Podcasts about when i've

My laptop has been struggling a lot today. I can feel for it.Last week I reached out to a lot of people about being on the podcast and learning about podcasting. I'll get to make an appearance on two podcasts in the next month or so. That's AMAZING. I'm very thankful, and I've been trying to be better in my spiritual life and in other things as well to be ready for that.I'm sure you've felt that way before. You're tired. You want to do more. You've already put in a lot of work that day but there's still so much to be done. You're feeling overwhelmed.I've had this happen to me many times. I'll be walking to class and then I see somebody I want to talk to and I have to still get a school assignment done. All in all in the back of my mind I'm thinking about things I could be doing.I've had no job over the last 3 months, I've been searching. I haven't been in school.... yet these few months have had little stress bombs go off in my head and it's been a struggleWhy don't I feel better? Why don't I feel happy?I worry about things I can't control. All the while as I'm worrying I'm not getting anything done.Talk to someone - About a month ago I decided to just go on a walk. I was feeling a bit overwhelmedDo something fun - We are creatures of work and of play. One thing that fascinates me that I've been able to see as I've gotten older is how all successful people have some kind of outlet to help them give more to their craft, and remember they are a human being and not a robot.Flame Boy Link - https://kahmanngaming.wixsite.com/games/product-page/copy-of-demo-the-battle-for-peanut-butter-and-jellyRemind myself where you're headed and go for a walk, insistent on improvement - I remember one day in Summer 2019 before classes started back up. It was pouring. I was upset at my situation again. You can go for a just a little bit. (Listen to General Conference)General Conference April 2020 - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/general-conference?lang=engTake a nap - I've had many times where I was tired and had to get work done. I've had times where I just prayed and worked and somehow I'd end up falling asleep. There were times I'd wake up super refreshed and happy for the rest of the day (today) and I think this is because I took a power nap. When I've taken those 4 hour naps in the middle of the day those wreck me. I also try to go to bed in faith. (hoping I'll wake up when I need to and be able to do what I need to, have good dreams, etc).Exercise - A few months ago on a day in January I was feeling very displeased with how my day had gone so at about 10 PM I decided I was going on a run. I didn't know where I was running. I just started running. I turned on the 10X book by Grant Cardone and kept running. I had many thoughts coming to mind while I was running. I even made a quick video for IG which helped me to run harder. All in all I ran almost a 5k, which was farther than I'd ran in months.

Welcome!   Today's show is a repeat of the Show aired on February 15, 2020. There is a ton of stuff going on in the world of Technology, and this show will hit several topics today. If you are on my email list, it has current articles that you need to read.  If you are not on my email list, sign up at Craig Peterson dot com slash subscribe. There are some scams that are getting more and more prevalent with Airbnb and VRBO that we will talk about. Also, phishing scams using the Coronavirus as a way to trick you into clicking.  The ACLU is filing suit against DHS. China is stealing our Intellectual Property.  Shadow IT becoming more and more of a problem and even more on Tech Talk With Craig Peterson today on WGAN.  It is a busy show -- so stay tuned. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Related Articles: Is it possible to secure our Elections using Technology The security mistakes made by the Iowa Democratic Party in creating their App Coronavirus bringing out opportunistic Hackers   Extensive US Intellectual Property theft by Chinese being investigated by FBI  Scammers have found a fertile field in Airbnb DHS wants to track illegal aliens using available cell-phone location data. ACLU says Whoa!  Shadow-IT: Employees putting Business at Risk Ransomware rings adapt to business declarations by Revealing Stolen Data --- Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Hey everybody, welcome, welcome. Craig Peterson here on, WGIR, you can also hear me every Monday morning at 737 with Jack Heath, where we discuss some of the latest topics in technology. Of course, nowadays, you can't talk about technology without security, which is what I've been doing in my business now for about 30 years. I was coerced into it. Maybe one of these days, I'll share that whole story with you. It can get to be kind of a long one. But today we are going through some of the problems that I've seen out there lately. I have on my podcast this week that you can get at Craig peterson.com slash Iheart, Craig peterson.com slash Iheart. I spent quite a bit of time talking about recent problems people have been finding with Airbnb with VRBO, and I go through some of the problems I recently have had with both of those services. And I think it's well worth listening to because I've gotten to the point right now where I will not use either Airbnb or VRBO, I don't think ever again. My experiences with them have just been so overwhelmingly negative, anyhow you'll find that online, and you can subscribe there as well at Craig peterson.com slash I heart. That like is going to take you to the I heart app. You might be listening to me right now, in fact, on Iheart streaming on these AM and FM stations. If you are, kudos to you, but you can also get all of my content by going and subscribing, Craig peterson.com slash I heart, and I'm also on every other major podcast streaming platform that's out there. But first, I just want to make mention of this other article that came out last month in January. It's talking about computer literate millennials and Generation Z. These are the people that grew up with the internet. They've had the internet pretty much their whole lives. They've found meaning the Federal Trade Commission found that people ages 39 and under are more likely to report fraud than the 40 plus crowd. Now, here's the thinking here. It isn't that the younger kids millennials and Generation Z, it isn't as though they are less afraid to report that money stolen from them. It appears that they are more likely to fall victim to fraud. 25% more likely. Now the millennials are less likely to fall for a scam over the phone and people over 40, but 77% More likely, Millennials are 77% more likely to get duped by email scams and 90% more likely to lose money on a fake check scam. Now, the thinking behind this is that those of us who are a little bit older, we hold the whole internet thing with a little bit more skepticism than our children and grandchildren do. Because we know that there are scammers out there and we've heard all the horror stories, whereas the younger kids are looking at it as well. It's the internet, and they just give their stuff away. We already know that there are studies that show that the millennials will give their email address or weigh in trade for a single donut. Okay. They don't value a lot of this stuff. And, you know, to me, well, it's a little bit concerning, and it should be to you. But let's get into the latest scam that's out there right now. It isn't the Airbnb scam, which has been out there for a few years now. As I said, hey, I've been burned, what, four or five times by this overall personally. I am jaded, and I just don't use it anymore period. It's a real shame because there are some good people out there. But this has to do with what's been happening with the Coronavirus. It is a huge deal. We had one day this week, where 15,000 new cases were reported. The Chinese changed how they tracked and diagnosed cases. So they're saying hey, listen, it's you know, it's Change. Don't expect this to indicate that more viruses are spreading out there. And frankly, I look at it and say, Well, maybe there are there aren't. But what we're seeing are some rather sophisticated phishing scams going on. Phishing, of course, this is the one spelled with a Ph. It is where an attacker tricks you into doing something. It might be clicking a link. It might be responding to an email. It might also be a phishing scam over the phone or, you know, SMS a text one which is called smishing. A whole new type of phishing this going on right now. Well, last week, IBM and Kaspersky now Kaspersky is an anti-virus company. They are also trying to stop the general spread of malware. They are a Russian firm, and the State Department and FBI have warned us about using their software, but they do have good information. When I see Kaspersky combined with IBM, a company I do respect, then that does kind of make my ears stand up, if you will. IBM and Kaspersky caught hackers in Japan, trying to spread malware through emails. And the emails had links about the coronavirus outbreak that started Of course and won China last month in January. And now adding cell phones to the list. Of course, Cisco, to the list, they have found phishing emails from cybercriminals, purporting to be from the Center for Disease Control, as well as the World Health Organization and what they're trying to do the bad guys his deal your email credentials and other information. The emails are coming from several domains, including CDC dash gov.org, which, of course, is not the real CDC website. So be very careful if you are trying to find out information about the CDC, or about the spread of Coronavirus about flu in general. For instance, in my home state of New Hampshire, we have I think it's seven deaths so far this year reported g attributed to the flu in general, not the Coronavirus. Every year about 12 to 16,000 people in the United States die from the flu. So far we've only got 14 cases reported of Coronavirus So, at this stage everybody, this is nothing to get all freaky worried about. Okay, so calm down. If you want more, go to CDC.gov. CDC Centers for Disease Control cdc.gov. And it tells you what to do now this Coronavirus has an official name now it's called Covin-19, co vi d dash 19 because there are multiple versions of Coronaviruses and viruses. And we have had a report in the past about Coronaviruses, and they have killed people previously. So you'll see right at the top of the CDC, gov website, information about the Coronavirus and it spread. It is a respiratory disease. It is potentially fatal. It doesn't seem to be any more fatal than some of the other viruses that we've had. So let's put all of this in context. And when you get an email from someone saying hey, Look at this, click on this link, it's going to get you information about the Coronavirus, it's going to let you track the spread of, etc. don't respond. And you, if you get a text message, don't respond. I got one because I'm a member of the Great and Powerful media, right. I got one last week that was sent out to members of the media saying, Hey, we got this new tracking site. You just can't be cautious enough when it comes to this. So if you go to CDC Gov at the top, you'll see the description here about the Covin-19. And you can click on that, and it'll show you a global map about where it has been reported what is happening. I'm looking at one. It's about one day behind it looks like right now for Covin-19. But you can see all of the countries that have been reporting it and then you can also So look at the hard statistics. People under investigation in the United States exactly how many 14 positives you'll see that there. Of course, it changes daily. How many negative how many pending? The people are under investigation. Remember, the airplane full of workers from the State Department that came back from China. They have now been under quarantine for more than 14 days. They released them all from quarantine because it turns out that nobody had that virus, so just because you have the flow doesn't mean it's Coronavirus. More cases over on the left coast and the Midwest, which is kind of surprising to me than there are on the East Coast or the Mid Atlantic, etc., etc. So have a look there. Do not respond to emails or texts or phone calls. Okay. Just be very, very careful. Hackers are imitating this sort of thing. Then the other side of this is they are sending out messages, seeking donations, and they're asking for Bitcoin donations to the World Health Organization. I can tell you right now, the World Health Organization, the CDC, they are not taking Bitcoin donations, okay? Don't go and donate, right. Again the CDC gov.org is the bad guys cdc.gov is the good guys. The scam page is elementary. it might have taken the scammers just a few minutes to put together. It's very effective. It looks legit. And the FBI and, of course, also Homeland Security are taking down these pages as soon as they can, but they can't always get rid of them right away. And companies we got to be proud. We've got a chain, train our employees not to follow up on these scams. So again, that's part of why I publish my newsletters. I report on the biggest scams that are going on. I try and keep it down to just a few a week. You can share them with your employees, share them with your family, but you have to get them to share them. Go to Craig peterson.com slash subscribe. Now, we're going to talk a little bit about this whole thing with the ACLU and their current fight. I spoke about something similar to this a couple of years ago, man, maybe actually the first time was probably about ten years ago. There are companies out there, and they gather information about us. They're called Data brokers. And I have visited some of these data brokers sites themselves. I mean physical site, where the company operates where they have their data collections, to help them with security problems that they have. And to help prevent problems from occurring, right. That's what I do for a living full time. And it was probably ten years ago, the radio show that I talked with some of these companies. But what they do is they take what's called open source information that's used a lot by government or investigations. And you can use open-source information yourself. All you do is go to Google, for instance, and do a search. That's the open-source information. It's anything that anyone can gain access to, without having to be a police officer without having to go and really kind of, you know, get a court order kind of be surreptitious and how you gather that's open source. So the data break brokers will take all of that, and that can include depending on States your living driver's license information. It can include information about the mortgage for your home. It can include you know the ownership of your home, and it can include just all kinds of stuff. And that becomes very, very difficult to control. Because all of your information is out there. It's available for free or for cheap on the internet. So these data brokers, they might buy it from the county, they might get it an open-source. Some of these documents are going to contain like your mortgage is going to contain your signature. The deed to your home is going to contain the signature, the automobiles that you own. There's going to be UCC filings with the Secretary of State's office, detailing what cars you own, who the lien holders are, and how much money is involved, all of this stuff. So it all gets pulled into these days. databases I mentioned on the show a few months ago, a couple of months ago that we were out in Las Vegas at a wedding. And of course, you know, doing work while I'm out there sitting on the couch, doing work for some of our Las Vegas clients when there was a knock at the door. Who's there? Well, it's an insurance investigator investigating an accident that had a fatality. And of course, the insurance company had been asked to payout. They came to this home because they had information that the person involved had contact with someone at this address, which indeed she did. It was her sister, and the driver had been responsible for this fake fatal death. The driver listed was one of my sisters in law, who had died six months before the accident. It was all fake. The insurance investigator showed my wife all of this information she had that they had purchased from one of these data brokers. It had listed my deceased sister in law's relatives, everybody every address she had ever had. It had names and contact information for some of my kids as well. Now, it was not all correct or organized. When I've looked at the data brokers' information about me, only about half of it is right, but the other half is entirely incorrect. That's still the case because they had a lot of utterly false information. People that they said were relatives that weren't. People we'd never heard of before, they identified as direct relatives of hers. The insurance company purchased all of this information from a Data Broker, in collections, this is called a skip trace. It's called a skip trace for people who jumped bail, etc. Man, we should talk about this whole bail thing, and the idiocy and New York state that is spreading countrywide dog, the bounty hunter and his wife Beth had been fighting this for a long time because it's making us much, much less safe. But anyhow, that's not a topic for today's show. It's not a political topic, because it's undeniable what's already happening with the increase in the crime rate, New York anyways. What the government is doing now and this is part of what I was warning about a decade ago, is the federal government, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, of the IRS, you name it. They are limited in how they can collect information, we kind of already knew that, right? They knew that they had to get a search warrant for certain things, right? They can follow you around if you do not expect privacy, etc., etc. So obviously, federal government agencies can use open-source information to see what you're doing online. But how about the closed source stuff? How about this information that the data brokers are collecting? Some of it comes from the people who lent you money. Some of it they're getting from places where you have to pay to get that information. What's happened here now is that the ACLU has filed a suit, according to The Wall Street Journal, against Homeland Security and Homeland Security through its Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. As well as Customs and Border Protection, is buying Gilo geolocation data from these data brokers. It's using it to investigate suspects who have allegedly committed immigration violations. So let me boil all that down into plain English. You might be using games on your smartphone, and you might be using all kinds of apps on your smartphone. If you have a smartphone, you probably are, frankly, not using 90-95% of those apps that you have downloaded. But many of those apps are tracking you. And that information is being sold to data brokers. So think about that for a minute. Remember that free app and how you've heard me and many others for so many years. Say, hey, you're not the customer. You are the product. But what's happening here now is that the ACLU is saying to the federal government, hey, you cannot, you cannot buy this information that you are not allowed to collect yourself. You cannot buy it from data brokers or these app developers who are selling it. Interesting question, interesting problem, isn't it? What should they do? What should you do? What can you do? It is going to play out in court. I suspect it's going to come down on the side of the Department of Homeland Security because this information is generally available to anyone willing to pay for it. So now the government stepped forward, saying we are will pay for it. By the way, it's down to local law enforcement as well, who, in many cases, are also buying information from the data brokers. Have you ever set up a company Amazon account? Have you ever set up an account for a company account for Uber? Maybe it's not a company account. Perhaps it's your account that you're using for Uber or something else? How about using something like Constant Contact to send out emails to your customers? How about salesforce.com, where we've seen a shift over the years from what used to be kind of the glass castle, where you had a central computer room in that computer room was a mainframe. And those mainframes were astounding. They still are. And that mainframe in that glass room was controlled by professional Information Technology people, people that knew what they were doing at least at the time, right? Then we started seeing some changes. You remember the apple two and VisiCalc Visicalc was kind of the killer application. And if you wanted to do numbers, then you bought an apple, you purchased a little apple two. And you then pulled data and people were asking that glass house, they were asking it, Hey, can you give us data because we want to put together some spreadsheet. People put together spreadsheets without really understanding the implications of the numbers they were using without understanding how to audit a spreadsheet to make sure that the figures included were correct. They didn't understand the double journaling. They didn't understand the cross-referencing of the information. They started a bit of a movement away from that glass house from that glass castle from it. They said hey, we could figure this out, why are we going to pay it all of this fake budget money to do something for us and we can do it for ourselves and do it cheaper. Frankly, that's a problem I still face with many organizations, if you can believe it, who think they can do security themselves, which is impossible for almost any organization. In this day and age, any small-medium business must have full-time external professionals who are helping your internal IT people. The internal IT should be doing what they do best, which is helping your business use information technology, to its best use, assisting people to be more efficient, finding new ways of doing things, etc. Instead of that, what most businesses do is they have these various silos, like sales and marketing and accounting. And each one of those silos, those lines company does things their way. So the sales guys, they're out, and they said, Hey, we're going to use Salesforce. And we're going to tie that into Constant Contact. And then you have your accounting people saying, well, we're going to use QuickBooks Online. Or maybe they're going to use one of Oracle's accounting systems. And then the manufacturing people say, Well, we are going to use this particular era p program, which is going to be great for manufacturing. And we've decided that we're going to use Survey Monkey to collect information from our customers from our vendors. You see where I'm going, each one of these lines of business is going out there and making what are in actuality, information technology decisions. They're making decisions about what type of technology to use, which is one level, but then the next Next Level is they're using it. And they're putting the business's information at risk. It is a huge, huge problem. It's something that I'm going to be addressing with some of this training that I have coming up with a couple of these tutorials correctly tackle these problems. And so if you're on my email list at Craig Peterson comm slash subscribe, you're going to find out about these, and I'm going to give you some great cheat sheets and other things. But all of those again, Craig peterson.com slash subscribe. All of those different lines of business, all of those different functional responsibilities within an organization larger small, are adding up and adding up hugely. And there is a massive problem behind this. Now you know, that I use one password, and I recommend it, and we typically Use one password in conjunction with Duo to help secure login information. But because one password is used so frequently by companies to keep track of logins, they have kind of a unique view into the risks of all these different accounts. And what we're talking about where these lines of business are making Information Technology decisions that they're not qualified to make, and frankly, in most small-medium companies, there's probably no one in the organization that's fully qualified. Still, at least it has a better idea, but then a marketing person or an accounting person would have. So this is called shadow it and it's absolutely something that we have to be careful of and we have to watch for and if you are one of these people who is using one of these third-party services, and you have not informed your IT person. Do it right now. All right, thanks. Okay, hey, we have a lot more content that you can get online. Just go to Craig Peters on.com. You'll find it right there in my weekly newsletter that you can use to help educate other people inside your company. Maybe family, maybe friends, and indeed, educate yourself and the things that you need to know security-related or just the newest and latest greatest technology. Now I got an email here just while was Facebook a couple of weeks ago a message about a story that I had reported on about Tesla before, and I try and answer those I dig them up I get them for you. But I want to make sure you are subscribed at Craig Peterson comm slash subscribe, so you get all of that. Thanks for being with me here, WGIR, and we'll be back Monday morning with Jack Heath at 737. Hey, welcome back Craig Peterson here on WGAN and online Of course, Craig peterson.com. If you want to, you can subscribe to my email list you'll find out about the free tutorials that pop up training, courses, everything that I do to help make you and your business more secure. So again, Craig Peterson, dot com slash subscribe. I got to read this to you right now. I decided to cancel through Airbnb and tell them about what had happened. He went off at me, berated me for not handling in it privately, and told me I was acting in my self-interest, and belittled me. I ended up having to pay the first full month even though I stayed one night. His listing is still up, and a review posted after my state also mentioned the silverfish. Isn't that something? Now, this is from a report that came out from vice. Now you might be familiar with vice.com. There's a lot of decent stuff up there. But I want to tell you a little bit about my own experience I've had with Airbnb and VR Bo now VR Bo is vacation rentals. It's it has been used more, I think, by businesses from what the stuff I've read than it is by individuals. But I have had bad experiences with both of them. Every time I have had an Airbnb, I have had a bad experience. So let me tell you what I mean by a bad experience. For instance, I was out of Vegas at a conference, and we thought, you know what, let's try Airbnb. I'm the tech guy, right? I need to understand this. Why wouldn't I go ahead and use Airbnb in make sense, right? So here the tech guy goes, and we poke around read reviews we read ratings. We found an apartment, not far at all, I mean like half a mile from the convention center. We thought, okay, this is going to be perfect. It says it's right by the strip we could walk over there, hop a cab or, or grab a ride and enjoy The Strip, and then the morning we can just walk over the convention center. We're not going to have any problems parking because it said it is an apartment. Let me start with parking. By the way, parking is another thing in the second Airbnb story. There was no parking. You had to park a half a mile away sometimes because people were just parking in the parking lot of the apartment building. There were no reserved parking slots for the apartment. So there's number one — number two. When we go into the apartment, and it's quite nice. We find out that it has two bedrooms. We had only booked one bedroom because that's all the listing talked about the one-bedroom. We get there, and we find, okay, so this is our bedroom over here. Well, the bedroom did not have an ensuite bathroom. The bathroom for the bedroom was across the hall. So there we go, we get in there and okay, fine. So our bathrooms across the hall, and we end up going to bed. We enjoyed it was a nice place relatively clean, quite old. It was probably a 40-50-year-old apartment. In the layout that you would expect there in the southwest where there's kind of a courtyard in the middle, and it's a little two-story thing and, you know, kind of reminded me when I lived in LA back in about 1980 late 70s early 80s. You know it's that part was quite nice. You know brand new shag rug in there, well you know not brand-new but quite new and clean. That part result was good. We go to bed and then we there we hear just tons of commotion because somebody else who didn't speak English very well had come to stay at the apartment as well. We hear them going into our bathroom, using our towels. They are very, very loud talking on the phone, and they get a hold of the owner right of this Airbnb. They got the same impression we did, which is there's one-bedroom in this place. So they had an ensuite bathroom. We did not, but they were using our bathroom the whole time and our towels, there's only one set of towels. It wasn't a great experience at all. They kept us up for quite a while because they were just so loud. Now you know me, I'm not an outgoing guy. You might not believe that, but I'm a little bit of an introvert. And as an introvert, I didn't want to go out and confront these people who were I'm guessing, or you know, from Asia, they were speaking Chinese or Korean or Japanese, I have no idea. I just didn't want to mess with it. So we get up in the morning, we and everything is okay-ish. We go to the conference and then that night, I guess these people only there for one night. That night, we had the whole place to ourselves, which is okay. Knowing that with Airbnb, I rate the place after I stay there, but the owner of the place rates me and so there have been a lot of issues of retaliation when it comes to Airbnb. If you stay at one of these places and you don't give them this glowing five-star review, then you're not going to get reviewed while and other people might not want you to stay at their place. So I gave it a reasonable rating. I can't remember what I gave it, you know, places clean and, and, you know, it was a nice place and there is another bedroom. You know, just kind of hint into anybody reading this. It isn't going to be dedicated to you and maybe your loved one you're staying with and left it at that. That's my first Airbnb story. And then my second Airbnb story, as I mentioned, had a lot to