. 17:16 OK so that's rule number one spend less than you earn. OK Julie, did I stir up any questions? Julie: I do have a couple questions for you because I love how you were talking about the gap. In the gap is where you find the financial freedom. A lot of people think I find the financial freedom when I can spend whatever I want anytime I want. But the gap is that place and so I was thinking of that.  I was thinking about needs versus wants. What could I be content with? Actually when you asked me what version of the phone iPhone I have. A 6 sounds so old, but it works fine.  Mary: You're talking about the phone. Julie: I'm talking so but I'm talking about is… I guess I wondered if you could speak to, a little bit about being content with what you have. Or a time that you, maybe a time from your own story where if you have a specific place and in your mind where you thought, “You know what? I can just go with what I've got.” Mary: OK let's go back to your first one. Let's talk about financial freedom. What is financial freedom? What is that thing that we find in that beautiful place in life where we are spending less than we earn? I think it has…let's take away from money for a moment. 18:36 Let's talk about kids, raising children. As they become teenagers, they get more and more freedoms, right? But as you give your children freedoms, and they earn freedoms because they show a maturity and a discipline that they're able to handle that. Let’s say that it has to do with them being able to stay out later at night with your friends. Which I know is a big deal. (Julie: Right) You would, you would not in 1 million years expect that your child will take that to mean, “Oh good, for two hours of my life I can do anything I want. I can rob banks. I can I can egg cars. I can be a vandal. I can do anything I want because I have freedom to do anything I want. 19:15 It all comes in that want. (Julie: yes) Because if they have been raised properly. If you have instilled in them the values, beliefs. You expose them to God's Word. And they have embraced those, those things in their lives that you've taught them. Their wants are going to change. They’re not going to want to do that, because all of a sudden freedom now gives them not no boundaries, but allows them to live out the boundaries and rules and the values that they have learned.  19:53 It’s the same thing with money. I'm promising you that when you have that gap. When you have, let's say $10,000 cash in the bank in your emergency fund, that doesn't mean that you live like an idiot. No! You drive more carefully. I promise you you will. (Julie: Right) because you don't want to have to take any of that $10,000 to pay for a deductible on a car wreck that was your fault.  20:18  You are not going to let the paint job on your house get to the point where it's gonna cost you twice as much because it has deteriorated. You'll become so much better at maintenance. You will become so much more frugal when it comes to replacing things. Say you need a new sofa. You've got a nice gap. You have no debt. The last thing in the world is that you want to go into debt and so you see things through new eyes. You see things through eyes of financial freedom that you have. You have the freedom and I'll tell you there is bondage to be in debt. 20:56 because when you need that new sofa and your only choice is to use the available credit on one credit card and you've only got $600. Well, yeah, you shop well. But not for the reason we would've thought. So financial freedom doesn’t mean I have so much money I can have everything in the whole world. It's I have enough money to have those things that I need and some things that I want and you wants change. To me that is contentment. It’s knowing that I have options. I have choices. Does that help?  Julie: That does help, and then I wondered also if you could speak to the fact that maybe listeners are thinking: You know what? This is all great, but in this day and age I do have three kids. They all need a phone. They all do this. They all are in sports, are all eating, and there is just- the family budget is just has so many more expenses than my parents day. It seems like there's no way that I could possibly spend less than I earn, because of all the pressure on a family budget now that wasn't on a family budget 30 years ago. I don't know if that's really true but I've heard my friends say that exact thing. 22:12 Mary: Well, I understand that. I also have to say that we need to rethink. We need to rethink. I have worked with families who have been in such dire situations that they didn't have the options that you speak of. Now, it might sound like a phone for everybody in the whole house is absolutely mandatory. I promise you that it's not. It's not. It might seem wise and for some people, they might choose to make it mandatory. But it's not. One family I'm thinking of right now with three teenagers. They had one phone between the three of them.   22:51 And the parents would decide on a certain day who needed it the most. Then they taught and what do you do if you don't have a phone. Julie, there was a time none of us had phones. Julie: We had a dime or quarter. Mary: Children are fine. You grew up fine. OK. Yes, there were phone booths, but I think that friends have taken the place of phone booths. If you’re in a dire situation, you can always find someone who can make that call for you or allow you to use their phone to make it. That’s another subject for another day. What I’m saying is that we have to really rethink what is absolutely necessary. I know some families who think their kids having a meal card at elementary school is actually mandatory. No, it is not. Children can still take lunch to school. Really, that’s what Everyday Cheapskate, my blog, my daily email is all about. Helping people to find all these ways to be able to reduce the expenses in order to widen the gap. I even wrote a post on how to widen the gap: bake bread. Yes, little things like that. 24:00  So I would say to your question that, yes, we have many expenses perhaps. Every teenager in the home doesn’t have to have their own car and we need to rethink a lot of things. Especially during the period of time are you getting out of debt, because I'm telling your credit card debt that interest-rate is chewing up peoples gap like you can't believe it. Getting rid of that it's going to really, really help. Julie: Thanks Mary, I appreciate that. Mary: Thank you for joining me on today's episode and I hope that you'll join me for the next one. See you then! Debt-Proof Living with Mary Hunt was created and hosted by, Mary Hunt. Produced by Julie Emerson, with Harold Hunt, Executive Producer. Save time. Save money. Every Day.  Make it easy on yourself! Become part of the community and subscribe for free at www.everydaycheapskate.com. That's where you will find all the ways you can follow Mary, Everyday Cheapskate, and Debt-Proof Living. Thanks for listening!  Everyday Cheapskate participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon affiliated sites. There are affiliate links in this post. If you click through and make a purchase, we may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks! Read more here.https://www.everydaycheapskate.com/?p=17323

EP 103: Utilising Intuition As Your Soul's GPS!Hey Spirit Girls! This week's episode is all about:- Why I'm NOT posting about #coronavirus & What I'm doing personally- How I'm going to help you develop your Intuition ASAP- Why you're only going to reach your soul goals IF you're using Intuition as your GPS!If you're wanting to register for the 'Let's Get Intuit' FREE Crash Course For Intuitive's, Go here:bit.ly/letsgetintuitregistration If you're wanting to join the Gifted Experts Waitlist, Go here: http://bit.ly/giftedexperts4waitlistAny Q's, Just reach out Girl! Love,Jessie x