do with parking as well. And in this case, it was in the Toronto area, up in Brampton, and we rented a place on Airbnb, you know, I figured, well, we'll give another chance, see what happens. It was a three-bedroom place, and they said it sleeps like eight or something like that. What you did if you include the fold-out couch, and so we figured, okay, we need some parking. So I had sent them a message saying, hey, it's going to be myself and a couple of my kids and some grandkids. You know, I want to make sure that there's plenty of parking. Is it? Oh, yeah, plenty of parking, buddy parking, no problem. And so we get there, and there is one parking spot. And it's in one of these. I don't know if you know much about Canada and how they build their housing there. But one of the reasons I'm not that fond of it, right. I grew up there. It was these townhouses that are built right on top of each other, you know, the zero property line homes there. Three, four, or five of them attached. The only place you can park is in the little garage place. Well, the garage itself was full of stinking trash. Who knows how long it had been there. You couldn't use the garage. It had hared the driveway with the condo next door to you. It had one parking spot. I had my car, my daughter's car for her, her husband, and a couple of her kids. And then one of my other kids also drove up there. We had to find a place to park. Now the good news was that the whole neighborhood was under construction. They were able to park in the mud. in one area where construction wasn't happening right then, of course, the next morning, what shows up big dump trucks, excavators, everything else to work across the street from us. That wasn't fun. Let me tell you that it was not fun. We were quite worried about our cars, with all of this heavy equipment on this little narrow street designed for one car to go down the street when cars park on the street. We have to go right now when we come back, and I'm going to finish what happened with my air mean being being being a story, as well as my VR Bo story. And we got a whole lot more to cover. We're going to get into this Homeland Security thing with the ACLU and more but stick around, listening to Craig Peterson a course on WGAN online at Greg Peterson dot com is where you'll find me. Make sure you subscribe so that you get all of my free tutorials, training courses. Everything, Craig Peterson dot com, stick around. Hey, welcome back. Craig Peterson here on WGAN and of course online, at Craig Peterson dot com. I was in the middle of telling you my stories about Airbnb. If you have ever thought about staying at Airbnb, or VRBO, or any of these types of places, right, obviously you're not staying at a website, but you're booking through a website, somebody's home, somebody's rental, whatever it might be then this is for you. I have done it for personal reasons. I have done it for business reasons as well. I told you the beginning of my story in Toronto, and I told you the last segment about my story in Las Vegas. We didn't have the parking, and the kids are all worried, and I was concerned about our cars getting destroyed by the heavy equipment. Were we going to have to move them because they were working on the lots across the street? It's incredible how fast the housing is going up there and how expensive it is to it's, it's just not how pricey it is. We get inside the place. Now, remember, I said that the garage was full of trash which was, and it stunk to high heaven, which it did. Okay, so some of that leaks into the house, which makes the house kind of smell too, which is just plain old, no fun. We get into the house, and I go and sit on this folding couch. And remember, the house is supposed to sleep eight, and it has a fold-out sofa. I sit on the couch. It reeks of BO, body odor. Right? I mean reeks. One of the first things I have to do is I want to make sure that they know that this is a problem so that maybe they can take care of it. I call, and I don't get any answer because it's the weekend, right? Nobody's around. We head out to the local grocery store, and we get some odor killer stuff, and we bring it back, and we drench the couch in it. And we're able to get rid of most of the BO you know, and its underarm smell is what it is. Someone with some nasty underarm odor was sitting on that couch. They put their arm up on the back of the sofa and left all of their BO behind them. Then they did the same thing on the couch itself and somebody supposed to sleep there, right? Oh, it was just incredible. Then we go upstairs and upstairs that we noticed that the fire alarms had tape all around the sides of them. Now, if you're not familiar with the way firearm alarms work, they have to be able to have air flowing through them to sense that There's smoke in the air or carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, whatever the type of detector is. And it had been it had tape all around it. Now it looked like it was painters tape right that blue tape that you use as you can pull off that isn't going to leave residue behind. So maybe it was the painters perhaps it was the owners, I don't know, perhaps it was a previous occupant, but I warned them about that as well as saying hey listen, your fire alarms are not going to work because it blocks the airflow on the fire alarms by this tape that's on them. I never got a response on anything there. So what do I do when it's time to leave a review? Well, I said the place was in perfect shape. It's brand new. I had to do a little bit of cleaning. The cleaning crew in because the carpets upstairs all had the markings of a, you know, a vacuum cleaner. You can see the wheel marks on the floor and everything else. So you see it's not as though a rip them a new one like I have seen done before. And you never get to see your ratings by the way from these Airbnb owners. Okay, so there's a second one not neither one of mine were nightmares per se, but they both had significant problems that I was afraid to report on because I know that turnabout is considered fair play and who knows what these owners are going to say. Then I tried a VRBO, but they are older. They've been around for something like 30 years, and it's vacation rental type stuff, right? So VRBO, okay, we'll try it out. So we try it. We booked a place, and I wrote to the owners. Hey, there's we're going to have three cars, or two cars can't remember what it was now. Is this going to work for us this okay, I want to make sure this parking is I've had issues before? I never got a response from them. But, you know, they ran my credit card through so I figured, okay, well at least that part is done. I show up with the family in tow. And we're going to have this great time together. I'm going to be working, and they can stay in and just enjoy the place you know, a new city, a new location is going to be great. Guess what? VRBO had canceled my reservation without telling me without informing me, without crediting me. Well, it turned out that they didn't end up crediting me after all the credit card, but here I am waiting for the place that I can't get in. I called up VRBO to say, Listen, I never got a code for the door or anything else. What should I do here? Oh, no. Well, I see that reservation was canceled. I never canceled the reservation. Oh, no, sir. It was canceled, like the day after you booked it. I said, wait a minute. I never canceled it. Well, okay. Well, then the owner must have canceled. Why didn't I get notified? Oh, you didn't get notified, sir? Really? It says they sent an email. I went through all my junk mailboxes and everything else and yep. Okay. I got a notice of cancellation. Oh, man, what a pain that one was. Well, we can find another place in the area you're in right now. We'll make sure you get a refund. I said, Listen, I'm here. I don't have A place to stay. What am I supposed to do now? And they just say I'm sorry, sir. You know, I'm sorry, We'll make sure you get credit. That's all they would do. For me, it was absolutely a nightmare. Three experiences personal experiences for me. One of them a nightmare. One of them on the edge of a nightmare. Another one that could well have been a nightmare but was a mere inconvenience. You can probably guess by now what my thinking is about Airbnb and VRBO. That's what got my interest in this article about this poor guy who was scammed, okay. He was trying to stay in Montreal, and the owner asked him to pay for their stay, outside of the Airbnb app. I've seen that happen many, many times. Because that way, the owner does not have to pay the Airbnb fees, okay? But if you do that now you have very little recourse against the owner, then you know, I've done some chargeback. Lately, now my company if someone buys a course from us, and they're not happy, and we will immediately refund their money because we just don't want them to be upset or disappointed. Because again, you know, our whole thing is to nourish you back to health when it comes to security stuff, right, get that transformation done. I have had some nightmares personally trying to do a chargeback for things that were never delivered, or that got charged inappropriately. Or where I canceled the service. In one case, it was like it was over $1,000 a month for the service, and I canceled it. They charged me the 1200 dollars anyways. I went to my credit card company, and they said, well, we'll have to verify it with the vendor first. So what? I canceled it. I had to fight with a credit card company, and then when they checked with the vendor, and the vendor said, Okay, well, it's fine. We'll take chargeback. You used to be able to do this at the drop of a hat, and I guess they've abused it, right? I think that's the bottom line on it. But man, oh man, so we'll get a little bit more into this vise story. I guess its turned into an Airbnb, VRBO, what to do if you want a vacation rental or if you want to rent a place while you're on a business trip. And then we'll get into some of the more of the articles here, in the next hour. You're listening to Craig Peterson, of course, on WGAN and online. Hi everybody. Craig Peterson back here. I don't know if you guys know what Airbnb's roots were. It started as an air Bed and Breakfast. It was intended for the very young generation to be able to go to concerts and things and just get an air bed in somebody's apartment or home. That's what Airbnb is all about air bed and breakfast. That was the whole idea. And I'm not so sure they've come a long way from those days. I spent the last few segments, in fact, in talking about my horror stories, we've been trying to use Airbnb. There's another one I did not mention in Florida, which was not a horror story quite the disappointment for this house. That I think while I'm quite confident in this house that we rented. It was for a family reunion. So we rented this house that slept like a dozen or something like that. All of the beds were just terrible. You know, the cheapest mattresses that are known to man. You shift your weight at all, and the squeaks loud enough to wake you up. The sheets are the cheapest ones you could imagine. It was an Airbnb as well. It was pretty obvious that the set up for this place was for porn videos. You go into the garage, and the whole garage is one massive shower with I can't remember for six showerheads in it. And then a little bit of workout equipment. I mean a tiny bit of workout equipment. It sounded awful. Okay. And so there you go there, there's all of the Airbnb and VRBO, experiences I can remember. My sister rented the one in Florida for the family, and she did not stay there. She stayed with my mom. It was quite revealing, frankly, so disappointing. I never shared these stories before, but it was because of a story that was in a vice.com, and you'll find this up on my website and Craig peterson.com. They put a little note out saying, Hey, does anybody have any stories about Airbnb, Airbnb scams, and they said, this is Anna Marian, who wrote this that nearly 1000 people sent them emails with their stories. They looked at all of the stories they put together some patterns. A former vice senior staff writer by the name of Alec Conti shared her story about a disastrous vacation to Chicago, and she ran into what she's saying are a bunch of grifters, and frankly a nationwide scam. I no longer use Airbnb at all or VRBO at all. I have been sticking with hotels. If you're interested, I typically use hotwire. I don't use the star ratings of the hotels. I rely on the ratings that are posted by the people who stayed there. I think that's the best feature of hotwire, frankly. I don't care what hotel it is. I just want to stay at a decent hotel. I even used hotwire throughout France and Belgium. It worked great. We found some just wonderful spots that we would never have found if we were just looking to stay at the Marriott or the Hilton or whatever it is, right? So Conti's investigation revealed some serious problems with Airbnb. Now you might have heard about this problem with Airbnb. After all, it hit the news late last year of these party rentals after a death happened. I think it was in San Diego at one of these party rentals. Somebody rented a nice house. Essentially a lot of these places get destroyed by the partiers, right there. There are drugs and heavy drinking, and in this one case, that hit the news. There were gun shootings. Okay, that's a very, very bad, bad thing. So Conti apparently, and again, you can find this article on vice.com traced her scam back to a company that used fake profiles and fake reviews to conceal a whole bunch of wrongdoings. Let's get into this okay because property switches are one of the biggest ones will tell you about what those are the units of sawdust on the floor with holes in the walls, this whole bait and switch game which goes into these properties, switches, and stuff. It's awful. When all else fails, there are these clumsy threatening demands for five-star reviews to hide the evidence of what they've done. Sometimes multiple scams are involved. You know it the hackers aren't just coming after directly our money by trying to hack our businesses by trying to fool us into clicking on links or doing things that we shouldn't be doing, right? These scammers are all over the place. After this story that came out, Airbnb promised to "verify All 7 million listings on this site by December of this year 2020". Frankly, there's no way that they could do this. There's no way you could send investigators to all 7 million listings. He said, Well, we're going to have to take more responsibility for stuff on our platform. Yes, you will. You have to provide a firewall. Not just a firewall of the reviewers, the people who stay there and review can see the reviews that come in from the owners of these properties. That's not going to solve the problem. You need to make it so that there can not be retribution by the bad guys that have given Airbnb a bad name. Now I got to mention that my sister the one that booked that Airbnb for us in Florida, my sister has a house that she rents out in Park City, Utah, on Airbnb, and one of her daughters keeps it clean. I know my sister is not engaged in scams. I know that my niece is somebody who takes responsibility for things. I'm sure she keeps it clean. I don't want to paint the whole Airbnb, a website and people who are renting with a black brush here, I don't want to paint the whole rental market, including the VRBO with a black brush, but I've got to say 100% of the time I have had what I think are scams on both platforms. Now, that's my personal opinion, based on a handful of stays, and I know a handful of stays does not represent every listing on the platforms, right. I understand that. However, its the verification process, we're talking about here. I don't know that he's ever going to do it. How are you going to review and verify all 7 million listings on the Airbnb site within 12 months by December 2020? I don't know how you're going to do it. So let's go through the biggest scams according to vice.com number one, which they say is exceedingly common. It's across hundreds of emails. It's the bait and switch where Airbnb users were promised one apartment and arrived to find something very different. deceptive photos a bore no resemblance to what they found when they got there. My kids found this too. They rented some places in Italy when they did a tour, and you know, black mold everywhere just terrible. Okay? Other times and they were persuaded by those to switch apartments or houses entirely. It is a widespread thing where they say, hey, due to unforeseen circumstances, as a pipe broke, I'm going to have to move you to another one of our properties. Now under the rules for Airbnb, the owner does not get penalized if they push you to a property due to quote, unforeseen circumstances unquote, like a pipe break. But it turns out some of these people are using that unforeseen circumstance again and again and again. And they're showing up to their rental defined the new locations filthy, unfurnished on a different part of town. And they're saying that in a surprising number of stories, the original house was full of a weird amount of bear beds laid out and bizarre configurations, kind of sounds like that porn place my sister rented for the family in Florida, doesn't it? So here's one of the quotes I rented a place near Glass beach and a few weeks part of my trip. When I reached out to confirm the booking, the Lister told me she had a septic problem in the unit, and she would see if she'd put me if she could put her up in a more prominent place nearby. It never materialized, but she refused to cancel my booking, saying the first time that her computer wasn't working and the next time weeks later that her father just passed away. I had to complain to Airbnb that she refused to cancel the booking, so they canceled it, but I was unable to write a negative review. According to Vice again, they're saying the plumbing scam seems to rest on the idea Airbnb won't penalize a host if the house is uninhabitable. Okay, that's what I was saying. I've seen this before. So this goes on and on this whole bait and switch thing. Okay, next one, getting the guests to agree to move houses and the plumbing scam is often kind of segway into getting you to agree to move houses. Okay? So they will say, supposed to be this, you know, here's this complaint supposed to be quaint, quiet property in downtown. They get delayed by the homeowner stating that we'd need to change properties the last minute since it was only a quick two-night visit we weren't opposed. The new quote larger location was this scummy little apartment complex on the other side of town. Another one - Booking the Airbnb to multiple people at the same time. That's what happened to us in Vegas. When my wife and I showed up at this apartment through Airbnb, perhaps the most socially awkward Bait and switch is this one renting an Airbnb where you believe you booked the whole residence only to arrive and find a whole bunch of strangers there. That happened to us in Vegas. Multiple people told us they came to see other Airbnb guests at the house, or in some cases, people who seem to live there. It just goes on and on. Next one - money scams, paying outside the app. I mentioned this one early. It says it's a straightforward scam. Be careful. There's no be careful here, as there is no reason to do that. Fake damages - Man, I've heard about this from multiple people before mine. How can Airbnb police this? Did the guests damage the place? Okay. Oh man scam scams, you'll find more about this online. My advice? Use a hotel you trust us out of the hotel booking site, you believe. And I already told you, I use hotwire because I don't care what the brand is. I just want a good hotel, and I use the ratings from the people who stayed. Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back, everybody, Craig Peterson here on WGAN and online at Craig peterson.com. Hey, have you thought about how to follow along at home or on the road during the week? The easiest way to do that is to listen to my podcasts. Why not? I put it out there are multiple things, including this weekend show, but many other things that I include during the week, and you can subscribe to that as well on your favorite podcast platform. And it says Craig Peterson dot com slash iTunes. If you are an iTunes type of person or Craig peterson.com, slash tune in or slash I heart. Okay, I am kind of all over the place today. I appreciate everybody who does Listen to me and comments on things during the Week. You'll also find me on LinkedIn and Facebook and YouTube, but it is kind of over the place as I talk about some of the biggest stories of the week. Now we were just talking about scams that seem to be coming from Airbnb and VRBO, of course, but there is a lot of scams going one. We are going to get into one right now tied into the coronavirus. But first I just want to make mention of this other article that came out last month in January. And it's talking about computer literate millennials and Generation Z. These are the people that grew up with the internet. They've had the internet pretty much their whole lives. They found meaning the Federal Trade Commission has found that people ages 39 and under are more likely to report fraud than the 40 plus Crowd now here's the thinking. It isn't that the younger kids and millennials and Generation Z, it isn't as though they are less afraid to report that money has been stolen from them, it appears that they are more likely to fall victim to fraud 25% more likely. Now the millennials are less likely to fall for scams over the phone than people over 40, but 77% More likely, Millennials are 77% more likely to get duped by email scams and 90% more likely to lose money on a fake check scam. Now the thinking behind this is that those of us who are a little bit older, we hold the whole internet thing with a little bit more skepticism than our children and grandchildren do. Because we know that there are scammers out there. And we've heard all of the horror stories, whereas the younger kids are looking at it as well. It's the internet, and they just give their stuff away. We already know that there are studies that show that the millennials will give their email address away in trade for a single donut. Okay, so they don't value a lot of this stuff. You know, to me, well, it's a little bit concerning, and it should be to you. But let's get into the latest scam that's out there right now. It isn't the Airbnb scam, which has been out there for a few years now. As I said, hey, I've been burned what, four or five times by this overall, personally. So I'm just to the point I just don't use it anymore period. It's a real shame because there are some good people out there. But this has to do with what's been happening. Now it is happening with the Coronavirus, and this is a huge deal. We had one day this week, where 15,000 new cases were reported. Supposedly, it was due to a change in the way China was tracking the Coronavirus and diagnosing people. So they're saying, Hey, listen, it's you know is just a change. Don't expect this to indicate that more viruses are spreading out there. And frankly, I look at it and say, Well, maybe there are there aren't. But what we're seeing are some rather sophisticated phishing scams going on. Phishing, of course, this is the one spelled with a Ph. It is where an attacker tricks you into doing something. It might be clicking on a link. It might be responding to an email. It might also be a phishing scam over the phone or, you know, SMS a text one which would be called smishing. A whole new type of phishing this going on right now. Well, last week, IBM and Kaspersky now Kaspersky is a Russian anti-virus company. They are also trying to stop the general spread of malware. The State Department, the FBI, Homeland Security, not to use Kaspersky software, but they do have good information. So when I see Kaspersky, combined with IBM, a company I do respect, then that does kind of make my years and help if you will. Still, IBM and Kaspersky caught hackers in Japan, trying to spread malware through emails, and the emails had links about the Coronavirus outbreak that started, of course, in Wuhan China last month in January. Now adding Sophos and now, of course, Cisco to the list. They have found phishing emails from cybercriminals, purporting to be from the Center for Disease Control, as well as the World Health Organization. And what these bad guys are trying to do is to steal your email credentials and other information. The emails are coming from several domains, including CDC dash gov.org, which, of course, is not the real CDC website. So be very careful if you are trying to find out information about the CDC or the spread of coronavirus about flu in general. For instance, in my home state of New Hampshire, we have I think it's seven deaths so far this year reported g attribute To the flu in general, not the Coronavirus. Every year about 12 to 16,000 people in the United States die from the flu. So far, we've only got 14 cases reported of Coronavirus. At this stage everybody, this is nothing to get all freaky worried about. Okay, so calm down. If you want more, go to cdc.gov. CDC Centers for Disease Control - cdc.gov, tells you what to do now. The current Coronavirus has an official name now. It's called covin-19 co vi n dash 19. There are multiple versions of Coronaviruses, which is why they identify each with a number. We have had a report in the past about Coronaviruses, and they have killed people previously. So you'll see Right at the top of the cdc.gov website, information about the Coronavirus and its spread. It is a respiratory disease and potentially fatal. It doesn't seem to be increasingly more fatal than some of the other viruses that we've had. Let's put all this in context. And when you get an email from someone saying, hey, look at this, you click on this link, to get information about the Coronavirus. It's going to let you track the spread of etc. don't respond. If you get a text message, don't respond. I got one because I'm a member of the Great and Powerful media, right. I got one last week that was sent out to members of the press saying, Hey, we got this new tracking site. You just can't be cautious enough when it comes to this. So if you go to CDC Gov at the top, You'll see the description here about the Covid-19. You can click on that, and it'll show you a global map about the location of reported cases and what is happening. So, I'm looking at one, and it's about one day behind. It looks like right now for Covid-19. But you can see all of the countries that have been reporting it. Then you can also look at the hard statistics. People under investigation in the United States, exactly how many 14 positives, you'll see that there. Of course, it changes daily. You can see how many tested negative and how many pending, the people are under investigation. Remember, the airplane full of workers from the State Department that came back from China. They have now been under quarantine for more than 14 days. They release them all from quarantine because it turns out, nobody had that virus. So just because you have the flow doesn't mean it's Coronavirus. More cases over on the left coast and the Midwest, which is kind of surprising to me than there are on the East Coast or the Mid Atlantic, etc., etc. So have a look there. Do not respond to emails or texts or phone calls. Okay? Just be very, very careful because the hackers are imitating this sort of thing. The other side of this is they are sending out messages seeking donations. They are asking for Bitcoin donations to the World Health Organization can tell you right now, the World Health Organization, the CDC, they are not taking Bitcoin donations, okay. So don't go and donate. Right And again, the CDC gov.org is the band guys CD see.gov is the good guys. The scam page is straightforward. It, you know, took the scammers, maybe just a few minutes to put together. It's handy, and it looks legit. And the FBI and, of course, also Homeland Security are taking down these pages as soon as they can, but they can't always get rid of them right away. And companies, we've got to be proactive. We've got to chain train our employees, not to follow up on these scams. So again, that's part of the reason for my newsletters. I report on the biggest scams that are going on. I try and keep it down to just a few a week. You can share them with your employees, share them with your family, but you have to get them to share them. Go to Craig peterson.com slash subscribe, and you'll get those as well stick around. We'll be right back on WGAN. Hey, welcome back, everybody. Craig Peterson here on WGAN, and thanks for joining us today. Hopefully, you picked up a lot of good information. We're just talking about the CDC some of the scams that are out there right now from the Coronavirus, including one involving Bitcoin, which kind of surprised me. We talked a lot in the first hour about the major scams on Airbnb, where you can rent apartments or homes for a day or a week or a month, almost anywhere. It's really quite neat. But the major scams have been going on there and how I've seen them personally and why I will never use it ever again. If you want to listen to that, just go to Craig Peterson comm slash tune in, you can subscribe right there. Listen to me, live by the way on tune in when I'm on the radio. He And when I'm on with canon Matt, the morning drive every Wednesday at 737, every Wednesday morning, as well. And those are all on tune in. Now, we're going to talk a little bit about this whole thing with the ACLU and their current fight. I spoke about something similar to this a couple of years ago, man, maybe actually the first time was probably about ten years ago. There are companies out there, and they gather information about us. They're called Data brokers. I have visited some of these data brokers sites themselves, I mean, physical sites, where the company operates where they have their data collections, to help them with security problems that they have, and to help prevent problems from occurring, right. That's what I do for living full time. It was probably ten years ago, the radio show that I talked with some of these companies. What they do is they collect open-source information that's used a lot by the government for any number of things from financial transactions to investigations. And you can use open-source information yourself. All you do is go to Google, for instance, and do a search. That's the open-source information. It's anything that anyone can gain access to, without having to be a police officer without having to go and really kind of, you know, get a court order kind of be surreptitious and how you gather that's open source. So the data break, brokers will take all of that, and that can include depending on the state you're living, driver's license information, it can include information about the mortgage for your home. It can include you know the ownership of your home, and it can include just all kinds of stuff. That becomes very, very difficult to control. Because all of your information is out there. It's available for free or for cheap on the internet. So these data brokers, they might buy it from the county, they might get it an open-source. Some of this information will contain data from your mortgage, will contain your signature, the deed to your home is going to contain the signature, the automobiles that you own. There's going to be UCC filings with the Secretary of State's office, detailing what cars you own, who the lien holders are, and how much money is involved all of this stuff. So it all gets pulled into these databases. I mentioned on the show a few months ago, a couple of months ago that we were out in Las Vegas at a wedding and of course, you know, doing work while I'm out there and I'm sitting They're on the couch doing work for some of our Las Vegas clients. And there's a knock at the door. And who's there? Well, it's an insurance investigator investigating an accident that it was a fatal accident. And of course, the insurance company had been asked to payout. So they came to this home because they had information that it that the person involved I had a contact with someone at this address, which indeed she did. It was her sister, and apparently, the driver had been responsible for this fatal death. The driver listed one of my sisters in law. She had died about six months before the accident. So obviously, it was all fate. The insurance investigator showed my wife all of this information she had from one of these data brokers. It listed my deceased sister in law's relatives, everybody, every address she had ever had. There were names and contact information for some of my kids. However, it had a lot of incorrect information, including supposed current addresses and voting information for relatives deceased for over two decades. When I've looked at the data brokers' information about me, about half of it's correct, but the other half is completely incorrect. And that's still the case because they had a lot of completely incorrect information. People that they said were relatives that weren't people we'd never heard of before. They said these were direct relatives of hers. At any rate, they had purchased all of this information from a Data Broker. In collections, this is called a skip trace. It's called a skip trace for people who jumped bail, etc. Man, we should talk to about this whole bail thing, and the idiocy in New York state that is spreading country-wide dog, the bounty hunter and his wife, Beth had been fighting this for a long time because it's making us much, much less safe. But anyhow, that's not a topic for today's show. It's not a political topic, because it's undeniable what's already happening with the increase in the crime rate in New York anyways. What the government is doing now is what I was warning about a decade ago. That is that the federal government, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, of the IRS, you name it, they are limited in how they can collect information, we kind of already knew that right? You know that they had to get a search warrant for certain things right. They can follow you around, without any expectation of privacy, etc., etc. So So obviously, federal government agencies can use open-source information to see what you're doing online. But how about the closed source stuff? How about this stuff that the data brokers are collecting? Some of it they're getting from the people who lent you money, some of it they're getting from places where you have to pay to get that information. So, what's happened here is that the ACLU has filed a suit, according to The Wall Street Journal, against Homeland Security. Homeland Security, through its Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, as well as Customs and Border Protection, is buying geolocation data from these data brokers and choosing to investigate suspects who have allegedly committed immigration violations. So let me boil all that down into plain English. You might be using games on your smartphone, and you might be using all kinds of apps on your smartphone. If you have a smartphone, frankly, you're probably not using 90 95% of those apps that you have downloaded. But many of those apps are tracking you. And that information is being sold to data brokers. So think about that for a minute. Remember that free app and how you've heard me and many others for so many years say, hey, you're not the customer. You are the product. Well, what's happening here now is that the ACLU is saying to the federal government, hey, you cannot buy the information that by law your organization cannot collect. You cannot buy it from data brokers or these app developers who are selling it. Interesting question, interesting problem, isn't it? What should they do? What should you do? What can you do? It is going to play out in court, and I suspect it's going to come down on the side of the Department of Homeland Security because this information is generally available to anyone willing to pay for it. So now the government stepped forward, saying we are will pay for it. By the way, this goes down to local law enforcement as well. In many cases, they are also buying this information from the data brokers. So let's stick around when we come back. We're going to talk about shadow IT. If you don't know what it is, it's a problem if you're in business. Hey, welcome back, everybody Craig Peterson here on WGAN. Thanks for joining me and for spending part of your Saturday with me. If you're listening to this on a podcast at Craig Peterson dot com slash tune in, thanks for joining me, some listen to me while they're driving to and from work and find the various segments of my show, which are about ten-ish minutes long, really work well into their day. So if you're doing that, thank you if you're not, please do consider it. I try and keep everybody up to date with the information that you need to know. And that leads us to what we got right now. Which is shadow IT. Now I bet there is not a co

After starting podcasting several years ago, I had no idea where my podcasting journey would take me. And it's still an excellent opportunity to refine and grow my process as I explore podcasting further in 2020. All that being said, you're tuning into the 100th episode of this podcast. I've gone through some changes since I launched, such as niching down even further to content that will specifically help freelancers. And I took an 18 month break in between ending that sort of first season of my podcast and rebooting in 2019. That being said, if you're a new listener to this show, I wanted to do a recap for this 100th episode of the top 10 episodes that are the most downloaded, the most talked about, the ones that I feel are the best and can be the most helpful for freelancers. So I'm going to recap these 10 episodes for you to give you a brief introduction about what that episode is about and why it's important. This would not be a good episode to listen to if you are driving, exercising, or not able to easily write things down. If you are able to write things down, you can grab these episode numbers and make note of the ones that you want to go and take a listen to. 10. Episode 91 A relatively recent episode that is all about the freelancers guide to raising your rates. I get questions about people raising their rates all the time. It does not have to be that complicated. It's important to raise your rates on a regular basis. But a lot of freelancers seem to get stumped with this idea of how they should do this.  I get questions like: Do I do this across my entire business? Do I keep my current clients at the rates they have? How do I break this news to current clients that I'm thinking about having a rate increase? How often should I do it? How much should that increase be? This is an area where a lot of freelancers tend to overthink. So if you're confused about some of my recommended approaches, check out “Episode 91: The Freelancers Guide to Raising Your Rates”. 9. Episode 10 This is one of my favorite time management and productivity tips, the Pomodoro Technique. I use the Pomodoro Technique every single day. And Episode 10 is called “Pump Up Your Business with the Pomodoro Technique” because it really has the potential to be a game changer and help you lay out your dates more effectively. One of the biggest mistakes that I see a lot of people make is trying to work in really long uninterrupted stretches and thinking, “Well, you know, if I spend six hours on this project, I can knock it out from beginning to end.” What tends to happen for most people is that that's too overwhelming and too long. So thinking about how you can chunk your work into smaller segments, and remain hyper focused during that period, is really what the Pomodoro Technique is all about. In this episode, I gave you some ideas for how to get started. And then some of the different timers and tools that I recommend or have used with the Pomodoro Technique. Now, there's been a lot of really good research about how many pomodoros, which typically means 25 minute work segments, but can also refer to 50 minute work segments, are optimal in a day? This isn't a situation where you want to take that eight hour work day and say that you're going to have 16 pomodoro in that period with no breaks beyond five minutes in between each one. There's definitely a sweet spot to hit there with several focused work periods per day. But not overloading yourself, because your brain really has a hard time keeping up with that. 8. Episode 17 I would love for you to go back and listen to Episode 17, where I had guest Catherine Morehouse talking about the power of niching down. Now a lot of freelancers and freelance coaches will tell you that you should never niche down.  That is something I do not agree with. Because I think that niching down has the potential for you to start charging as an expert and really be a specialty provider. If you are just a writer, there are so many writers that you have no way to distinguish yourself. And niching down doesn't have to mean that you claim one particular industry or one type of project and you do that forever. With freelancing you have a tremendous amount of flexibility. But we talk in this episode about how focusing on the clients you like to serve best makes you become the go to person for that service. So go listen to Episode 17 if you're curious about whether or not you might want to niche down in 2020. 7. Episode 23 Switching back over to these time management and productivity tips, This one is called “Stop Changing Lanes in Your Brain”. This is another thing that I coach freelancers about a lot. And it works hand in hand with the Pomodoro techniques that I covered in Episode 10. Changing lanes in your brain by constantly switching between different types of tasks is not just exhausting, it's really inefficient. And yet, it's the way that 90% of freelancers run their business. Choosing instead to batch your work and to focus on particular tasks during certain blocks of time is much more likely to make you feel successful and not as exhausted at the end of the day. So check out Episode 23 if you want to learn a little bit more about what I mean by changing lanes in your brain and how you can kind of break out of some of those bad habits. 6. Episode 26 Another challenge into that basis, a lot of freelancers, especially those who are scaling, is shiny object syndrome. This is the idea that you see a new project or idea and you run with it all the way before fully evaluating it. And that takes your focus away from some of the activities that you really need to be doing to grow your business. So Episode 26 with guest Rita Morales is perfect if you're thinking about how to cope with shiny object syndrome. How much is enough? When is an idea just an idea that you should store as a potential future thing to explore? And when is it something you need to take action on right away? 5. Episode 94 I just recently recorded this episode.  It is a must must must listen to episode. This was with guest, Mariam Tsaturyan. And we were talking about freelance contracts. What goes into a contract? What mistakes do freelancers make when putting together contracts? What clauses are Must have, or clauses that you should be aware of when they come to you and a client provided contract? Mariam is not just an attorney, she is a freelancer herself. And she sells some amazing templates to help you get started so you don't have to pay hundreds of dollars to an attorney. So that's Episode 94. Any Freelancer in business for themselves has to know how to use contracts. So I strongly recommend that episode. 4. Episode 54 This episode is all about choosing the right clients. I had a guest on the show who was an editor and we talked a lot about what it really means to define who your ideal client is and how to work specifically and mostly with those clients. If you've been listening to this podcast for any period of time, you know that I am a big advocate of only working with the right clients.  The right client means your ideal clients, the rock stars that you want to build your business around. But so many freelancers get tied into this idea of wanting to work with everyone and making themselves a little too available to those potential clients. In this episode, you'll hear from both me and my guest Elizabeth, what it means to choose the right clients and what that looks like for us. Because even though it's important that everyone should implement only working with their ideal clients, that's going to look different from one freelancer to another. And it's up to you to determine what your ideal client avatar is. A lot of freelancers get hung up on, “Well, should I only work with one particular type of client? Should I only work with one type of industry? Is that what it means to say that I have an ideal client?” Sometimes you can go too far with that and you limit yourself as far as what opportunities are coming to you. So it's important to think about what's that perfect balance that I can implement in my business that is going to be really successful for me to attract the right people and also repel the wrong people. Because you definitely want to make sure that you have a nice balance between those two things. And I've got a great freebie that goes along really well with that, and it is called “Creating an Ideal Client Avatar”. You can visit https://www.betterbizacademy.com/creating-an-ideal-client-avatar/. There is a PDF there that can help you walk through figuring out who your ideal client is. 3. Episode 71 I believe this episode is a must listen.  It is all about toxic freelance clients. And it's interesting because since I recorded this episode, I've seen so many people own that term of toxic freelance clients and use it in their own way. So it's been really interesting to see how that has kind of spread from what I define a toxic freelance client as working with the wrong person or the wrong team can be really detrimental to your mental and physical health and also the way that you feel about your business every day. So listen in on some examples of what toxic freelance clients can be, and how to figure out if you are currently working with one. 2. Episode 75 Another must listen is the episode that comes in the number two spot on this top 10 list. That's “Episode 75: What to Do When Nothing is Converting with Your Clients”. Nothing drives me crazier than someone who says, “I've been pitching for two years and haven't had any results.” Never wait until the point where it's been six months, a year, or even two years before you ask questions about what you could be doing more effectively and figuring out why nothing is landing. When I've worked one on one with freelancers in this situation, 9 of 10 times there's something wrong in their process. That's pretty easily fixed. It could be that their pitches are terrible or their work samples don't speak to what they're claiming in their pitch. They're targeting the wrong clients or they're not pitching enough. And so all of those things are really within your control as a freelancer and business owner. So listen in on what I recommend you do, based on where you're at in your business and some of the challenges that you're having if nothing is working. 1.    Episode 80 And number one on the list of Top 10 episodes is “Episode 80: 10 Habits of Successful Six Figure Freelancers”. At the time I'm recording this episode, I am working on the final draft for my second book, which will come out in October 2020, “The Six Figure Freelancer”. I've done a lot of interviews with other six figure freelancers.  And I've worked with quite a few aspiring and current six figure freelancers in a coaching capacity. I've taken some of the things that they all have in common, or some of the habits they tend to most frequently have or work towards, to be successful. Even if your goal isn't to have a six figure or multi six figure business, it's very important to think about the mindsets and the habits that other people who run a business at that level have. Because even adopting some of those could help you with your time management, your client selection, or with the way that you attract clients to you. You may be thinking, “I don't have the time or the interest to build a six figure freelance business.” It's still valuable to listen in to those different habits and workflows that six figure freelancers adopt because it can really make a difference in your business, even if you are only a side hustler. That's my top 10 favorite episodes of this podcast since I launched in 2017. Remember, if you have an episode idea, you can submit that to info@betterbizacademy.com. For those of you who have been tuning in since the beginning, thanks for hanging around until Episode 100. And I hope the future episodes continue to serve you just as well and help you really scale your freelance business. Thanks for tuning in for another episode of the advanced freelancing podcast. For more freelance advice, get a copy of my book Start Your Own Freelance Writing Business—available now! Buy it from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and more.

Depression and sadness is real; and for me it comes when I'm out of alighment. When I've walked away from God or im not feeling respected. The feeling of rage can build up, but how can we turn that rage into productivity?

BE SURE TO SEE THE SHOWNOTES AND LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE. Eve Picker: [00:00:14] Hi there. Thanks so much for joining me today for the latest episode of Impact Real Estate Investing.   [00:00:23] My guest today is Tom Murphy, Pittsburgh's turnaround mayor. He oversaw the difficult, but transformative transition of the city from the mid-1990s to mid-2000s. Those were turbulent times and included many highlights and many struggles. During his tenure, he declared a budget crisis, built two stadiums, created a $60 million development fund and built many miles of river trails. Tom Murphy is an authentic city expert.   Eve: [00:01:03] Be sure to go to EvePicker.com to find out more about Tom on the show notes page for this episode, and be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you can access information about impact real estate investing and get the latest news about the exciting projects on my crowdfunding platform, Small Change.   Eve: [00:01:38] Hello, Tom, I'm so delighted that you found time to join me today.   Tom Murphy: [00:01:42] I'm always honored to be with you. You were one of the pioneers in many developments in Pittsburgh when very few people saw the opportunity.   Eve: [00:01:50] You were the second longest serving mayor in the history of Pittsburgh. And in 1994, when Pittsburgh wasn't sure what it was going to become, was really on the verge of collapse. And you shepherded the city through a very turbulent transition from a place that had emptied out with the closing of steel mills and suburban flight, to a city transformed almost every respect. And I was in Pittsburgh for every moment of it. So, you reshaped Pittsburgh, kicking and screaming all the way.   Tom: [00:02:22] Underlining kicking and screaming, Eve. As you remember, every time we tried to do something, there were, there was controversy. I mean, it just, it was amazing to me.   Eve: [00:02:34] Well, this is slightly conservative city, so maybe that was part of it, but people couldn't imagine what you imagined. When you begin with a city that has lost its industry and half its people?   Tom: [00:02:47] Well, I'm a product of that, I mean, my father worked for 51 years at Jones & Laughlin Steel steel mill on the South Side. So, my whole life was defined by the shifts he worked there, I mean ... you know, he was, he worked in the mill. I mean, he wasn't a boss or anything, he just worked in the mill and our lives were shaped by that and ... and sort of everybody I knew pretty much, their lives were tied to the mill. And so I grew up with that. And to watch that disappear in the, really the 70s and the 80s, I was a state legislator on the North Side, and I don't think people appreciate how incredibly destructive it is for families. You know, where you had very traditional families where the husband went to work in the mill, you can make a good living, buy a house, buy a car, take a vacation and now all of a sudden that disappeared. You know, the wives went to work, kids who had thought about going to college deferred that, you know, we lost a whole generation from Western Pennsylvania – 500,000 people left and they were overwhelmingly are our kids, young people who were leaving, because they didn't see a future in Pittsburgh. And so having come through that, having lived it, you know, on the North Side, where we've lived for almost 50 years now, and how destructive it was, never thinking I would be mayor. When I became mayor, I mean, my focus was how do we stabilize this situation? And to do that, we needed to re-imagine Pittsburgh in lots of different ways. In how we educate kids, because you didn't need a high school education, let alone a college education to work in a steel mill. And you know, what we did with all this land, all of these industrial, thousands of acres of industrial property. And the culture of Pittsburgh, which, you know, was almost opposed in the technology industry because they were seen as non-union.   Tom: [00:04:40] And so we went through huge controversies in talking about re-imagining Pittsburgh. And now we've come out the other side and, you know, it looks very different.   Eve: [00:04:51] It does. Did you have a strategy from day one?   Tom: [00:04:57] Well, I laugh at that. I mean, hindsight always gives you the strategy. But we did in the sense that we felt we needed five things, right? We needed money. We were a flat broke city and ... you know, essentially, as you said, I mean, close to bankruptcy. And we needed to figure out how we will get money so we could invest in Pittsburgh and entice developers. Two, we wanted land control. A lot of this land was tied up in bankruptcies and it was, you know, uncertain titles. And so, a developer who has a choice of buying a 100-acre greenfield site or 100-acre steel mill site, they're going to buy the greenfield site. It's safer. And the third was that we needed a really good team of people who were going to be public entrepreneurs, in effect, that were willing to take risk. And the fourth thing we needed, we needed a vision. We needed to be, to sort of know where we wanted to go. And the fifth thing is we needed good public-private partnerships. We needed people who believed that Pittsburgh could be a different place. And you remember back then, Eve, you were one of the few people that ...   Eve: [00:06:08] Yeh.   Tom: [00:06:08] ... were willing to invest in places like East Liberty. It was very hard to get local developers to re-imagine Pittsburgh. They had their little niche. They were comfortable in it. They've been through 30 years of decline. And so all those ingredients, you know, we talked about them when I ran for mayor. And people obviously voted for me. But when we started to do this stuff, they said we didn't know you meant that. So where do we get money? And the first month or so I was Mayor we reduced the city's workforce, reduced the number of police officers we had, then shifted six million dollars of that money annually to finance a $60 million bond issue, which we called the Pittsburgh Development Fund, which gave us money to invest in the future. In every city, I mean, I talk, I meet with cities a lot and talk to them and that's one of the challenges they face is, your demands for the day-to-day. Just 'today' is huge in a city. I mean, everybody wants more police. Nobody's streets are getting salted enough, and potholes, and if you just spend the stuff on all your resources on today, nothing changes. I mean, you're Pittsburgh and in Pittsburgh we were still declining, so the challenge was how do we get some of those resources and use it to invest in the future, which entails risk.   Tom: [00:07:27] The second thing we did, Eve, we went out and bought, as you know, Mulugetta Birru was head of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, and we had him go out and buy almost 1500 acres of land. You know, we bought what was then the South Side works of Jones & Laughlin. We bought the slag dump in Squirrel Hill. We bought the old Sears site in East Liberty. And then, you know, we looked at each other and said, what do we do with this stuff? And that's when we began to form great partnerships with developers. Somebody like you who was willing to invest in that old building in East Liberty and, you know, and others. And the $60 million gave us the ability to create really creative and effective public-private partnerships that share the risk with developers who believe that Pittsburgh could be a different place. That's what we did.   Eve: [00:08:17] I was going to ask the question that, do you believe developers played an important role in the transformation of the city? Obviously you do.   Tom: [00:08:24] I do. I think place is everything. I think it has huge impact on how people live, I think, like crime rates, a whole host of other things. How they, what they think about themselves. I mean, if I live in a neighborhood that has, half the buildings are vacant and there's a lot of litter and everything, you know, I come out my door every morning, I probably have a different reaction than if I live in a neighborhood that has lots of gardens and clean. And so I think that, it has huge impact. And so developers, from our point of view, as you know, were really important partners. And this is, I tell this story all the time, is when we started to see things happen, developers would come and say, Mayor, I have a great idea for you. And we'd say, with all due respect, tell us why it's a great idea for you. And we'll decide whether it's a great idea for us, and if our self interests come together, we'll figure out how to be a good partner and share the risk with you. But that assumed we knew what we wanted and so that was one of the really big challenges. As you remember early in my administration, I had a really great planning director, Eloise Hirsh, who really helped shape that vision, as well as Tom Cox and Mulu and Steve Leaper, really helped shape that whole vision of what Pittsburgh could be. It was really reimagining, you know, old steel mills in the South Side and a slag dump in Squirrel Hill. And so we were looking at, not to ignore other things, but we were looking for things that could be catalytic, that could change people's image of Pittsburgh. And the ballparks obviously help with that, too. I mean that when I was running for mayor, I wasn't planning to be, have anything to do with sports stadiums. And that sort of was one of the challenges of running the city, as you know, I didn't think about it. And then all of a sudden, it's the number-one topic.   Eve: [00:10:17] Well, it's always the number one topic in Pittsburgh. Sports, so.   [00:10:20] Well, unfortunately, I mean, I don't know if you know the story, Eve. As I, when I ran for mayor, I was elected mayor in November. In early December, the then-owners of the Pirates gave me a letter that said they intended to sell the team. I don't even know this, that Dick Caligiuri many years ago had signed an agreement with the team that if ever they were going to sell it, that the city would in affect own the team for nine months in which they would be required to find a buyer. And if we couldn't in nine months find a buyer, then the team could be sold to another city. And so there I was, having run on crimes, jobs and taxes, now owning a baseball team. It really, literally when I was running in November, I had no idea that the first year of my time as mayor, two years, would be dominated by trying to figure out how to build a baseball park and a football stadium and a convention center. So, that's life, right? So, we had to figure it out, right?   Eve: [00:11:20] When the sun goes down, with Downtown as a backdrop, it's a very special place.   Tom: [00:11:27] Well, it's a, my favorite seat in PNC Park, regardless of what the team is doing, is that, at the very highest point in the left field stands, and because the view of the city at dusk like that is incredible.   Eve: [00:11:41] Was the Pittsburgh Development Fund the most important thing that you implemented? Were there the other programs or policies with very big impact?   Tom: [00:11:49] Well, what's the Development Fund gave us is, it gave us the ability to be, to be flexible. When I go to lots of cities, they would say, we'd love to do this, but we don't have any money. The money, for better, for worse, becomes a really important part of being able to pursue your dreams. And so the Development Fund was our money in the sense that we didn't have to look to the state or the federal government, you know, to wait for months or a year before you figure out whether you're going to get the money or not. We also, as you know, in the URA, people at the URA led by Mulu and Steve, were very entrepreneurial in understanding how they used tax increment financing and other federal and state sources, so it ... it was fairly typical, it might be true in your deal, your deals that you were doing, is that you were getting sources of money from 10 or 12 different sources. And what I have found is that's unusual in a lot of cities, that cities are not entrepreneurial like that, of understanding how you mix and match money to make a deal work. So, what I say, Eve, is it's really, it's really a market driven approach, is that basically you as a developer come and say, you know, I want to do this building, but this is what the bank is going to lend me, and there's this gap in financing, and if it's something we want to see happen, we being the city in this case, then we become your partner and figure out how to help finance it, whether it's our Development Fund or other sources.   Eve: [00:13:30] My experience with the Liberty Bank Building was very typical. I think I had 12 sources of financing.   Tom: [00:13:36] Yeh.   Eve: [00:13:36] Most of the URA money, which I'm really glad gets to be recycled. But Mulu was extremely entrepreneurial. He, first of all, he didn't quite trust me when we started ...   Tom: [00:13:36] Well, but you were a small developer at the time, right? With not a long track record. But with great ideas.   Eve: [00:14:05] There were really interesting meetings. I really became very fond of Mulu. So, but he, you know, his approach was, look, we have this amount of money. 300,000 dollars out of this pot of money, or whatever it was. And you need two million. Go away and think about how it might work. And so I would come back and I'd say, look, I could make it work if you took little interest payments for two years or, you know, whatever, whatever it was that made it to some sort of stabilized scenario. I learned a lot. And then, you know, things shifted very much, and I think the URA lost a lot of its funding in the mid-2000s and the banks got more skittish and it all changed, right?   Tom: [00:14:49] Well, it did and it didn't. I mean, I think the philosophy in the city changed and maybe ... so I was saying this about being market driven. Mulu met with you and you convinced him that the market was what it was, that without flexible public money that could defer interest or payments even for a few years, that that this deal was not going to happen, and we wanted it to happen, and so we would make the loan. The market has become much better in Pittsburgh, though. You were, you know, in my view, the early bird gets the worm in this case, in the case of your building, you were, you were the early bird. Is that you got better financing then maybe after the market's healthy. So, we tried to be market sensitive in that sense. And at the same time, recognize that we wanted these deals to happen, so we were willing to put, risk public money. I think the key to it, what I learned about myself in this, Eve, as I was, I am not a good day-to-day manager, but I understood how to hire good people and just give them room. And if a deal blew up, you know, that's what's going to get reported on the news. But I need to be willing to support the people if they did the deal for the right reasons and it just didn't work. And we had some of those done, you know, Fifth and Forbes Downtown was one of those examples. But we were willing to take those risks, whether it was with you or other developers, that we didn't know with the market, we didn't know if people would move and live on a slag dump in Squirrel Hill or, you know, live in apartments in South Side. We didn't know what the market was. We were way out there and that was the risk involved in this, and using public money.   Eve: [00:16:33] I moved to Pittsburgh accidentally and was kind of involved in all of this on the periphery, and it really shaped my life. The way I think about cities is very different now. So, thank you for that. The plan that did not work out was the redevelopment plan to reshape Downtown which...   Tom: [00:16:49] Actually it worked though didn't it? I mean, four of the five blocks that we were going to acquire have been redeveloped.   Eve: [00:16:57] Yes, it did work. But my question was, yeah, it just took time, didn't it? Took time for people to get used to the idea.   Tom: [00:17:04] Well, it looks differently than what we would have, I mean, we were more focused on a retail strategy and it might or might not have worked. I don't know.   Eve: [00:17:12] Well, today with Amazon, it might have backfired again.   Tom: [00:17:15] And that's where you don't, I don't know with today's retailing whether it would have worked or not. If we would have been able to put together sort of what we were thinking. But, in any case, all five blocks have now been redeveloped, that we focused on. And it's a much more vibrant place. We could see the decline there. I mean, we could look at the sales numbers of businesses that were there and just see the decline of what was going on, and I think felt the need to try to intervene, you know, and maybe did it really in a clumsy kind of way. And but, you know, at the end of the day, it was a necessary intervention that ended up working. PNC played a big part, was a big partner in that with their new building   Eve: [00:17:59] Yes. It was really difficult, I remember. What would you do differently today? A different city.   Tom: [00:18:06] When I've come to really love is the public spaces. So, in East Liberty, I think we would have had, we had the opportunity, which we didn't do, to create a sort of a central plaza somewhere there. That we could have really recreated a much more, you know, in a public space, it can be the most democratic place in the city. And so, I mean and so with Home Depot, we were looking to make a democratic place where people, wealthy people and poor people would all shop. If I had done East Liberty thoughtfully more, maybe we would have created a public space like that, too. And Market Square, in many ways, plays that role Downtown now. There's a public space where people of, with all incomes and all backgrounds show up. And so even in smaller neighborhoods like Lawrenceville and other places, because there were such, you know, abandonment of property, we had opportunities to really create better public spaces, little town squares. Because one of the strengths of Pittsburgh is with its 90 neighborhoods is, is that we have this real sense of communities and I've come to appreciate that much more. And we really would have focused more on creating places where that community can play out in neighborhoods like Lawrenceville and other places. I go to China a fair amount. Not recently. thank goodness. And when I, I get up early in the morning to go for a run and one of the things I see there, and China has done a very bad job of creating public spaces, but where there is public spaces like at six, seven o'clock in the morning, there are hundreds of people there in the plaza doing tai chi or dancing to a boombox. It's this great sense of community. There's lots of older people or people running. And you can see feel this community, I mean, people talking and laughing. Every morning they're there. And we don't have that tradition in America. But it would be wonderful. We did, but but we ought to create places where that happens. You know, the Blue Slide Playground is a place like that in Squirrel Hill. I mean, famous now because of Mac Miller.   Eve: [00:20:24] I visited Beijing three years ago, and the photo I loved the most from there is a small urban park which had exercise equipment in it. And in fact, I saw this several times ...   Tom: [00:20:34] Right.   Eve: [00:20:35] ... exercise equipment, really basic. And you could see people all congregating, and doing their little exercises in the park, open to everyone, It was fabulous.   Tom: [00:20:46] Right. We did a half step under Eloise's leadership in public works. We made a decision to rebuild all of our 100 and some neighborhood parks, like the Blue Slide Playground or the Schenley Park, and also many of the smaller ones. And we would have community meetings and we would hire landscape architects who would meet with the community and, you know, with the playbooks. And then they would work to design the kind of playground they wanted. They would given a budget, 100, 150 thousand dollars, and they could pick from the play equipment books, the playground they wanted. But the instinct we had was right, but we should have expanded it. And in many neighborhoods where, like Homewood. I mean, you have an opportunity in Homewood, still today, I think, to create a really great plaza that would become the center of Homewood, and how you would do that. And East Liberty represented that opportunity. I mean, there were, as you remember, lots of vacant land there that was tax, you know, essentially abandoned. So that's probably one of my bigger regrets, was not creating places where that sense of community can play out.   Eve: [00:21:58] What do you love most about Pittsburgh? I know you still live here.   Tom: [00:22:01] Our strength and our weakness is our parochialism and that's what I love most ... is that we're an unusually friendly city. I'm in Washington four days a week, right? And my habit in Pittsburgh is pretty much everybody you see, even before I was mayor, but when I'm mayor I don't know whether I know them or not, or they know me. So you say hello to people, right? You get on an elevator, you say good morning, right? People, you do that in Washington, D.C. people look at you like you're ... going to rob them. You know, it's a weird feeling for me. I see that in lots of cities. I would just did Orlando for a couple of days that I felt it there. Same thing, is that, sort of people don't make eye contact, don't acknowledge. I mean, if there was just two of you in a place, that you don't, they don't acknowledge you.   Eve: [00:22:50] You know, that's interesting. There are other cities like, I think Atlanta and Detroit are very friendly. I always notice it when I go there.   Tom: [00:22:56] Yeah. So it's, and I hear that. It's funny, I mean, when I speak, and I was in 50 cities last year, so I end up engaging with thousands of people. One, is the numbers of people that have lived in Pittsburgh. You know, I mean, that's sort of the legacy. I always say you're our failures. We couldn't give you a reason to stay, you know, there's so many people that left in the 70s and the 80s. And the other is inevitably people who are not from Pittsburgh. I just was talking to a guy in Orlando yesterday who, his daughter and he, and they've never had any connection with Pittsburgh, but she loves the Pittsburgh Penguins. And they go to Pittsburgh every year to see a couple of Penguins game, and he was telling me he's going in March and, you know, he said, I've never been to a friendlier place in my life. Everybody talks to you and it's just, it's a great place, right? We don't even think of that. And that's partly what I like. And I think that's the strength of Pittsburgh. When I say parochial is that we are really, those of us who are from Pittsburgh or who moved there, you become really rooted in your neighborhood, and in the city. I think in places like Orlando, that is, you know, a lot of Florida cities in California and even Texas cities. You know, there's lots of new residents. And so they don't have that kind of history. And so I, that's part of the challenge of Pittsburgh. How to keep that, and at the same time not have it be a deterrent to making Pittsburgh a competitive city.   Eve: [00:24:28] But you know, I think what's most interestingly Pittsburgh, about Pittsburgh to me, is again, I've always thought it's topography saved it from becoming what Detroit has become.   Tom: [00:24:40] Oh, I think definitely, I mean, the hills and valleys and how Pittsburgh is defined, I think is a large part because of its topography. You know, I learned that running for office when I was in the legislature, when I first ran for the legislature. If you confuse people from Spring Garden with people from Spring Hill, they will never vote for you. I mean, they're very rooted in their neighborhoods, right? And so there's that whole hierarchy like that around Pittsburgh. When I meet somebody, when they say they're from Pittsburgh, I typically say, where did you go to school? And that tells me a lot about them.   Eve: [00:25:19] Interesting. Yeah, I think the topography also, it kind of contains each neighborhood. So, I think that that sense of being in a neighborhood is going to stay.  I can't, I can't see it disappearing in the city.   Tom: [00:25:33] No, and that's what, when I was talking about the public space, I mean that's, that's what I have a big regret it was around that idea of how do you build even a stronger sense community using public space, whether it's playgrounds or a park, a community. How do you in a very thoughtful way connect people in that neighborhood so they feel a sense of place? And there's a purpose for that, because I think if people feel rooted in their neighborhood, I think they're willing to put up with a lot of problems if they see themselves and others committed to wanting to making it better. I mean, if I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, I'm willing to stay on the journey, right? A lot of people are not willing if they don't see any end to it. And I think of a neighborhood like Allentown that's been through a lot of problems. And yet, there's a strong core of people in Allentown who have really stayed with that neighborhood. And, you know, it has gone up and done and now I think it's back, going back up again. I know we used say, Eve, you know, that houses in the North Side up in Fineview at the time, I mean, you could buy for 30 or 40 thousand dollars. And we said if Pittsburgh's population were like any other city and it was growing, those houses would be worth a million dollars with the views. And that was part of the problem, is that we weren't growing as a city. And it's still part of the challenge of Pittsburgh, is that we're doing much better, but we're still not growing compared to, certainly the region is not, compared to a lot of other cities and communities.   Eve: [00:27:19] Today you work, you're a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute, which some of my listeners may not know about. What do you do in your role there?   Tom: [00:27:32] So the Urban Land Institute is an organization founded about 75 years ago by a group of developers concerned about the quality of development beginning to happen in America. And fast forward, the Urban Land Institute now has about 50,000 members worldwide. And it really, it's focus is how do you create thriving communities? And ULI had participated in several programs in Pittsburgh when I was mayor, and then I got recruited to speak at different ULI events. And when I was leaving as mayor, it was right after Katrina in New Orleans and along the Mississippi coast. And they asked me whether I would go down and work with the mayor of New Orleans and with other public officials across the Mississippi coast. And so I did that for about a year and a half after leaving as mayor. And it was fascinating. I mean, it was really a fascinating experience. And, you know, in New Orleans, their mayor ended up going to jail for 15 years. And the political structure was really fairly inept back then. It's gotten better. And so I watched, really, New Orleans return in large part because of grassroots decisions and leadership, through churches and nonprofit groups and neighborhood groups, and a lot of outside help. Foundations and movie stars like Brad Pitt. But people, but ultimately, the up-swelling was really, really bottom up. It wasn't top down. And so it was a fascinating experience to work in, there. And I still am, I was on the board for many years of a community development corporation there. So it's been an experience. Since then I got to about 50 cities a year and speak at ULI events or other events, and then often end up working with cities for a while. And I've written several papers – working on one now for ULI.   Tom: [00:29:40] It's been a good, a good experience, really a great experience after being a mayor. And part of what I get asked to do all over the world is, in part I get asked to talk about Pittsburgh. How we went from this failing industrial city  to what we're becoming. And the reason I get asked by, about that is, wheat I've come to realize, Eve, is virtually every city in the world, whether it's Hong Kong or London or Dublin, or are all struggling with some of the same issues that we went through in Pittsburgh, of sort of what what is our place in the world? We were forced to have that conversation because of the collapse of the steel industry. Other cities have not had that kind of dramatic change, but they are seeing the world change and they are trying to figure out how to  stay current and get in front of those changes and manage them.   Eve: [00:30:34] Are there any current trends in real estate development that interest you the most?   [00:30:39] Well,every city, every place I've been, and this is, I mean, last month I was in Dublin and London, right. And I was supposed to go, I go to China about four times a year. I was supposed to be going in March. My plane trips are now all being canceled, but I was going to cancel anyhow. But so whether it's cities in China or European cities, affordability is a huge issue. Of how do people, where do people live? And how do they afford to live? And so how cities develop affordable housing is a big, big issue. Where am I going to work? Because of the impact of technology and we see it in Pittsburgh up close every day as we see a whole litany of driverless cars on the streets of Pittsburgh or autonomous vehicles with attendants in them. But, you know, pretty soon the attendance won't be there. As I mentioned, I was in Orlando yesterday, just east of Downtown Orlando but still in Orlando is a place called Lake Nona. And they now have, I don't know, a half a dozen driverless autonomous buses that drive people around this very large development. Nobody driving. Nobody in, no driver. And no attendant. It is just on its own already on a sort of a, sort of private street where bikes and others places can go, but not cars. So we're seeing this happen and what does that mean? I mean, if you think of 50 percent of the land use of a typical city is for cars, between roads and parking and everything like that, what does that do to how we think about cities. And not it's not even that kind of technology. It's why do young people want to come places? Part of what I say is what does General Electric and McDonald's and Marriott and Fifth Third Bank and Heinz Kraft Foods and what they have in common is over the last five years they've all moved their headquarters from suburban office parks into cities. And why are they doing that? They're doing it because ... they're having a hard time recruiting talent, young people, to move to the suburban office park. Where you need a car to get to. You know, if you do a survey of the Google employees in East Liberty, I'm betting that 25, 30 percent of them either walk or ride a bike to work. So that has huge implications on cities. You know, do you spend your money building more highways or do you build a transit system. That's part of Orlando's challenge. They don't have a good transit system and now they're  strangling, you know, because of the congestion.   Eve: [00:33:33] Yeah. It's changing.   [00:33:34] So it's those debates that I'm watching all over. Mobility is a huge conversation. The equity conversation, I mean, one of the things I see really fascinating, The New York Times did this, I thought, very cruelly. A few months ago they did an article about cities and they talked about winners and losers.   Eve: [00:33:56] Yes.   Tom: [00:33:56] And they talked, and they compared Nashville and Birmingham. And they said Nashville is a winner, they both start at the same place 25 years ago. Nashville is now a hot city, booming, and Birmingham is not. And they talk about, why, how that happens is really a lot to do with leadership. And then within, so we're seeing cities sort of separate themselves, if you understand, those that are, where Amazon is going to consider locating, and those that are not. And what are the ingredients that make that cut? And then the other, within cities we are watching a huge divide with lower income people and the people that are sort of part of the new economy. And so, I think that equity issue is a huge challenge for cities also.   Eve: [00:34:43] Yes. You know, I have always thought that one of the things that's most overlooked in discussions about cities and how to grow them is their connection to other cities. And, you know, I think that's probably Pittsburgh's growth problem. It takes a really long time go by train.   Tom: [00:35:00] Well, we lost a whole generation of people that would normally be having babies.   Eve: [00:35:07] If you want to get to New York by train, it's a day. There's no easy, fast way to get to work hubs. We're sort of a little bit stranded. And I was always puzzled by the fact that we, you know, people would talk about better transit in the city, but I wanted better transit to other places, nearby, to open up opportunities. If I wanted to do a development project in a city, I wanted to be able to get there in a day in and back. Right?   Tom: [00:35:37] Right.   Eve: [00:35:37] So I, you know, I wonder if you plot out those connections, you know, where the, you know, the cities done well, will land.   [00:35:49] I think it's a mix. I think mobility is one piece of the conversation of how easy it is to move around a city. Our son, for example, is now 29 years old, does not even have a driver's license. He lives in Pittsburgh. On the North Side right now with us, he's moving, though. You know, he is, has been able to manage fine living in Pittsburgh, using Uber and using public transit and, you know, walking a host of other things and abusing his friends every once while they're able to, you know, he's able to sort of manage living in a city pretty well. But I think mobility is part of the conversation. And that's what, when I was becoming mayor, Eve, our focus was we need to figure out how to create a diversity of jobs. And we needed to make Pittsburgh a place where people wanted to live. You know, we're never going to be, maybe we will someday, we're never going to be a warm city. Like I was just in Orlando yesterday. It was 90 degrees. We're not going to be near the ocean, but we had other assets. And so, as you might remember, I was very focused on building riverfront trails for that reason is that was an underutilized asset. You know, we watched, you know, a great music and bar scene sort of, and that happened organically. It's funny, I watch the, I read the media in Pittsburgh now about the Strip District and we made a very intentional decision not to do anything in the Strip District. We, you know, people would come and why don't we do this and why don't we do that in the Strip District.tAnd we really said The place is working really well. Why do we want to get involved in it? Let it, it's just happening on its own. So. You know, that it's interesting that that's the big, big debate right now in Pittsburgh, I guess about, are we killing the Strip District. So I think that you make decisions, you know, some of them are going to be right. Some of them were wrong. Hindsight will tell you whether it works or not.   Eve: [00:37:56] You know, this show is about real estate impact investing. And I want to know what you think a key factor is that makes a real estate development project impactful.   Tom: [00:38:06] You know, I think it's the public space. Is the building itself attractive, but it's the space around it, how it engages people that work in that building, and even people walking by, how they might use it. I think that, how it all connects. And you can get senses of it, right? When it works well? I think, you know, there are places in Pittsburgh that I think of that are just great places to be. People like to be there, right? I look at Mellon Park, you know, going back many, many years, long before I was mayor. Still a very iconic place on a nice summer day. It's packed with people, having lunch. And I think how that happens, and that's where the public private interface is so importantA and where the public needs to have, to be put money in the game, to say to a developer, you know, we want to get this quality in, and a developer might say, but I can't afford to do that. And if you look at the books and the market is going to be make it hard for the developer to do that, then there's a public role for that. I think another good example is that is Schenley Plaza, which for for 40 years or 50 years was a parking lot. I mean, think about that. I mean, I, you know, on one side is Schenley Park, on the other side are the museums, on the other side is the Pitt law school. And then on the other side, the Cathedral of Learning. And what is the highest and best use of that land for 50 years? It was surface parking. And Mark, this chancellor at Pitt and I got together and said we should be, we should do better than that. And so we work with the Parks Conservancy and came up with an idea to put a park there, to take the parking. And I got all this hate mail, but I'm never going to vote for you again. You're taking away my parking place. And I said, you know, you'll get over it. There'll be other places to park it. But this is, this, we can do better than that is the interest of a great university. To a great park. To a great museum. We can do better than that. And you look at that on a nice summer day, it's filled with people. So creating those kinds of places, I think is is that there's a responsibility of both the developer and the community. You know, you did something quirky Downtown with those statues. And I bet lots of people walk over, who maybe have never been in Pittsburgh, walk over just to look at them.   Eve: [00:40:58] Yes. In fact, I think the taxi drivers use it for directions when someone says, I want to go Downtown.   Tom: [00:41:05] Yeah. So that's what I mean. And look at Randyland on the North side.   Eve: [00:41:10] It's fabulous. Yeah.   Tom: [00:41:12] You know, I mean, it's just things like that make a cityS so the other word that we use a lot in ULI is authenticity, right? Pittsburgh has a great history. It has a great story. And we could still do better at telling that story. The South Side Works, when we started to develop that we put, had a competition for, and we brought artists and old steel workers who worked there together for like a morning of talking. And then we had a competition for artists. And there's, at the end of Hot Metal Bridge is a little monument that we established for the steelworkers. But Pittsburgh is an incredible story.   Eve: [00:41:56] So I'm going to ask one last question, because I've taken up a lot of your time.   Tom: [00:42:00] It's fine, I've enjoyed it. It's fun to talk to somebody who actually knows Pittsburgh, Eve.   Eve: [00:42:05] So is there something that you think could really change real estate development in the U.S., for the better?   Tom: [00:42:14] I think it is, is the idea, the partnership idea. I'm amazed that the cities I go to, many developers attitude is I want a minimize my involvement with the city. Maybe there's a reason for it. I want to get in and get out. I want to get the entitlements, whatever I may need and do what I want to do. So the challenge is the developer has a piece of property. The developer needs to figure out how to make money from that property. I accept that. I want the developer to make money from the property. On the other hand, the city, the city has the responsibility to build a great city. That it will never be a great city if these developers see their development as sort of an island disconnected from what's next to it. And so the city's responsibility is to figure out how that all fits together. Give you two examples that drive me nuts. I can drive on pretty much any suburban shopping street. I can go into a gas station. Maybe I want to go to the store next door. And I have to drive back out onto the highway. Or maybe I want to go to a store across the street, I have to go out on the highway. Maybe I have to drive a half a mile to get over there to the other side. So I can't, there's no sense of connection between any of that. And the other is, I watch in suburban areas like Cranberry Township subdivisions being developed of 100 acres or so. What would it take for those subdivisions that, maybe there's five different developers doing one hundred acres each, if they would, then the city's role would be to say we want to connect all this with a bike trail at the edge of your property so that every, so now instead of having a couple little playgrounds, you might have a five or ten mile bike ride, safe, off road. You don't have to worry about traffic with your little children. And there is examples of where the public fails. Both the public and private developers fail. Because you create great, great amenities if you begin to think in a bigger way rather than individual pieces of property. That's what's destroying development, and quality in America today.   Eve: [00:44:33] Yeah, I agree, I think we both believe that real estate development, just as a financial tool, as a way to make money, isn't making our cities better.   Tom: [00:44:43] Well, I think you make more money if you build quality. In the long run I think your development is more valuable. I mean, we didn't get into all the other sustainability and all that which a lot of cities are facing.   Eve: [00:44:54] Thank you very much.   Tom: [00:44:55] Look forward to see you sometime. Bye bye.   Eve: [00:45:04] That was Tom Murphy, past mayor of Pittsburgh. Tom thinks place is everything, so place is what he invested in during his long term as mayor. He did that by reducing operational costs and creating the Pittsburgh Development Fund, a $60 million fund focused on helping developers who were willing to work in places and on projects that made the city better and better. It was a very bold, and unpopular move, but paid off in ways that no one imagined, as did many other moves that Mayor Murphy made.   You can find out more about impact real estate investing and access the show notes for today's episode at my website, EvePicker.com. While you're there, sign up for my newsletter to find out more about how to make money in real estate while building better cities. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. And thank you, Tom, for sharing your thoughts. We'll talk again soon. But for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Welcome!   Today there is a ton of stuff going on in the world of Technology and we are going to hit a number of topics today. There are some scams that are getting more and more prevalent with Airbnb and VRBO that we will talk about. Also, phishing scams using the Coronavirus as a way to trick you into clicking.  The ACLU is filing suit against DHS. China is stealing our Intellectual Property.  Shadow IT becoming more and more of a problem and even more on Tech Talk With Craig Peterson today on WGAN.  It is a busy show -- so stay tuned. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Related Articles: Is it possible to secure our Elections using Technology The security mistakes made by the Iowa Democratic Party in creating their App Coronavirus bringing out opportunistic Hackers   Extensive US Intellectual Property theft by Chinese being investigated by FBI  Scammers have found a fertile field in Airbnb DHS wants to track illegal aliens using available cell-phone location data. ACLU says Whoa!  Shadow-IT: Employees putting Business at Risk Ransomware rings adapt to business declarations by Revealing Stolen Data --- Machine Automated Transcript: Hey everybody, welcome, welcome. Craig Peterson here on WGIR, you can also hear me every Monday morning at 737 with Jack Heath, where we discuss some of the latest topics in technology. Of course, nowadays, you can't talk about technology without security, which is what I've been doing in my business now for about 30 years. I was coerced into it. Maybe one of these days, I'll share that whole story with you. It can get to be kind of a long one. But today we are going through some of the problems that I've seen out there lately. I have on my podcast this week that you can get at Craig peterson.com slash Iheart, Craig peterson.com slash Iheart. I spent quite a bit of time talking about recent problems people have been finding with Airbnb with VRBO, and I go through some of the problems I recently have had with both of those services. And I think it's well worth listening to because I've gotten to the point right now where I will not use either Airbnb or VRBO, I don't think ever again. My experiences with them have just been so overwhelmingly negative, anyhow you'll find that online, and you can subscribe there as well at Craig peterson.com slash I heart. That like is going to take you to the I heart app. You might be listening to me right now, in fact, on Iheart streaming on these AM and FM stations. If you are, kudos to you, but you can also get all of my content by going and subscribing, Craig peterson.com slash I heart, and I'm also on every other major podcast streaming platform that's out there. But first, I just want to make mention of this other article that came out last month in January. It's talking about computer literate millennials and Generation Z. These are the people that grew up with the internet. They've had the internet pretty much their whole lives. They've found meaning the Federal Trade Commission found that people ages 39 and under are more likely to report fraud than the 40 plus crowd. Now, here's the thinking here. It isn't that the younger kids millennials and Generation Z, it isn't as though they are less afraid to report that money stolen from them. It appears that they are more likely to fall victim to fraud. 25% more likely. Now the millennials are less likely to fall for a scam over the phone and people over 40, but 77% More likely, Millennials are 77% more likely to get duped by email scams and 90% more likely to lose money on a fake check scam. Now, the thinking behind this is that those of us who are a little bit older, we hold the whole internet thing with a little bit more skepticism than our children and grandchildren do. Because we know that there are scammers out there and we've heard all the horror stories, whereas the younger kids are looking at it as well. It's the internet, and they just give their stuff away. We already know that there are studies that show that the millennials will give their email address or weigh in trade for a single donut. Okay. They don't value a lot of this stuff. And, you know, to me, well, it's a little bit concerning, and it should be to you. But let's get into the latest scam that's out there right now. It isn't the Airbnb scam, which has been out there for a few years now. As I said, hey, I've been burned, what, four or five times by this overall personally. I am jaded, and I just don't use it anymore period. It's a real shame because there are some good people out there. But this has to do with what's been happening with the Coronavirus. It is a huge deal. We had one day this week, where 15,000 new cases were reported. The Chinese changed how they tracked and diagnosed cases. So they're saying hey, listen, it's you know, it's Change. Don't expect this to indicate that more viruses are spreading out there. And frankly, I look at it and say, Well, maybe there are there aren't. But what we're seeing are some rather sophisticated phishing scams going on. Phishing, of course, this is the one spelled with a Ph. It is where an attacker tricks you into doing something. It might be clicking a link. It might be responding to an email. It might also be a phishing scam over the phone or, you know, SMS a text one which is called smishing. A whole new type of phishing this going on right now. Well, last week, IBM and Kaspersky now Kaspersky is an anti-virus company. They are also trying to stop the general spread of malware. They are a Russian firm, and the State Department and FBI have warned us about using their software, but they do have good information. When I see Kaspersky combined with IBM, a company I do respect, then that does kind of make my ears stand up, if you will. IBM and Kaspersky caught hackers in Japan, trying to spread malware through emails. And the emails had links about the coronavirus outbreak that started Of course and won China last month in January. And now adding cell phones to the list. Of course, Cisco, to the list, they have found phishing emails from cybercriminals, purporting to be from the Center for Disease Control, as well as the World Health Organization and what they're trying to do the bad guys his deal your email credentials and other information. The emails are coming from several domains, including CDC dash gov.org, which, of course, is not the real CDC website. So be very careful if you are trying to find out information about the CDC, or about the spread of Coronavirus about flu in general. For instance, in my home state of New Hampshire, we have I think it's seven deaths so far this year reported g attributed to the flu in general, not the Coronavirus. Every year about 12 to 16,000 people in the United States die from the flu. So far we've only got 14 cases reported of Coronavirus So, at this stage everybody, this is nothing to get all freaky worried about. Okay, so calm down. If you want more, go to CDC.gov. CDC Centers for Disease Control cdc.gov. And it tells you what to do now this Coronavirus has an official name now it's called Covin-19, co vi d dash 19 because there are multiple versions of Coronaviruses and viruses. And we have had a report in the past about Coronaviruses, and they have killed people previously. So you'll see right at the top of the CDC, gov website, information about the Coronavirus and it spread. It is a respiratory disease. It is potentially fatal. It doesn't seem to be any more fatal than some of the other viruses that we've had. So let's put all of this in context. And when you get an email from someone saying hey, Look at this, click on this link, it's going to get you information about the Coronavirus, it's going to let you track the spread of, etc. don't respond. And you, if you get a text message, don't respond. I got one because I'm a member of the Great and Powerful media, right. I got one last week that was sent out to members of the media saying, Hey, we got this new tracking site. You just can't be cautious enough when it comes to this. So if you go to CDC Gov at the top, you'll see the description here about the Covin-19. And you can click on that, and it'll show you a global map about where it has been reported what is happening. I'm looking at one. It's about one day behind it looks like right now for Covin-19. But you can see all of the countries that have been reporting it and then you can also So look at the hard statistics. People under investigation in the United States exactly how many 14 positives you'll see that there. Of course, it changes daily. How many negative how many pending? The people are under investigation. Remember, the airplane full of workers from the State Department that came back from China. They have now been under quarantine for more than 14 days. They released them all from quarantine because it turns out that nobody had that virus, so just because you have the flow doesn't mean it's Coronavirus. More cases over on the left coast and the Midwest, which is kind of surprising to me than there are on the East Coast or the Mid Atlantic, etc., etc. So have a look there. Do not respond to emails or texts or phone calls. Okay. Just be very, very careful. Hackers are imitating this sort of thing. Then the other side of this is they are sending out messages, seeking donations, and they're asking for Bitcoin donations to the World Health Organization. I can tell you right now, the World Health Organization, the CDC, they are not taking Bitcoin donations, okay? Don't go and donate, right. Again the CDC gov.org is the bad guys cdc.gov is the good guys. The scam page is elementary. it might have taken the scammers just a few minutes to put together. It's very effective. It looks legit. And the FBI and, of course, also Homeland Security are taking down these pages as soon as they can, but they can't always get rid of them right away. And companies we got to be proud. We've got a chain, train our employees not to follow up on these scams. So again, that's part of why I publish my newsletters. I report on the biggest scams that are going on. I try and keep it down to just a few a week. You can share them with your employees, share them with your family, but you have to get them to share them. Go to Craig peterson.com slash subscribe. Now, we're going to talk a little bit about this whole thing with the ACLU and their current fight. I spoke about something similar to this a couple of years ago, man, maybe actually the first time was probably about ten years ago. There are companies out there, and they gather information about us. They're called Data brokers. And I have visited some of these data brokers sites themselves. I mean physical site, where the company operates where they have their data collections, to help them with security problems that they have. And to help prevent problems from occurring, right. That's what I do for a living full time. And it was probably ten years ago, the radio show that I talked with some of these companies. But what they do is they take what's called open source information that's used a lot by government or investigations. And you can use open-source information yourself. All you do is go to Google, for instance, and do a search. That's the open-source information. It's anything that anyone can gain access to, without having to be a police officer without having to go and really kind of, you know, get a court order kind of be surreptitious and how you gather that's open source. So the data break brokers will take all of that, and that can include depending on States your living driver's license information. It can include information about the mortgage for your home. It can include you know the ownership of your home, and it can include just all kinds of stuff. And that becomes very, very difficult to control. Because all of your information is out there. It's available for free or for cheap on the internet. So these data brokers, they might buy it from the county, they might get it an open-source. Some of these documents are going to contain like your mortgage is going to contain your signature. The deed to your home is going to contain the signature, the automobiles that you own. There's going to be UCC filings with the Secretary of State's office, detailing what cars you own, who the lien holders are, and how much money is involved, all of this stuff. So it all gets pulled into these days. databases I mentioned on the show a few months ago, a couple of months ago that we were out in Las Vegas at a wedding. And of course, you know, doing work while I'm out there sitting on the couch, doing work for some of our Las Vegas clients when there was a knock at the door. Who's there? Well, it's an insurance investigator investigating an accident that had a fatality. And of course, the insurance company had been asked to payout. They came to this home because they had information that the person involved had contact with someone at this address, which indeed she did. It was her sister, and the driver had been responsible for this fake fatal death. The driver listed was one of my sisters in law, who had died six months before the accident. It was all fake. The insurance investigator showed my wife all of this information she had that they had purchased from one of these data brokers. It had listed my deceased sister in law's relatives, everybody every address she had ever had. It had names and contact information for some of my kids as well. Now, it was not all correct or organized. When I've looked at the data brokers' information about me, only about half of it is right, but the other half is entirely incorrect. That's still the case because they had a lot of utterly false information. People that they said were relatives that weren't. People we'd never heard of before, they identified as direct relatives of hers. The insurance company purchased all of this information from a Data Broker, in collections, this is called a skip trace. It's called a skip trace for people who jumped bail, etc. Man, we should talk about this whole bail thing, and the idiocy and New York state that is spreading countrywide dog, the bounty hunter and his wife Beth had been fighting this for a long time because it's making us much, much less safe. But anyhow, that's not a topic for today's show. It's not a political topic, because it's undeniable what's already happening with the increase in the crime rate, New York anyways. What the government is doing now and this is part of what I was warning about a decade ago, is the federal government, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, of the IRS, you name it. They are limited in how they can collect information, we kind of already knew that, right? They knew that they had to get a search warrant for certain things, right? They can follow you around if you do not expect privacy, etc., etc. So obviously, federal government agencies can use open-source information to see what you're doing online. But how about the closed source stuff? How about this information that the data brokers are collecting? Some of it comes from the people who lent you money. Some of it they're getting from places where you have to pay to get that information. What's happened here now is that the ACLU has filed a suit, according to The Wall Street Journal, against Homeland Security and Homeland Security through its Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. As well as Customs and Border Protection, is buying Gilo geolocation data from these data brokers. It's using it to investigate suspects who have allegedly committed immigration violations. So let me boil all that down into plain English. You might be using games on your smartphone, and you might be using all kinds of apps on your smartphone. If you have a smartphone, you probably are, frankly, not using 90-95% of those apps that you have downloaded. But many of those apps are tracking you. And that information is being sold to data brokers. So think about that for a minute. Remember that free app and how you've heard me and many others for so many years. Say, hey, you're not the customer. You are the product. But what's happening here now is that the ACLU is saying to the federal government, hey, you cannot, you cannot buy this information that you are not allowed to collect yourself. You cannot buy it from data brokers or these app developers who are selling it. Interesting question, interesting problem, isn't it? What should they do? What should you do? What can you do? It is going to play out in court. I suspect it's going to come down on the side of the Department of Homeland Security because this information is generally available to anyone willing to pay for it. So now the government stepped forward, saying we are will pay for it. By the way, it's down to local law enforcement as well, who, in many cases, are also buying information from the data brokers. Have you ever set up a company Amazon account? Have you ever set up an account for a company account for Uber? Maybe it's not a company account. Perhaps it's your account that you're using for Uber or something else? How about using something like Constant Contact to send out emails to your customers? How about salesforce.com, where we've seen a shift over the years from what used to be kind of the glass castle, where you had a central computer room in that computer room was a mainframe. And those mainframes were astounding. They still are. And that mainframe in that glass room was controlled by professional Information Technology people, people that knew what they were doing at least at the time, right? Then we started seeing some changes. You remember the apple two and VisiCalc Visicalc was kind of the killer application. And if you wanted to do numbers, then you bought an apple, you purchased a little apple two. And you then pulled data and people were asking that glass house, they were asking it, Hey, can you give us data because we want to put together some spreadsheet. People put together spreadsheets without really understanding the implications of the numbers they were using without understanding how to audit a spreadsheet to make sure that the figures included were correct. They didn't understand the double journaling. They didn't understand the cross-referencing of the information. They started a bit of a movement away from that glass house from that glass castle from it. They said hey, we could figure this out, why are we going to pay it all of this fake budget money to do something for us and we can do it for ourselves and do it cheaper. Frankly, that's a problem I still face with many organizations, if you can believe it, who think they can do security themselves, which is impossible for almost any organization. In this day and age, any small-medium business must have full-time external professionals who are helping your internal IT people. The internal IT should be doing what they do best, which is helping your business use information technology, to its best use, assisting people to be more efficient, finding new ways of doing things, etc. Instead of that, what most businesses do is they have these various silos, like sales and marketing and accounting. And each one of those silos, those lines company does things their way. So the sales guys, they're out, and they said, Hey, we're going to use Salesforce. And we're going to tie that into Constant Contact. And then you have your accounting people saying, well, we're going to use QuickBooks Online. Or maybe they're going to use one of Oracle's accounting systems. And then the manufacturing people say, Well, we are going to use this particular era p program, which is going to be great for manufacturing. And we've decided that we're going to use Survey Monkey to collect information from our customers from our vendors. You see where I'm going, each one of these lines of business is going out there and making what are in actuality, information technology decisions. They're making decisions about what type of technology to use, which is one level, but then the next Next Level is they're using it. And they're putting the business's information at risk. It is a huge, huge problem. It's something that I'm going to be addressing with some of this training that I have coming up with a couple of these tutorials correctly tackle these problems. And so if you're on my email list at Craig Peterson comm slash subscribe, you're going to find out about these, and I'm going to give you some great cheat sheets and other things. But all of those again, Craig peterson.com slash subscribe. All of those different lines of business, all of those different functional responsibilities within an organization larger small, are adding up and adding up hugely. And there is a massive problem behind this. Now you know, that I use one password, and I recommend it, and we typically Use one password in conjunction with Duo to help secure login information. But because one password is used so frequently by companies to keep track of logins, they have kind of a unique view into the risks of all these different accounts. And what we're talking about where these lines of business are making Information Technology decisions that they're not qualified to make, and frankly, in most small-medium companies, there's probably no one in the organization that's fully qualified. Still, at least it has a better idea, but then a marketing person or an accounting person would have. So this is called shadow it and it's absolutely something that we have to be careful of and we have to watch for and if you are one of these people who is using one of these third-party services, and you have not informed your IT person. Do it right now. All right, thanks. Okay, hey, we have a lot more content that you can get online. Just go to Craig Peters on.com. You'll find it right there in my weekly newsletter that you can use to help educate other people inside your company. Maybe family, maybe friends, and indeed, educate yourself and the things that you need to know security-related or just the newest and latest greatest technology. Now I got an email here just while was Facebook a couple of weeks ago a message about a story that I had reported on about Tesla before, and I try and answer those I dig them up I get them for you. But I want to make sure you are subscribed at Craig Peterson comm slash subscribe, so you get all of that. Thanks for being with me here, WGIR, and we'll be back Monday morning with Jack Heath at 737. Hey, welcome back Craig Peterson here on WGAN and online Of course, Craig peterson.com. If you want to, you can subscribe to my email list you'll find out about the free tutorials that pop up training, courses, everything that I do to help make you and your business more secure. So again, Craig Peterson, dot com slash subscribe. I got to read this to you right now. I decided to cancel through Airbnb and tell them about what had happened. He went off at me, berated me for not handling in it privately, and told me I was acting in my self-interest, and belittled me. I ended up having to pay the first full month even though I stayed one night. His listing is still up, and a review posted after my state also mentioned the silverfish. Isn't that something? Now, this is from a report that came out from vice. Now you might be familiar with vice.com. There's a lot of decent stuff up there. But I want to tell you a little bit about my own experience I've had with Airbnb and VR Bo now VR Bo is vacation rentals. It's it has been used more, I think, by businesses from what the stuff I've read than it is by individuals. But I have had bad experiences with both of them. Every time I have had an Airbnb, I have had a bad experience. So let me tell you what I mean by a bad experience. For instance, I was out of Vegas at a conference, and we thought, you know what, let's try Airbnb. I'm the tech guy, right? I need to understand this. Why wouldn't I go ahead and use Airbnb in make sense, right? So here the tech guy goes, and we poke around read reviews we read ratings. We found an apartment, not far at all, I mean like half a mile from the convention center. We thought, okay, this is going to be perfect. It says it's right by the strip we could walk over there, hop a cab or, or grab a ride and enjoy The Strip, and then the morning we can just walk over the convention center. We're not going to have any problems parking because it said it is an apartment. Let me start with parking. By the way, parking is another thing in the second Airbnb story. There was no parking. You had to park a half a mile away sometimes because people were just parking in the parking lot of the apartment building. There were no reserved parking slots for the apartment. So there's number one — number two. When we go into the apartment, and it's quite nice. We find out that it has two bedrooms. We had only booked one bedroom because that's all the listing talked about the one-bedroom. We get there, and we find, okay, so this is our bedroom over here. Well, the bedroom did not have an ensuite bathroom. The bathroom for the bedroom was across the hall. So there we go, we get in there and okay, fine. So our bathrooms across the hall, and we end up going to bed. We enjoyed it was a nice place relatively clean, quite old. It was probably a 40-50-year-old apartment. In the layout that you would expect there in the southwest where there's kind of a courtyard in the middle, and it's a little two-story thing and, you know, kind of reminded me when I lived in LA back in about 1980 late 70s early 80s. You know it's that part was quite nice. You know brand new shag rug in there, well you know not brand-new but quite new and clean. That part result was good. We go to bed and then we there we hear just tons of commotion because somebody else who didn't speak English very well had come to stay at the apartment as well. We hear them going into our bathroom, using our towels. They are very, very loud talking on the phone, and they get a hold of the owner right of this Airbnb. They got the same impression we did, which is there's one-bedroom in this place. So they had an ensuite bathroom. We did not, but they were using our bathroom the whole time and our towels, there's only one set of towels. It wasn't a great experience at all. They kept us up for quite a while because they were just so loud. Now you know me, I'm not an outgoing guy. You might not believe that, but I'm a little bit of an introvert. And as an introvert, I didn't want to go out and confront these people who were I'm guessing, or you know, from Asia, they were speaking Chinese or Korean or Japanese, I have no idea. I just didn't want to mess with it. So we get up in the morning, we and everything is okay-ish. We go to the conference and then that night, I guess these people only there for one night. That night, we had the whole place to ourselves, which is okay. Knowing that with Airbnb, I rate the place after I stay there, but the owner of the place rates me and so there have been a lot of issues of retaliation when it comes to Airbnb. If you stay at one of these places and you don't give them this glowing five-star review, then you're not going to get reviewed while and other people might not want you to stay at their place. So I gave it a reasonable rating. I can't remember what I gave it, you know, places clean and, and, you know, it was a nice place and there is another bedroom. You know, just kind of hint into anybody reading this. It isn't going to be dedicated to you and maybe your loved one you're staying with and left it at that. That's my first Airbnb story. And then my second Airbnb story, as I mentioned, had a lot to do with parking as well. And in this case, it was in the Toronto area, up in Brampton, and we rented a place on Airbnb, you know, I figured, well, we'll give another chance, see what happens. It was a three-bedroom place, and they said it sleeps like eight or something like that. What you did if you include the fold-out couch, and so we figured, okay, we need some parking. So I had sent them a message saying, hey, it's going to be myself and a couple of my kids and some grandkids. You know, I want to make sure that there's plenty of parking. Is it? Oh, yeah, plenty of parking, buddy parking, no problem. And so we get there, and there is one parking spot. And it's in one of these. I don't know if you know much about Canada and how they build their housing there. But one of the reasons I'm not that fond of it, right. I grew up there. It was these townhouses that are built right on top of each other, you know, the zero property line homes there. Three, four, or five of them attached. The only place you can park is in the little garage place. Well, the garage itself was full of stinking trash. Who knows how long it had been there. You couldn't use the garage. It had hared the driveway with the condo next door to you. It had one parking spot. I had my car, my daughter's car for her, her husband, and a couple of her kids. And then one of my other kids also drove up there. We had to find a place to park. Now the good news was that the whole neighborhood was under construction. They were able to park in the mud. in one area where construction wasn't happening right then, of course, the next morning, what shows up big dump trucks, excavators, everything else to work across the street from us. That wasn't fun. Let me tell you that it was not fun. We were quite worried about our cars, with all of this heavy equipment on this little narrow street designed for one car to go down the street when cars park on the street. We have to go right now when we come back, and I'm going to finish what happened with my air mean being being being a story, as well as my VR Bo story. And we got a whole lot more to cover. We're going to get into this Homeland Security thing with the ACLU and more but stick around, listening to Craig Peterson a course on WGAN online at Greg Peterson dot com is where you'll find me. Make sure you subscribe so that you get all of my free tutorials, training courses. Everything, Craig Peterson dot com, stick around. Hey, welcome back. Craig Peterson here on WGAN and of course online, at Craig Peterson dot com. I was in the middle of telling you my stories about Airbnb. If you have ever thought about staying at Airbnb, or VRBO, or any of these types of places, right, obviously you're not staying at a website, but you're booking through a website, somebody's home, somebody's rental, whatever it might be then this is for you. I have done it for personal reasons. I have done it for business reasons as well. I told you the beginning of my story in Toronto, and I told you the last segment about my story in Las Vegas. We didn't have the parking, and the kids are all worried, and I was concerned about our cars getting destroyed by the heavy equipment. Were we going to have to move them because they were working on the lots across the street? It's incredible how fast the housing is going up there and how expensive it is to it's, it's just not how pricey it is. We get inside the place. Now, remember, I said that the garage was full of trash which was, and it stunk to high heaven, which it did. Okay, so some of that leaks into the house, which makes the house kind of smell too, which is just plain old, no fun. We get into the house, and I go and sit on this folding couch. And remember, the house is supposed to sleep eight, and it has a fold-out sofa. I sit on the couch. It reeks of BO, body odor. Right? I mean reeks. One of the first things I have to do is I want to make sure that they know that this is a problem so that maybe they can take care of it. I call, and I don't get any answer because it's the weekend, right? Nobody's around. We head out to the local grocery store, and we get some odor killer stuff, and we bring it back, and we drench the couch in it. And we're able to get rid of most of the BO you know, and its underarm smell is what it is. Someone with some nasty underarm odor was sitting on that couch. They put their arm up on the back of the sofa and left all of their BO behind them. Then they did the same thing on the couch itself and somebody supposed to sleep there, right? Oh, it was just incredible. Then we go upstairs and upstairs that we noticed that the fire alarms had tape all around the sides of them. Now, if you're not familiar with the way firearm alarms work, they have to be able to have air flowing through them to sense that There's smoke in the air or carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, whatever the type of detector is. And it had been it had tape all around it. Now it looked like it was painters tape right that blue tape that you use as you can pull off that isn't going to leave residue behind. So maybe it was the painters perhaps it was the owners, I don't know, perhaps it was a previous occupant, but I warned them about that as well as saying hey listen, your fire alarms are not going to work because it blocks the airflow on the fire alarms by this tape that's on them. I never got a response on anything there. So what do I do when it's time to leave a review? Well, I said the place was in perfect shape. It's brand new. I had to do a little bit of cleaning. The cleaning crew in because the carpets upstairs all had the markings of a, you know, a vacuum cleaner. You can see the wheel marks on the floor and everything else. So you see it's not as though a rip them a new one like I have seen done before. And you never get to see your ratings by the way from these Airbnb owners. Okay, so there's a second one not neither one of mine were nightmares per se, but they both had significant problems that I was afraid to report on because I know that turnabout is considered fair play and who knows what these owners are going to say. Then I tried a VRBO, but they are older. They've been around for something like 30 years, and it's vacation rental type stuff, right? So VRBO, okay, we'll try it out. So we try it. We booked a place, and I wrote to the owners. Hey, there's we're going to have three cars, or two cars can't remember what it was now. Is this going to work for us this okay, I want to make sure this parking is I've had issues before? I never got a response from them. But, you know, they ran my credit card through so I figured, okay, well at least that part is done. I show up with the family in tow. And we're going to have this great time together. I'm going to be working, and they can stay in and just enjoy the place you know, a new city, a new location is going to be great. Guess what? VRBO had canceled my reservation without telling me without informing me, without crediting me. Well, it turned out that they didn't end up crediting me after all the credit card, but here I am waiting for the place that I can't get in. I called up VRBO to say, Listen, I never got a code for the door or anything else. What should I do here? Oh, no. Well, I see that reservation was canceled. I never canceled the reservation. Oh, no, sir. It was canceled, like the day after you booked it. I said, wait a minute. I never canceled it. Well, okay. Well, then the owner must have canceled. Why didn't I get notified? Oh, you didn't get notified, sir? Really? It says they sent an email. I went through all my junk mailboxes and everything else and yep. Okay. I got a notice of cancellation. Oh, man, what a pain that one was. Well, we can find another place in the area you're in right now. We'll make sure you get a refund. I said, Listen, I'm here. I don't have A place to stay. What am I supposed to do now? And they just say I'm sorry, sir. You know, I'm sorry, We'll make sure you get credit. That's all they would do. For me, it was absolutely a nightmare. Three experiences personal experiences for me. One of them a nightmare. One of them on the edge of a nightmare. Another one that could well have been a nightmare but was a mere inconvenience. You can probably guess by now what my thinking is about Airbnb and VRBO. That's what got my interest in this article about this poor guy who was scammed, okay. He was trying to stay in Montreal, and the owner asked him to pay for their stay, outside of the Airbnb app. I've seen that happen many, many times. Because that way, the owner does not have to pay the Airbnb fees, okay? But if you do that now you have very little recourse against the owner, then you know, I've done some chargeback. Lately, now my company if someone buys a course from us, and they're not happy, and we will immediately refund their money because we just don't want them to be upset or disappointed. Because again, you know, our whole thing is to nourish you back to health when it comes to security stuff, right, get that transformation done. I have had some nightmares personally trying to do a chargeback for things that were never delivered, or that got charged inappropriately. Or where I canceled the service. In one case, it was like it was over $1,000 a month for the service, and I canceled it. They charged me the 1200 dollars anyways. I went to my credit card company, and they said, well, we'll have to verify it with the vendor first. So what? I canceled it. I had to fight with a credit card company, and then when they checked with the vendor, and the vendor said, Okay, well, it's fine. We'll take chargeback. You used to be able to do this at the drop of a hat, and I guess they've abused it, right? I think that's the bottom line on it. But man, oh man, so we'll get a little bit more into this vise story. I guess its turned into an Airbnb, VRBO, what to do if you want a vacation rental or if you want to rent a place while you're on a business trip. And then we'll get into some of the more of the articles here, in the next hour. You're listening to Craig Peterson, of course, on WGAN and online. Hi everybody. Craig Peterson back here. I don't know if you guys know what Airbnb's roots were. It started as an air Bed and Breakfast. It was intended for the very young generation to be able to go to concerts and things and just get an air bed in somebody's apartment or home. That's what Airbnb is all about air bed and breakfast. That was the whole idea. And I'm not so sure they've come a long way from those days. I spent the last few segments, in fact, in talking about my horror stories, we've been trying to use Airbnb. There's another one I did not mention in Florida, which was not a horror story quite the disappointment for this house. That I think while I'm quite confident in this house that we rented. It was for a family reunion. So we rented this house that slept like a dozen or something like that. All of the beds were just terrible. You know, the cheapest mattresses that are known to man. You shift your weight at all, and the squeaks loud enough to wake you up. The sheets are the cheapest ones you could imagine. It was an Airbnb as well. It was pretty obvious that the set up for this place was for porn videos. You go into the garage, and the whole garage is one massive shower with I can't remember for six showerheads in it. And then a little bit of workout equipment. I mean a tiny bit of workout equipment. It sounded awful. Okay. And so there you go there, there's all of the Airbnb and VRBO, experiences I can remember. My sister rented the one in Florida for the family, and she did not stay there. She stayed with my mom. It was quite revealing, frankly, so disappointing. I never shared these stories before, but it was because of a story that was in a vice.com, and you'll find this up on my website and Craig peterson.com. They put a little note out saying, Hey, does anybody have any stories about Airbnb, Airbnb scams, and they said, this is Anna Marian, who wrote this that nearly 1000 people sent them emails with their stories. They looked at all of the stories they put together some patterns. A former vice senior staff writer by the name of Alec Conti shared her story about a disastrous vacation to Chicago, and she ran into what she's saying are a bunch of grifters, and frankly a nationwide scam. I no longer use Airbnb at all or VRBO at all. I have been sticking with hotels. If you're interested, I typically use hotwire. I don't use the star ratings of the hotels. I rely on the ratings that are posted by the people who stayed there. I think that's the best feature of hotwire, frankly. I don't care what hotel it is. I just want to stay at a decent hotel. I even used hotwire throughout France and Belgium. It worked great. We found some just wonderful spots that we would never have found if we were just looking to stay at the Marriott or the Hilton or whatever it is, right? So Conti's investigation revealed some serious problems with Airbnb. Now you might have heard about this problem with Airbnb. After all, it hit the news late last year of these party rentals after a death happened. I think it was in San Diego at one of these party rentals. Somebody rented a nice house. Essentially a lot of these places get destroyed by the partiers, right there. There are drugs and heavy drinking, and in this one case, that hit the news. There were gun shootings. Okay, that's a very, very bad, bad thing. So Conti apparently, and again, you can find this article on vice.com traced her scam back to a company that used fake profiles and fake reviews to conceal a whole bunch of wrongdoings. Let's get into this okay because property switches are one of the biggest ones will tell you about what those are the units of sawdust on the floor with holes in the walls, this whole bait and switch game which goes into these properties, switches, and stuff. It's awful. When all else fails, there are these clumsy threatening demands for five-star reviews to hide the evidence of what they've done. Sometimes multiple scams are involved. You know it the hackers aren't just coming after directly our money by trying to hack our businesses by trying to fool us into clicking on links or doing things that we shouldn't be doing, right? These scammers are all over the place. After this story that came out, Airbnb promised to "verify All 7 million listings on this site by December of this year 2020". Frankly, there's no way that they could do this. There's no way you could send investigators to all 7 million listings. He said, Well, we're going to have to take more responsibility for stuff on our platform. Yes, you will. You have to provide a firewall. Not just a firewall of the reviewers, the people who stay there and review can see the reviews that come in from the owners of these properties. That's not going to solve the problem. You need to make it so that there can not be retribution by the bad guys that have given Airbnb a bad name. Now I got to mention that my sister the one that booked that Airbnb for us in Florida, my sister has a house that she rents out in Park City, Utah, on Airbnb, and one of her daughters keeps it clean. I know my sister is not engaged in scams. I know that my niece is somebody who takes responsibility for things. I'm sure she keeps it clean. I don't want to paint the whole Airbnb, a website and people who are renting with a black brush here, I don't want to paint the whole rental market, including the VRBO with a black brush, but I've got to say 100% of the time I have had what I think are scams on both platforms. Now, that's my personal opinion, based on a handful of stays, and I know a handful of stays does not represent every listing on the platforms, right. I understand that. However, its the verification process, we're talking about here. I don't know that he's ever going to do it. How are you going to review and verify all 7 million listings on the Airbnb site within 12 months by December 2020? I don't know how you're going to do it. So let's go through the biggest scams according to vice.com number one, which they say is exceedingly common. It's across hundreds of emails. It's the bait and switch where Airbnb users were promised one apartment and arrived to find something very different. deceptive photos a bore no resemblance to what they found when they got there. My kids found this too. They rented some places in Italy when they did a tour, and you know, black mold everywhere just terrible. Okay? Other times and they were persuaded by those to switch apartments or houses entirely. It is a widespread thing where they say, hey, due to unforeseen circumstances, as a pipe broke, I'm going to have to move you to another one of our properties. Now under the rules for Airbnb, the owner does not get penalized if they push you to a property due to quote, unforeseen circumstances unquote, like a pipe break. But it turns out some of these people are using that unforeseen circumstance again and again and again. And they're showing up to their rental defined the new locations filthy, unfurnished on a different part of town. And they're saying that in a surprising number of stories, the original house was full of a weird amount of bear beds laid out and bizarre configurations, kind of sounds like that porn place my sister rented for the family in Florida, doesn't it? So here's one of the quotes I rented a place near Glass beach and a few weeks part of my trip. When I reached out to confirm the booking, the Lister told me she had a septic problem in the unit, and she would see if she'd put me if she could put her up in a more prominent place nearby. It never materialized, but she refused to cancel my booking, saying the first time that her computer wasn't working and the next time weeks later that her father just passed away. I had to complain to Airbnb that she refused to cancel the booking, so they canceled it, but I was unable to write a negative review. According to Vice again, they're saying the plumbing scam seems to rest on the idea Airbnb won't penalize a host if the house is uninhabitable. Okay, that's what I was saying. I've seen this before. So this goes on and on this whole bait and switch thing. Okay, next one, getting the guests to agree to move houses and the plumbing scam is often kind of segway into getting you to agree to move houses. Okay? So they will say, supposed to be this, you know, here's this complaint supposed to be quaint, quiet property in downtown. They get delayed by the homeowner stating that we'd need to change properties the last minute since it was only a quick two-night visit we weren't opposed. The new quote larger location was this scummy little apartment complex on the other side of town. Another one - Booking the Airbnb to multiple people at the same time. That's what happened to us in Vegas. When my wife and I showed up at this apartment through Airbnb, perhaps the most socially awkward Bait and switch is this one renting an Airbnb where you believe you booked the whole residence only to arrive and find a whole bunch of strangers there. That happened to us in Vegas. Multiple people told us they came to see other Airbnb guests at the house, or in some cases, people who seem to live there. It just goes on and on. Next one - money scams, paying outside the app. I mentioned this one early. It says it's a straightforward scam. Be careful. There's no be careful here, as there is no reason to do that. Fake damages - Man, I've heard about this from multiple people before mine. How can Airbnb police this? Did the guests damage the place? Okay. Oh man scam scams, you'll find more about this online. My advice? Use a hotel you trust us out of the hotel booking site, you believe. And I already told you, I use hotwire because I don't care what the brand is. I just want a good hotel, and I use the ratings from the people who stayed. Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back, everybody, Craig Peterson here on WGAN and online at Craig peterson.com. Hey, have you thought about how to follow along at home or on the road during the week? The easiest way to do that is to listen to my podcasts. Why not? I put it out there are multiple things, including this weekend show, but many other things that I include during the week, and you can subscribe to that as well on your favorite podcast platform. And it says Craig Peterson dot com slash iTunes. If you are an iTunes type of person or Craig peterson.com, slash tune in or slash I heart. Okay, I am kind of all over the place today. I appreciate everybody who does Listen to me and comments on things during the Week. You'll also find me on LinkedIn and Facebook and YouTube, but it is kind of over the place as I talk about some of the biggest stories of the week. Now we were just talking about scams that seem to be coming from Airbnb and VRBO, of course, but there is a lot of scams going one. We are going to get into one right now tied into the coronavirus. But first I just want to make mention of this other article that came out last month in January. And it's talking about computer literate millennials and Generation Z. These are the people that grew up with the internet. They've had the internet pretty much their whole lives. They found meaning the Federal Trade Commission has found that people ages 39 and under are more likely to report fraud than the 40 plus Crowd now here's the thinking. It isn't that the younger kids and millennials and Generation Z, it isn't as though they are less afraid to report that money has been stolen from them, it appears that they are more likely to fall victim to fraud 25% more likely. Now the millennials are less likely to fall for scams over the phone than people over 40, but 77% More likely, Millennials are 77% more likely to get duped by email scams and 90% more likely to lose money on a fake check scam. Now the thinking behind this is that those of us who are a little bit older, we hold the whole internet thing with a little bit more skepticism than our children and grandchildren do. Because we know that there are scammers out there. And we've heard all of the horror stories, whereas the younger kids are looking at it as well. It's the internet, and they just give their stuff away. We already know that there are studies that show that the millennials will give their email address away in trade for a single donut. Okay, so they don't value a lot of this stuff. You know, to me, well, it's a little bit concerning, and it should be to you. But let's get into the latest scam that's out there right now. It isn't the Airbnb scam, which has been out there for a few years now. As I said, hey, I've been burned what, four or five times by this overall, personally. So I'm just to the point I just don't use it anymore period. It's a real shame because there are some good people out there. But this has to do with what's been happening. Now it is happening with the Coronavirus, and this is a huge deal. We had one day this week, where 15,000 new cases were reported. Supposedly, it was due to a change in the way China was tracking the Coronavirus and diagnosing people. So they're saying, Hey, listen, it's you know is just a change. Don't expect this to indicate that more viruses are spreading out there. And frankly, I look at it and say, Well, maybe there are there aren't. But what we're seeing are some rather sophisticated phishing scams going on. Phishing, of course, this is the one spelled with a Ph. It is where an attacker tricks you into doing something. It might be clicking on a link. It might be responding to an email. It might also be a phishing scam over the phone or, you know, SMS a text one which would be called smishing. A whole new type of phishing this going on right now. Well, last week, IBM and Kaspersky now Kaspersky is a Russian anti-virus company. They are also trying to stop the general spread of malware. The State Department, the FBI, Homeland Security, not to use Kaspersky software, but they do have good information. So when I see Kaspersky, combined with IBM, a company I do respect, then that does kind of make my years and help if you will. Still, IBM and Kaspersky caught hackers in Japan, trying to spread malware through emails, and the emails had links about the Coronavirus outbreak that started, of course, in Wuhan China last month in January. Now adding Sophos and now, of course, Cisco to the list. They have found phishing emails from cybercriminals, purporting to be from the Center for Disease Control, as well as the World Health Organization. And what these bad guys are trying to do is to steal your email credentials and other information. The emails are coming from several domains, including CDC dash gov.org, which, of course, is not the real CDC website. So be very careful if you are trying to find out information about the CDC or the spread of coronavirus about flu in general. For instance, in my home state of New Hampshire, we have I think it's seven deaths so far this year reported g attribute To the flu in general, not the Coronavirus. Every year about 12 to 16,000 people in the United States die from the flu. So far, we've only got 14 cases reported of Coronavirus. At this stage everybody, this is nothing to get all freaky worried about. Okay, so calm down. If you want more, go to cdc.gov. CDC Centers for Disease Control - cdc.gov, tells you what to do now. The current Coronavirus has an official name now. It's called covin-19 co vi n dash 19. There are multiple versions of Coronaviruses, which is why they identify each with a number. We have had a report in the past about Coronaviruses, and they have killed people previously. So you'll see Right at the top of the cdc.gov website, information about the Coronavirus and its spread. It is a respiratory disease and potentially fatal. It doesn't seem to be increasingly more fatal than some of the other viruses that we've had. Let's put all this in context. And when you get an email from someone saying, hey, look at this, you click on this link, to get information about the Coronavirus. It's going to let you track the spread of etc. don't respond. If you get a text message, don't respond. I got one because I'm a member of the Great and Powerful media, right. I got one last week that was sent out to members of the press saying, Hey, we got this new tracking site. You just can to be cautious enough when it comes to this. So if you go to CDC Gov at the top, You'll see the description here about the covin-19. You can click on that, and it'll show you a global map about the location of reported cases and what is happening. So, I'm looking at one, and it's about one day behind. It looks like right now for covan-19. But you can see all of the countries that have been reporting it. Then you can also look at the hard statistics. People under investigation in the United States, exactly how many 14 positives, you'll see that there. Of course, it changes daily. You can see how many tested negative and how many pending, the people are under investigation. Remember, the airplane full of workers from the State Department that came back from China. They have now been under quarantine for more than 14 days. They release them all from quarantine because it turns out, nobody had that virus. So just because you have the flow doesn't mean it's Coronavirus. More cases over on the left coast and the Midwest, which is kind of surprising to me than there are on the East Coast or the Mid Atlantic, etc., etc. So have a look there. Do not respond to emails or texts or phone calls. Okay? Just be very, very careful because the hackers are imitating this sort of thing. The other side of this is they are sending out messages seeking donations. They are asking for Bitcoin donations to the World Health Organization can tell you right now, the World Health Organization, the CDC, they are not taking Bitcoin donations, okay. So don't go and donate. Right And again, the CDC gov.org is the band guys CD see.gov is the good guys. The scam page is straightforward. It, you know, took the scammers, maybe just a few minutes to put together. It's handy, and it looks legit. And the FBI and, of course, also Homeland Security are taking down these pages as soon as they can, but they can't always get rid of them right away. And companies, we've got to be proactive. We've got to chain train our employees, not to follow up on these scams. So again, that's part of the reason for my newsletters. I report on the biggest scams that are going on. I try and keep it down to just a few a week. You can share them with your employees, share them with your family, but you have to get them to share them. Go to Craig peterson.com slash subscribe, and you'll get those as well stick around. We'll be right back on WGAN. Hey, welcome back, everybody. Craig Peterson here on WGAN, and thanks for joining us today. Hopefully, you picked up a lot of good information. We're just talking about the CDC some of the scams that are out there right now from the Coronavirus, including one involving Bitcoin, which kind of surprised me. We talked a lot in the first hour about the major scams on Airbnb, where you can rent apartments or homes for a day or a week or a month, almost anywhere. It's really quite neat. But the major scams have been going on there and how I've seen them personally and why I will never use it ever again. If you want to listen to that, just go to Craig Peterson comm slash tune in, you can subscribe right there. Listen to me, live by the way on tune in when I'm on the radio. He And when I'm on with canon Matt, the morning drive every Wednesday at 737, every Wednesday morning, as well. And those are all on tune in. Now, we're going to talk a little bit about this whole thing with the ACLU and their current fight. I spoke about something similar to this a couple of years ago, man, maybe actually the first time was probably about ten years ago. There are companies out there, and they gather information about us. They're called Data brokers. I have visited some of these data brokers sites themselves, I mean, physical sites, where the company operates where they have their data collections, to help them with security problems that they have, and to help prevent problems from occurring, right. That's what I do for living full time. It was probably ten years ago, the radio show that I talked with some of these companies. What they do is they collect open-source information that's used a lot by the government for any number of things from financial transactions to investigations. And you can use open-source information yourself. All you do is go to Google, for instance, and do a search. That's the open-source information. It's anything that anyone can gain access to, without having to be a police officer without having to go and really kind of, you know, get a court order kind of be surreptitious and how you gather that's open source. So the data break, brokers will take all of that, and that can include depending on the state you're living, driver's license information, it can include information about the mortgage for your home. It can include you know the ownership of your home, and it can include just all kinds of stuff. That becomes very, very difficult to control. Because all of your information is out there. It's available for free or for cheap on the internet. So these data brokers, they might buy it from the county, they might get it an open-source. Some of this information will contain data from your mortgage, will contain your signature, the deed to your home is going to contain the signature, the automobiles that you own. There's going to be UCC filings with the Secretary of State's office, detailing what cars you own, who the lien holders are, and how much money is involved all of this stuff. So it all gets pulled into these databases. I mentioned on the show a few months ago, a couple of months ago that we were out in Las Vegas at a wedding and of course, you know, doing work while I'm out there and I'm sitting They're on the couch doing work for some of our Las Vegas clients. And there's a knock at the door. And who's there? Well, it's an insurance investigator investigating an accident that it was a fatal accident. And of course, the insurance company had been asked to payout. So they came to this home because they had information that it that the person involved I had a contact with someone at this address, which indeed she did. It was her sister, and apparently, the driver had been responsible for this fatal death. The driver listed one of my sisters in law. She had died about six months before the accident. So obviously, it was all fate. The insurance investigator showed my wife all of this information she had from one of these data brokers. It listed my deceased sister in law's relatives, everybody, every address she had ever had. There were names and contact information for some of my kids. However, it had a lot of incorrect information, including supposed current addresses and voting information for relatives deceased for over two decades. When I've looked at the data brokers' information about me, about half of it's correct, but the other half is completely incorrect. And that's still the case because they had a lot of completely incorrect information. People that they said were relatives that weren't people we'd never heard of before. They said these were direct relatives of hers. At any rate, they had purchased all of this information from a Data Broker. In collections, this is called a skip trace. It's called a skip trace for people who jumped bail, etc. Man, we should talk to about this whole bail thing, and the idiocy in New York state that is spreading country-wide dog, the bounty hunter and his wife, Beth had been fighting this for a long time because it's making us much, much less safe. But anyhow, that's not a topic for today's show. It's not a political topic, because it's undeniable what's already happening with the increase in the crime rate in New York anyways. What the government is doing now is what I was warning about a decade ago. That is that the federal government, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, of the IRS, you name it, they are limited in how they can collect information, we kind of already knew that right? You know that they had to get a search warrant for certain things right. They can follow you around, without any expectation of privacy, etc., etc. So So obviously, federal government agencies can use open-source information to see what you're doing online. But how about the closed source stuff? How about this stuff that the data brokers are collecting? Some of it they're getting from the people who lent you money, some of it they're getting from places where you have to pay to get that information. So, what's happened here is that the ACLU has filed a suit, according to The Wall Street Journal, against Homeland Security. Homeland Security, through its Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, as well as Customs and Border Protection, is buying geolocation data from these data brokers and choosing to investigate suspects who have allegedly committed immigration violations. So let me boil all that down into plain English. You might be using games on your smartphone, and you might be using all kinds of apps on your smartphone. If you have a smartphone, frankly, you're probably not using 90 95% of those apps that you have downloaded. But many of those apps are tracking you. And that information is being sold to data brokers. So think about that for a minute. Remember that free app and how you've heard me and many others for so many years say, hey, you're not the customer. You are the product. Well, what's happening here now is that the ACLU is saying to the federal government, hey, you cannot buy the information that by law your organization cannot collect. You cannot buy it from data brokers or these app developers who are selling it. Interesting question, interesting problem, isn't it? What should they do? What should you do? What can you do? It is going to play out in court, and I suspect it's going to come down on the side of the Department of Homeland Security because this information is generally available to anyone willing to pay for it. So now the government stepped forward, saying we are will pay for it. By the way, this goes down to local law enforcement as well. In many cases, they are also buying this information from the data brokers. So let's stick around when we come back. We're going to talk about shadow IT. If you don't know what it is, it's a problem if you're in business. Hey, welcome back, everybody Craig Peterson here on WGAN. Thanks for joining me and for spending part of your Saturday with me. If you're listening to this on a podcast at Craig Peterson dot com slash tune in, thanks for joining me, some listen to me while they're driving to and from work and find the various segments of my show, which are about ten-ish minutes long, really work well into their day. So if you're doing that, thank you if you're not, please do consider it. I try and keep everybody up to date with the information that you need to know. And that leads us to what we got right now. Which is shadow IT. Now I bet there is not a company out there. Well, maybe there's one right because you just can't put always say or you know everyone that I say almost every company out there has a shadow IT problem. So let's start by kind of defining what's going on. Ha

Apply to 'Go Live' with me here: https://www.laurenlesley.com/webinar-series/#anchor-link-collaboration   TRANSCRIPT: Hey, what up fool's Lauren here with Lauren Lesley studio. And today I want to invite you to go live with me on Instagram or in my Facebook group. Now, if you've never gone live before, you may be thinking, what's the point? Or I'm scared to go live. Is it really that great or what's the point of it? And I want to let you know that after researching, I'm doing some market research on sprouts social. The era of live video is it's really here to stay, guys. You really don't want to miss the boat on this piece of content or this type of content marketing. So audiences, they just are, they're really looking for more intimacy. As more accounts look so perfect on Instagram. Live video just gives you this authenticity that just can't be duplicated by photos or, or a descriptions or anything like that. And that's part of the reason why 80% of customers say they'd rather watch a live video from a company rather than read their blog. So that's pretty crazy. 80% is a big, big number. Um, and at that same time, the ephemeral nature of live video kind of prompts, um, you know, people to feel that FOMO sensation where they're scared of missing out because your live video is only going to be up for 24 hours on Instagram, on Facebook. It'll stay around a little bit longer, but things kind of seem to disappear if you're just looking at the news feed anyway. So, um, Instagram live is normally where I go live, but also I'm open to doing Facebook lives in my Facebook group. Um, and to let you guys know, Instagram, uh, in June of 2018 reached 1 billion monthly active users, which is insane. So if you're trying to grow your design business or your art account on Instagram, there are so, so, so many people that you could be reaching. And a lot of, um, Instagram lives features include, um, giving priority to live video. So thanks to Instagram's algorithm, which you know, we can all hate the algorithm from time to time, but if you want to kind of play up your strengths of the algorithm than posting live video, we'll place you at the head of your followers feeds. If you're looking for a way to stay top of mind, then when you, you know, when any of your audience opens the Instagram app, they're gonna see your live video first. Um, and live video really promotes increased engagement. So with Instagram, I have a lot of companies respond immediately to client. It's use issues. You can answer questions, um, and just engage with your followers in a more real and authentic way. Live videos also such an amazing way to build relationships. You know, if you're really trying to grow your Instagram account, not just get, you know, as many followers as you can, cause that can be kind of, um, superficial. But if you really want to build relationships with people on Instagram and build that trust and um, kind of that fan following for your design and artwork, then those face to face interactions are going to be J they're just going to promote so much more trust and people will get to know your personality and it's just way more intimate and it also helps, you know, kind of promote your brand identity. I mean that kind of sounds a little corporate-y but you know, your Instagram account is a good face of your brand. So Instagram live is just such a great way for brands to kind of show their individuality and their personality and it really just brings, you know, the, the person behind the brand or the, the artist behind your artwork or the designer behind your designs. It just really brings all of that to life. So you should definitely be going live if you're not already. And I know it can be kind of scary, but it's really not that bad once you do it and it's way easier to do it with another person and just have kind of a normal conversation. It's almost just like a phone call. And now that I'm working at home, I I get a little bit lonely. So I wanna be able to talk to other designers and Instagram live. You know, if you're going to be talking to other designers anyway, you might as well get the benefits of the Instagram algorithm while you're doing it and help serve other people that may want to watch and have similar questions or whatnot. So it's definitely easier to go live with another person because you have things that you can just talk about and you kind of forget that other people are watching. When I've gone live by myself, I do get a little bit nervous, like a hope of not boring you guys and um, I don't know what to talk about next cause you're just kind of talking to a wall in a way. But when you go live with another person, it really is just like a normal conversation. Um, and other people can watch along. So I want to invite you to go live with me. I love going live with people. It's one of my new favorite things to do so you can apply to go live with me on my website@laurenleslie.com slash webinar series. So I'll put the link in the description below, be sure to check it and apply to go live with me. I try to go live once a week on Tuesdays, but if that doesn't work with your schedule then I'm opening. I'm open to scheduling on a different day. So thanks so much guys on be sure to like this video. Leave me a comment if you want to go live with me or if you have questions about live video for designers or for artists, leave me a comment below. I would love to hear from you guys, um, and be sure to check out the design tribe Facebook group, which I also like to go live in my group because it does just promote like more intimacy and it's just a smaller group of designers and collaborating creatives on sharing like small business tips and things like that. So sign up to join the live Facebook group if that applies to you. Um, and I'll see you in the next video. Thanks guys. [inaudible].

White supremacy on UNR campus, protests, issues related to diversity and even construction is what the news editor, Taylor Johnson, of the Nevada Sagebrush covers. In this episode of the Reynolds Hotbox, with host Lucia Starbuck and cohost Scott King, Johnson discusses her experiences writing for a student run print news publication, the time her work was plagiarized and why it’s important for her to capture student voices. “When I've reported on diversity related issues, protests, what not, I like to focus on the students because to me, students are like the spirit of this university. They have a lot of power even if they don't see it and I love hearing their experiences and their voice, especially like when reporting,” Johnson said. This semester, Johnson spoke to fellow students for her recent article, ‘White Supremacy Persists at UNR, Two Years After Charlottesville,’ which covered the actions of the white supremacist group, American Identity Movement, putting their fliers and posters on bulletin boards around campus. Johnson wrote about student and faculty responses and did what most media didn’t, included the AIM founder’s side of the story. The article brought Johnson publicity after the president of UNR shared the story with the entire school. Johnson said she received criticism from both sides. Take a listen to this episode of the Reynolds Hotbox to hear more about Taylor’s experiences writing this article and the impact it had, as well as what drives her to be a student journalist.

In this special episode of Table Fries, Jeanne's guest is author, Jackie Glenn. Right out of the gate Jeanne asked her for the one word that describes her. Authentic. You'll have no doubt after this episode that authentic is the perfect word for her. She admits that sometimes she may not be nice, depending on when you catch her in the day, but she'll always be an authentic truth-teller. Jeanne and Jackie talked about the inspiration for her book, Lift as I Climb (available on Amazon here). In this episode, you'll hear the wise advice she'd give her 18-year-old self, what a good day looks like. The answer - "When I've impacted the next generation." You'll also hear about the pivot that led her to where she is today as a highly respected Diversity, Inclusion & Corporate Culture Strategist. Tune in. About Jeanne's guest, Jackie Glenn: As Founder and Principal of Glenn Diversity Inclusion & HR Solutions, she provides corporations and individuals thought leadership in the development and execution of strategies, programs, and best practices needed to create inclusive and effective corporate cultures by attracting and retaining diverse workforces. She is also a speaker and host of national and international conferences and panels.This comes after a 19-year career at EMC, where she began in human resources and advanced to the C-Suite, eventually becoming Vice President & Global Chief Diversity Officer at Dell EMC. As stated in her recent book, Lift As I Climb: An Immigrant Girl’s Journey Through Corporate America, “There is a special place carved out that only you can fill.” Her adaptation to American culture as an immigrant from Jamaica cultivated skills and insights that uniquely qualify her to help her company create a diverse workforce that would retain top talent from the United States – a nation of immigrants – and around the globe.

"The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love." - Hubert HumphreyThroughout our lifespan, we endure a magnitude of challenges and obstacles. Some more than others and yet many still do not believe in therapy, counseling, seeking help and support, or in some cases, that mental impairments such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD are real issues. In episode 2, The Therapy Relationship, Elaina and Tracy discussed the value of going to therapy and finding the right therapist. And share their experiences when it comes to finding a therapist, and their experiences with going to therapy and counseling.Life throws us curve balls all the time. It feels like when you're making moves and making things happen for yourself, and things are starting to connect, that seems like when life comes at you.Having that therapeutic relationship is beneficial as it is non-biased. It is nonjudgmental. I can be authentic. Sometimes we need to talk it out and process it to get out of our head.When I've experienced therapy and working with therapists and counselors, the thing that I appreciate the most is feeling safe as I'm not being judged. I can say absolutely whatever I want to, and nobody else is going to know about it. There are definitely different types of therapists, and it's not a one size fits all.And sometimes people are like, well, you know, I want a black therapist, and that's okay. Get you a black therapist. Because if that's what's going to help you to connect and be able to be yourself and feel comfortable, do you. You find the one that works best for you.Elaina highlighted that whether your insurance pays a part or deductibles, this is a service that you're paying for, so why not find the right fit for you? And it can be challenging, especially if you want a therapist that is representative of a specific culture or community. But there are resources available. Tracy said, we all have to remember that we're only human and that there's no shame in admitting that we need help or that we need to seek help because we're, we're not alone. And we must stop ignoring, ignoring our needs, and take care of ourselves.TranscriptResources, Connect, Shop and SubscribeFind Support (https://copequeens.com/find-support)Shop (https://copequeens.com/shop)Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/copequeenspodcast)Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/copequeenspodcast)Twitter (https://twitter.com/copequeens)Support the show (http://paypal.me/copequeens)

Major Points:                                 5:15       Things that usually bring you joy no longer do so is a sign of burnout. Ask yourself why this no longer gives you pleasure.                                                 7:12        There is a mindset associated with burnout that may present as mental, physical, or emotional issues or a combination. Changing this mindset is key to addressing the burnout but professional help may be needed if the mindset is difficult to change.                                                 14:19 Finding purpose: What are the three words that you would want others to use to describe you and what is you intention to elicit that description?                                                 00:01                                     This is Changing the Face of Yoga and this is the 124th episode of this podcast. And my guest today is Susie Bischovsky and Suzie is an expert on protection from and prevention of burnout. I think that that is and can be an issue with yoga teachers and yoga therapists since we give so much of ourselves. I wanted to talk to Susie about this. Suzie is also a yoga teacher and she has her own podcast called Keep Your Candle Lit and she also works in public school education. She embeds what she learned in yoga into her classroom and she teaches gentle yoga at a yoga studio. You could call it extra, extra gentle yoga. We might look into what that means. She's also taught her school colleagues and students at her middle school and she incorporates mindfulness and burnout prevention in the practice. Her ideal client is someone who doesn't think yoga is for them and leaves the class realizing that it is. Welcome, Suzi. Is there anything else you'd like to add to that introduction? 01:30                                     Wow that after listening to that introduction, I'm exhausted, I'm tired. No. 01:38                                     It is an extensive list. I listened to some of your podcasts and one of them really threw me because I thought I knew what burnout is, but given what you said, I don't. I saw burnout was just being so stressed and having so much to do and that you just can't keep going. But what you said, and I'd really like to talk about this, is that if you don't have purpose in your life, passion for what you're doing and vision, that's the cause of burnout many times. So could we just kind of start there and talk about what the causes might be and why you believe this is the cause of burnout? 02:29                                     Yeah. So thank you for that question. as far as that being the cause, maybe it's more like causality or more along the lines of if we sit down and we look at ourselves and we're asking ourselves these questions, what is our purpose? What is our passion? What is our vision? If we can't answer those questions, that could point us in the direction of possible burnout. 02:55                                     Okay, so what we're looking at is not so much a physical overwhelm as kind of being lost. Is that a fair thing to say? 03:08                                     Yeah, I think so. I mean, I feel like the interesting thing for me about burnout is when I was going through my coach training, I didn't recognize that I myself had gone through burnout because it was never framed that way to me. We talk about depression, we talk about anxiety, but at that time, burnout wasn't that thing. Other than like people would say, I'm feeling really burntout or I'm feeling tired. My key was I would say, I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired. Or if people wanted to do something, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. It was like that idea of a hamster wheel, but now it's 2019 and the world health organization itself actually cites burnout as a condition to be mindful of and aware of. They do pretty much pigeonhole it towards the workplace, but we see people talking about caregiver burnout and all other things. So I feel it's something that we're still on the cusp of understanding. 04:08                                     So you said that you didn't realize that you had burnout. What would be something to be looking out for if you feel that you may be either on the cusp of burnout or actually burned out? 04:26                                     So if I can add to that question, just the idea of like how is it different or similar to depression or anxiety, specifically depression, because I think someone could very easily say, Oh, I'm burned out and maybe not even recognize the signs of depression. So I also just want to advocate for the importance of having our own wellness team, like your audience, they're familiar with yoga, right? So a lot of us embody yoga as a physical, mental, spiritual practice. For some people it is physical. So what do other people have in their life that guides them to recognizing when something within is calling out to them. So to go back to that original question of how do we know when we're being burned out? Wait, was that the original question? I'm sorry, 05:13                                     That was it. Yes. 05:15                                     Okay, thank you. My brain just went loo la loo. Oh, so to go back to that original question of like how do we know when we're burned out? I think that sometimes people can see it within us before we can see it within ourselves. And one of the things I think to be mindful of is: if the things that normally bring you joy no longer bring you joy, what's underneath that? Or here's an example that seems very like benign, right? So I'm an avid reader, whether it's paper copy or an e-copy, I can sit and I can read and I can read and I can read. And you know what's wrong with that? Reading is a good thing, but if I sit and I don't do anything else for hours and for days for me that pleasurable activity has become either a substitute or a coping mechanism for something else. And sometimes I need someone to kind of say to me like, Hey, so you've been on the couch coma for like a week, what's going on to point that out to me? Or even for yoga practitioners, if yoga is the thing that brings you joy and release and you're avoiding your mat, or you're avoiding yoga on your chair or yoga on your couch or yoga in your car, you're like, we all do yoga all over the place, right? So when you start to run away from that thing that brings you joy or brings you release, I think that's another indication that we need to look at something. 06:41                                     Okay. So that's, that's really very different from what my interpretation of burnout used to be. It's not really so much, if I'm understanding this, a physical tiredness as much as a mental, not an issue, but a mental problem that you may or may not be able to recognize. 07:12                                     I think that's a really good question. When we think about burnout, it could be physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion, right? Or someone might even have a change in attitude or become negative or unconcerned or disconnected. However, from talking to my clients and supporting them through their own burnout prevention, or even recovery at the heart of it, generally speaking, there's like a mindset. And if we can shift the mindset, we can then go after the physical, the emotional, the mental exhaustion. However, if the mindset can't be shifted or can't be unpacked or can't be uncovered, then I think that's when it's time to talk to a traditionally trained professional, like a therapist or a doctor. And talk a little bit more about, is this burnout? Is it something deeper and what are some things that I can do? As an example? one of the things that came up for me years ago was that I was vitamin D deficient and I was like, all right, whatever. 08:11                                     And then as soon as they started to give me the prescription vitamin D, at that time, it was like someone shot sunshine into me. And I was like, wow, is this what it feels like to not be exhausted all the time? So that wasn't necessarily a burnout piece, but that adjustment to what was coming into my body certainly changed how I showed up and presented myself. When I was burnt out, I didn't know that I was burnt out until I wasn't burnt out anymore. And then with the learning and the knowledge that I did, hindsight's everything right? I look back and I went, Oh, that's what was happening. Oh, that's why I took a piece of chart paper and wrote on it all the things that I had to do and wore it like a badge of honor. And that's why before I understood what values were, when I made a list of all the things that I had to do and that were important, my friendships weren't on there, my family wasn't on there, my husband wasn't on there. It was just all very task-oriented. I think that now a days there is still a stigma with mental health. I like to call it mental wellness for some reason. When you say mental wellness, people listen to a conversation differently. I feel that as the conversation has shifted and evolved and has grown, we do talk about this a lot more. Back then I was just, your average really busy really to hired person who thought everything that she was doing was so important and it was not. 09:38                                     So you said that you are in burnout prevention and I like that. What would you recommend to people, the listeners what is important when you’re thinking burnout could be an issue for me. What is the preventative things that you might be able to do? 10:08                                     So one of the things that I like to incorporate into my coaching practice, as well as yoga, and in the classroom when my students allow, for a second, a three words to describe yourself in the present moment without attachment, without judgment, without trying to change something, without trying to analyze it. Like just pausing, taking a breath, really scanning the body and what are three words that describe how you are in this moment? And then at the end of something I like to do a ticket out or I ask people to check again. And the misconception is I'm looking for you to take your quote unquote negative words and shift them into positive ones. I'm not.  I don't like when we label the words as positive or negative, but if that's what someone needs to do. Like if you go into something and you're like calm and peaceful and you come out of something and you're angry or anxious, there's a reason why. So being mindful and truly connected to how we're feeling without trying to sugarcoat it or hide it is important. One of the things that I've advocated for people to do is like to find a ritual to do it. So maybe when you're brushing your teeth or you put your hands on your steering wheel or you unlock your door, something that you do every single day. Like I tell the students, hopefully it's when you put on your deodorant because we want to keep our friends close, right? So something where you can check in and identify that. Another thing that I like to do, and I'll be honest here, when I do it, it's awesome. When I forget to do it, I run into trouble. The simple step of gratitude. 11:37                                     Yes. It's very powerful, isn't it? 11:42                                     And notice we both paused after that word came up, right? Yeah. There's something about gratitude that makes us pause. it can take your breath away if you're having the moment of anxiety, a situational anxiety, taking your breath, noticing your breath, thinking about what you're grateful for. And when we're having our worst moments, the answer is nothing. I'm grateful to breathe. I'm grateful to be alive today. I'm grateful that I have resources at my disposal. I'm grateful that the sun is shining. I'm grateful that there's rain for 40 days, not so much, because the flowers grow. Like what is it we can find grateful for? And I often invite people to just trick your brain. If you're truly not grateful, find something that you can say that you are or practice something until it becomes your truth. Because eventually it will come very organically and naturally.                                                 Another simple thing that I would say is figure out if you like quiet or music. So when I meditate or I relax, I try a variety of things. Sometimes I need nothing. Sometimes I need focused silence. Sometimes I need a candle, a crystal. Sometimes I need music. Sometimes I need an Ohm chant. Sometimes you need a mala. Experiment. I think too many times we try something and it doesn't work so we move on to the next thing as opposed to trying the thing multiple ways and you don't have to do it the same way. You don't fail at it, right? Like there's no report card that says you failed this, you can't do it anymore.                                                 So whether it's any of those three things that I mentioned or just other things, finding something, trying it and finding a way to make it into a ritual. You mentioned that I'm a school teacher, I have been teaching for 22 years. My summers, I'm quote unquote off. And if any of your listeners are teachers, they understand what I mean by the air quotes of being off. But summer does grant me some more freedom and flexibility with my schedule. And this summer I was super, super careful to cultivate for myself some practices that I could then transfer over during my busy season and not go, well that was summer Suzi, false. Suzi can't be mindful, can't relax. She can't find the thing because she's too busy. Like I think a lot of us, whatever our professions and roles are, we fall into these seasons and we find something that works for us, we run out of time and then we let it go. So I really advocate for super simple, short practices. Okay. 14:19                                     I'd like you to explain a bit more about your thoughts on, purpose, passion and vision. I think those are such fundamental things that many of us may not really consciously think about. I at one point not anymore, had a retirement podcast and that was the theme of that was having passion and purpose, because you are reinventing your whole life and so it can be difficult.                 I think it's equally difficult just not with any major changes in your life, but really kind of knowing who and what you are and what you want to achieve.                                                 When you said retirement, I sat up a little straighter. I'm not close to retirement. I did indicate that I was teaching for 22 years. And to be perfectly honest, I don't know if I'll retire in 10, 15, 20 or 25. But for me, I'm being mindful of my own purpose, passion, and vision. So when I do transition, I can transition into that which I love and not transition into a hamster wheel.                                                 So in answer to that about purpose. I invite your listeners to think about purpose as what's your intention? How do you want to be? How do you want to show up in the world? Maybe purpose is: if you are eavesdropping on people, talking about you, right? What three words would you want them to use to describe you and then what's your intention to earn that? What actions are you taking each day?                                                  And I'm not thinking about smart goals or measurable outcomes, but more about like what is it you want to do? so for me, my purpose varies, but generally speaking, my purpose is to be kind. Yes, I'm publishing a book in the fall, yes, I'm going to release an online course. Yes, I'm going to do these things, but my purpose is to be kind. Before our call I was reviewing old text messages. And ironically I took a picture of one and the person reached out to me and said, I just wanted you to know that when I think about you, I picture you smiling and I can't say the same about everyone else. And I thought, that's awesome because this person has seen me cry, scream, rant, all the things. But when they think of me, they think of the smile and I think that speaks to the kindness. Am I kind 100% of the time? My students would challenge that, right? My husband would and when we just had the discussion about the air conditioning today very loudly. I feel like I can, I keep saying I feel like. Because I feel that that's where purpose is. It's our intention. It's our feeling. It's our heartbeat. My goal is to be kind. My goal is to walk in peace and my goal is to support people in finding their light, whether they're children or adults or any other variation.                                                  When I think about passion, to me that goes back to your motivation to stick to your purpose. So the name of my podcast is Keep Your Candle Lit and that's because of the light within us. So what is it that we do? What is it that you do that keeps your flame ignited? How do you stay lit? And then on the other side of that is what dims your light? What dims your light?                                                 A heartbeat of the work that I do is this expression, our self-talk becomes our life walk; our self-talk becomes our life walk. So if you are negatively talking about yourself, that's going to dim your light and then you're going to walk in that manner. Think about someone who like gets a compliment and then they walk with their head held high and then think about someone that gets verbally berated and they walk with their head down low. There is a difference there. So what is it that we're doing that keeps us lit? What are we doing or what happens that dims our light and even the people around us, right? Like who are the people that are stoking our flames and who might be trying to distinguish us or I'm sorry, who might be trying to extinguish us? But I like to distinguish us. That's nice. Friendly, right? Head over the people that distinguish you, not extinguish you.                                                 And then, finally on that purpose, passion, vision train. The idea of vision is of course, how do you see yourself? But it's the alignment of your purpose and passion. Like in our best life, those two integrate, right? Like we can live the life we want, walk the path we want and have it all integrate either in the short term, in the long term, it can be action oriented. But truly for me it's like how I want to be. So if my intention is to be kind and I know that taking 10 minutes a day to listen to calming music keeps me lit and I know that engaging in negative self-talk or shoving donuts in my mouth, which is my easy go to dims my light, right? If I make the good choices so I can be kind, then when people leave my presence, they walk with their head held a little bit higher. When people leave my presence, they feel warm. When someone walks away from me and they seem more stressed than when we started a conversation, that's when I know that perhaps I'm not being 100% myself.                                                 And I recognize that that is also about another person. I get that, it's a two way street there. For me with students, with adults, I want people to know that they're heard. I want people to know that they're seen. And I want people to know that they're valued. And that's why for me, when we do talk about yoga, I don't do headstands as a part of my practice. I love people that do. I think it's magical. I think it's amazing. It's not part of my practice. I can't twist myself into a pretzel. The majority of the people that I work with, they're looking for the release on the mat and if they one day can get to the twisted pretzel and the head stand, that's awesome. But I want the people that say yoga isn't for me, so I can show them how it's not only a physical practice. 20:46                                     Let's talk a little bit more about that. You said that you do extra, extra gentle yoga. What would that really look like when you call it that? 21:01                                     In full disclosure, at the end of August I'll still be doing yin yoga training, because I kind of feel called toward that. I'm wrapping up Yoga Nidra training as well because I felt called to that. When I teach yoga, I don't even like to say the word teach. I know that I'm the teacher when I facilitate, when I support, when I offer yoga. One of my first classes that I ever taught beyond karma classes, so I was like working for the studio. Here we go. One of my friends came and like she never did yoga and she was like, I'm not doing that for all the reasons why. And she came and at the end she's like, that was the equivalent of a really good massage. Thanks. And she has since gone off to do yoga at a whole bunch of studios, she jumps around, she lost weight, she has more flexibility and I think she has more peace of mind is my understanding, which to me is more important than all the other things.                                                 When people enter a class, I offer them time, like we all do to get settled in and find something that they're comfortable with, a nice comfortable position. And then of course we do breath work and we do body scans and all the beautiful things, but I try to offer some sort of an embedded burnout prevention tip. It could again be a gratitude or the three words, something along those lines or it could be something a little deeper, especially as I get to know some of the yogis that are in the room. I would say my yoga class is anti-flow, meaning instead of inhaling and exhaling into poses like a flow class, we might hold a pose or hold the action of getting into a pose for several breaths before we transition into the next piece. I feel that we do less postures, more holding, more breath work sometimes with props, sometimes without, and as far as it being extra, extra gentle, I have discovered a trend of late that I do more groundwork then standing poses, although I do incorporate them because I understand we have to like bring in the balance of all the things. Mountain pose. Oh my gosh. Do you love mountain pose, Stephanie? 23:22                                     Some days. Some days it seems not worth it. 23:33                                     I will say that I love a mountain pose. And when we do Tadasana. If you can picture this. First, we start in the traditional with the hands releasing to the earth and generally eyes are closed or they're invited to have eyes closed and we take breaths and we breathe and then I ask people to check in with their fingers pointed to the earth, what are they releasing? And then after a couple of breaths, we raise our arms. So they're shoulder height, hands, extended palms facing one another. And I invite them to consider what they're reaching for. And then after that hands go above the head, pointing toward the sky, what would you like to express gratitude for? And then after that hands come to chest. What are you hoping for or some variation of that. So, we can take a pose like that. And play with it a little bit and incorporate some language that really invites reflection. Maybe it invites reframing a negative thought that we had during the day or negative self-talk. Something along those lines.                                                 Oh, and I just want to give a shout out for child's pose. Oh my gosh. I think I just kind of described how I am, right. That just pigeons me. I feel like child's pose is such a delicious release and I love using props to bring the earth closer. And I love witnessing people do child's pose with a variety of adjustments that they make themselves and watching people's faces when they come out of child's pose is like my favorite part of the practice. I absolutely can include sun salutations or moon cycle, but when I do, they're done slow as well. Right? So stepping into one of the postures, holding it, stepping into the next one. So I guess you could say extra, extra gentle is just super slow and mindful.                                                 I don't think anyone's going to break a sweat necessarily, however, I think that they're going to get increased flexibility. And a release from stress and tension. I'm also known, this is so embarrassing, but I think it's just become my thing. Like my brain goes a hundred miles a minute and I have to slow it down during my own practice of yoga as well as when I'm teaching and facilitating. I've definitely called the ankle - foot wrists - so many times that it comes out of my mouth almost all the time without even thinking about it. I'm definitely the kind of person that if you're not interested in laughing during a yoga class, I might not be your cup of tea. Cause generally people are laughing at me in a very nice and gentle way. But I think it, it all comes from wanting to be of service to people, right? Like no one becomes rich becoming a yoga teacher. We all have something that calls us to teach yoga. And for me, I never wanted to be a yoga teacher. I just wanted to deepen my own practice and understand it more teaching was an accident. 26:52                                     But I do like all of the things that you're incorporating. I mean I think I can really like Tadasana if I had all those cues to really reflect while I'm doing it. I mean I can understand that. And yet you've said previously those are really good cues, really good things to be thinking about, especially in the context of burnout and looking at it from a preventative point of view. I'm wondering if slow yoga, we'll call it that or we could call it extra gentle, gentle yoga is kind of the opposite. The pendulum has swung from the very, very athletic, physical aspects of yoga and now people are maybe starting to talk about some other aspects of yoga. They aren't sometimes as accessible as the physical and yet they are equally, if not more, important. I think I would enjoy an extra gentle, gentle yoga class with you. I would like the reflection part of it, because that, especially when you're teaching, I think it's, it's difficult to be reflective of your own practice. You are working out poses and all that kind of thing. I think that's a really good offering. If you were going to tell the listeners anything that we haven't talked about or that you would like to talk about in more detail, what would that be? 28:52                                     So I love the title of your podcast and when I think about changing the face of yoga, I want children to understand that yoga can be athletic like you've said. Right? But that yoga can also be a way for them to chill out, decompress. And even if they have to go onto technology to access a yoga class, it's okay for them to step away from the technology and, and take a break to do something along those lines. When I've incorporated yoga in the classroom, not systemically, I like to do a little more systemically this year I've had some sections that are more receptive than others and sometimes it's a chair, sometimes it standing, but it's certainly more relaxing than athletic cause we have some space considerations and safety issues to consider. But when they do like a half moon pose or tadasana or even a simple twist that's slow and they're breathing, that change in them and the change in the environment after. It just makes sense.                                                 So for people that are listening, if they are yoga teachers, encouraging them to find a way, if their schedule allows just to do a, maybe a voluntary drop in at a school somewhere, someone was receptive to that or if someone has a studio, I'm sure that there are people that are doing yoga classes for kids. I would love to see more of yoga with parents and children, specifically adolescents because that can be such a time where adolescents and parents are butting heads. And I think a yoga experience could be a nice way to bring people together, especially around a real beautiful theme. So I would just invite your listeners to just to consider, to think about how the world would change and how the way we all engage with each other would change if our children could find ways to be mindful and prevent their own burnout. Hmm. 31:11                                     Well thank you. That's a lovely thought. I taught seniors and yes, yoga is very, very beneficial for them. But, when you teach children, hopefully you're teaching them some lifelong skills and giving them tools that will help them. I think that's a lovely thought. So thank you so much. I want to thank you for coming on. Suzi is going to be part of yoga teacher month where we're going to talk about issues, opportunities, those kinds of things for yoga teachers and one of them is burnout. I've learned quite a bit cause I obviously had the wrong idea about it, which is okay. 31:59                                     Can I jump in on that one thing? I don't think that you wrong idea. I think everything you said or thought is valid and it's what's out there too. I just invite us to think about it on an additional level because I think sometimes, if we say that it's a physical piece, there's a difference between being tired and tired, right? If there's an emotional piece, well I'm really fine, right? Fine is the worst F word that's ever been created. And if it's mental exhaustion and mental exhaustion or mental fatigue, like who wants to talk about mental health, right? So if we can look at it from that lens, like you said, and thank you for listening into that episode. I appreciate the feedback that you gave. It could be safer to think about purpose, passion and vision, and that could then lead to deeper conversations that support people and understanding the difference between being tired, being exhausted, being burntout and being depressed. So, please, I absolutely think your interpretation and understanding is correct. I just think we can also add more to it as well. 33:02                                     I think that that's important because if you feel stressed because you're doing so much, you may or may not have the opportunity to change that. But if you look at it from a differently - a different lens, you can certainly look at what your passion is and what your purpose might be and how you achieve that. So I think that's a very positive way that everybody can do. It's really part of yoga, isn't it? The reflection part. We really think a little more deeply about some things. So thank you so much, Suzi. I really appreciate you coming on. I think that this has been very, very informative and I agree with you, a very different way to look at burnout and, and hopefully, getting a little more into the burnout prevention mode than we've been before. So thank you again for coming on the podcast. 34:03                                     Thank you for the invitation. Contact Details: Email: suzie@suziebichovsky.com Website: www.coachucation.com Insta: coachucation Facebook: coachucation

Is Solo Travel for YOU???  Afraid to travel solo – especially solo adventure travel? Today's guests share their insights as to the Pro's and Con's of solo travel and share what they consider the benefits and challenges, plus their tips to make adventure travel solo safe and fun.   Is Solo Travel for YOU???  Afraid to travel solo – especially solo adventure travel? Today's guests share their insights as to the Pro's and Con's of solo travel and share what they consider the benefits and challenges, plus their tips to make adventure travel solo safe and fun.   Today's Guest Interviews on Solo Adventure Travel  This episode is a rebroadcast of an episode on our companion Active Travel Adventures podcast.  Jackie Nourse of Traveling Jackie and the Budget Minded Traveler, Jason Waitkinsand Monica Arangurenshare their thoughts on taking a solo holiday and what it's like to travel by yourself.  See some of their solo adventures photos down below! Seven Reasons to Solo Travel There are lots of reasons you might travel solo: 1. Maybe you can't find anyoneto travel where you want to go, when you want to go.  If you want to go, but aren't comfortable going completely on your own, consider small group travel.  Be aware of any single supplements and look for companies that pair you with someone if you don't want to pay extra to travel alone. My affiliate, Active Adventures(different company with a similar name) does NOT make you pay the dreaded Single Supplement. 2. You need some time to yourself to just THINK! If you need to figure some things out in your life, consider taking a long distance hike or cycling trip.  You'll have all day to yourself, but will meet people along the way for when you could use a little company.  Check out my West Highland Wayand Cotswold Waylong distance walking holiday adventures for some inspiration. 3.  You want to develop your ‘Grit Bone'or what Jackie calls her “Courage Muscles”. There's nothing like adventure travel, and in particular, solo travel to test your mettleand to expand what you think possible for yourself!  It's a great way to boost your self esteem and self reliance, too!  If you want to feel empowered, try adventure travel, and in particular SOLO Adventure Travel! 4.  It's easier to meet new people when you travel solo.  Locals are more likely to come up to introduce themselves when they see you alone, so you'll have more local interaction. 5.  You'll develop better problem solving skills.  When it's just you, YOUhave to figure out what to do when something goes awry.  You'll learn that you are quite good at finding a solution, no matter how clumsy it is, when you know that you simply HAVE to! 6.  You'll discover what you really like and dislike:  when your schedule is completely your own, you have to make ALL the decisions, from what time to wake up, to what, when and where to eat, to how to spend your time, etc.  If you go someplace and decide you've had enough, you can simply leave without conferring with travel mates, or you can spend all day in a museum that rocks your boat, but would bore your normal partner. 7.  Traveling solo can sometimes be lonely, so even introverts learn how to strike up a conversation(my go to questions is, “So how was your day?”  People love to talk about themselves.  You'll always find other solo travelers at the bar next to a hostel, so head there at cocktail hour to find others that would love to chat.  For that matter, consider even staying in a hostel so you can meet folks in the common areas.  Many offer single rooms so you don't have to sleep dorm style.   Alternately, stay at an Airbnb where the people live there as well and the comments from previous guest indicate that the hosts like to be social with guests.  Consider Couchsurfing.  Also sign up to do a Walking Tour or other group activity to meet others.  See if there are any interesting Meetups going on while you're in town and reach out to the group organizer to attend. Solo Travel Tips and Rules I've been traveling solo for five years now and I've come up with some rules that help keep me safe and reduce stress (in no particular order): 1. When ‘winging it' while traveling, I make sure that I know where I am going to sleep before noon. 2. Whenever possible, I make sure that I arrive at the night's accommodations before dark. 3. When out, I never leave my food or drink unattended. 4. Don't drink too much or do any drugs.  Get back to your room at a reasonable hour. 5. Be careful of overly cautious locals who might be setting you up… does someone on the bus or train rush to try to share a cab with you?  This could be a setup: the cabbie could be a partner in crime.  Check the US State Dept Travel advisoryfor the country you are visiting to see what the current local scams are.  Register your trip with the Smart Traveler Program. 6. Ask your hotel to call you a cab or take highly ratedUber or Lyfts to avoid rogue cabbies.  7.  Ask a local to circle bad areas on a paper map. 8.  Be mindful of your surroundings at all times and have an exit plan.  9.  Hold onto your luggage, going so far as to bike lock it to yourself should you be on a long train or bus where you might sleep. 10.  Make sure someone knows where you are supposed to be and what time you are supposed to arrive AND when to sound an alarm should he or she not hear from you. Some of the adventures Jason has taken that have been covered by ATA include: Patagonia(Argentina & Chile) Ecuador Kilimanjaro Nepal Peru  [Machu Picchu] New Zealand South Island  Part I New Zealand South Island  Part II New Zealand North Island Part III Some of Monica's epic trips that ATA has covered: Dolomites Mont Blanc Galapagos New Zealand South Island  Part I New Zealand South Island  Part II New Zealand North Island Part III One of our guests today, Jackie, is also a travel blogger and podcaster. She did an excellent episode on Solo Travel you can access here.  You can also find her at Traveling Jackie, the Budget Minded Traveler(nowJump). Also be sure to check out my interview with Jackie on the Active Travel Adventures podcast on her adventures in Quebec! Other Links Mentioned in Today's Show: Travel Safety Tips Cotswold Way Mont Blanc Dolomites Galapagos Kilimanjaro Part I Kilimanjaro Part II Annapurna Travel Insurance When you buy travel insurance, please use this link to my affiliate World Nomads.  At no additional cost to you, you'll be helping to support this podcast and website - thanks! Training for your Adventures If you need some coaching and advice on how to prepare for your upcoming adventure, please consider using this link to Fit For Trips.  At no additional cost to you - in fact, use Promo Code ATAKIT10to get a 10% Discount, you'll be helping to keep the lights on - thanks!   Active Travel Adventures Podcast Be sure to check out our companion podcast,  Active Travel Adventures.  On ATA, I encourage you to lead a bigger life through adventure travel.  Each episode features an exciting adventure travel destination like the kinds Monica and Jason talked about today! Solo Adventure Travel We're going solo. That's right. Even if you have a partner, I want you to read this blog post because there are definite advantages and challenges to traveling solo. Even if you think, “There is no way I would ever travel solo,” please read on with an open mind. You might change your mind. I'll be interviewing three solo travelers about the challenges and joys of traveling solo. Since I usually travel solo myself, you'll hear my two cents worth as well. It's a great show. Even if you think, “No way, I could never travel solo.” I beg you please read on and see if you don't change your mind. If you're like me, you don't want to live an ordinary life. You want to live a kick-ass life, and one way to do so is to add adventure travel to your life. I find adventure travel brings out the best in me. It challenges me, it encourages me, it enlightens me, and it inspires me to lead a bigger life. On this program, you'll learn about amazing adventures from around the world plus get the tools and information you need so you could do these adventures with confidence. You'll come home feeling empowered and with amazing memories and stories that you can relive forever. Don't worry, the bar is such that my relatively fit 58-year-old body, particularly with some training, can do these adventures and you can too. This episode is a roundup episode. I've got three guests that I will be interviewing separately about their experiences with solo travel. Our first guest is Jackie Norris, who we met on one of our episodes. She is the host of Traveling Jackieand The Budget-Minded Travelerand has been traveling solo for a long time. She has a ton of insights to share with us. When I interviewed her in Quebec, I asked her casually about solo. We got engrossed in it that I decided to take that section of our interview and added to this solo episode. Our other guests are Monica and Jason. I'll let them introduce themselves. Let's start with my interview with Jackie. Jackie, why do you travel solo? The reason I do solo travel is that I'm solo. I don't let that stop me. For years and years, a lot of people struggle with the idea of getting out on their own. It's a necessity for me. It's what I have to do and so I do it. I never thought I would enjoy it, but I do love it now. You have to get to a point where you're comfortable with it. I've already been traveling for a number of years by the time that I went nomadic like fully solo nomadic a few years ago. Even after that much time of being comfortable traveling, it was weird to be on my own all the time. For the cons, you are by yourself. All of those travel decisions are made only by you. Even where you're going to eat for breakfast in the morning or if you're going to get a beer this afternoon, everything is solely up to you. There's no one that you can confer with. That also happens to be one of the advantages of it. Sometimes it depends on which perspective you have looking on it. Maybe it depends on the day. Sometimes it's amazing and sometimes you wish there was someone there. Loneliness is a real thing. I have written about that before and most solo travelers will face real loneliness. It's not just the point of being solo in a place, it's feeling alone. There's a big difference and that can get to you if it's a while. I traveled for months at a time and it can get draining on me to be alone. At the same time, this is where I am in my life and this is what I'm signing up for. This is also my work and this is what I'm choosing to do. It's part of the territory if you look at it that way. The freedom that solo travel provides is unmatched in this world. There is a feeling that comes with being on your own in some far-flung corner of the planet completely left to yourself and your own thoughts. What you want to do for the day, everything is your will. It is the most freeing feeling ever. It's incredible. You can do whatever you want. There are definitely pros and cons of solo travel. I always encourage people to at least try it out because you get to know yourself very quickly. Even if you think you know yourself, you don't, not until you solo travel. You could see what you're capable of and what your weaknesses are. It's an incredible tool for life to solo travel. Everyone should do it at least once. You had a quote in your the Budget-Minded Traveler episode number 63 that I loved. It was, “Lose yourself until you find yourself.” Could you talk a little bit about that? I thought that was excellent. It gave me chills when you read it. That came from a piece that I wrote on my Travelling Jackie blog. It was when I decided to leave everything behind and go out on my own to travel the world solo for real for the first time. This was many years after having traveled a whole bunch already and studying abroad and all that. This was different because I had a relationship, I had a house and I had all these things. I felt very lost at times, but it's because I had to recreate what my life looked like. That was my moment to decide what my new normal was going to be going forward. I did lose part of myself there in that in a good way though. It's like you have to go see what the world has for you and then figure out what you look like in that new normal. Figure out what the path forward is in this new reality that you've created. That's at least how it applied to me. It depends on what your situation is and why you're choosing to solo travel. Where you are and you’re like so much about experience outwardly when you travel, has to do what's going on inside. That was my experience at the time. I totally went out and lost myself until I started to rebuild and find what that meant to start over. It's obvious that travel in general and solo travel in particular, changed your life. I'm grateful for that because I feel so much surer of who I am. I'm so much stronger now. I have so much more confidence. These are the things that come with being on your own for so long in a place. It's not saying being on your own at home where you're comfortable with everything and you know the name of the store owner down the street, whatever. It's not like that at all. Everything is different. Everything is new. Foreign languages, foreign currency, borders, flights, hotels, everything is a challenge. When you add that element to being completely on your own for a long time, maybe for the first time, it changes everything. Your personal growth is expedited more than anything.       In the last few years since I lost my husband, I've been traveling solo. The one question I get over and over again is about safety and the Boogie Man at night. How do I deal with the safety issues? How do you respond to questions like that you get? Are you not afraid about those things at home? Bad things can happen anywhere. It doesn't matter where you are. In fact, US these days could be a lot less safe than a lot of other places that I travel. I don't dwell on that stuff at all. I have some tricks up in my sleeve to make sure that I'm safe and my belongings are safe. I pay attention. I always say that common sense is your best defense. I stand by that 110%. Don't leave your common sense behind when you walk out your door. The world outside of your comfort zone is not a place to invite fear. It's a place to invite curiosity. Go explore that and find out what it looks like because it's not about fear and safety, it's about adventure, life, growth, people, connection, culture, food, language, activity and beauty. That outweighs the fear. It's not a thing. I've been traveling for many years, knock on wood, but nothing's ever happened to me. I've never been in a situation I couldn't handle. Maybe that's because I carry my common sense close by. Maybe I've gotten lucky. Maybe a lot of things, but I do speak a lot about safety because I know that people ask about it and are concerned. You can't let that stop you from doing anything. Otherwise, you'd be stuck in your own house. What happens if there’s an earthquake and your house fell down? You can't be safe anywhere in this world if you look at it that way. Go do it, get out there and go experience it. You'll find the confidence over the fear the more you go. I want to go back to something you said about being more aware and things can happen to you even at home. It could be safer while you travel because you're more on red alert and you're more aware of your surroundings, whereas at home you’re lackadaisical. You know how they say that most accidents happen within our house like car accidents. You've got your guard down. You may be doing other things. Whereas when you're traveling solo, you're paying attention. It's an interesting metaphor. It's the same thing with hiking on a trail. If I’m on a trail I don't know, I'm acutely aware of everything that's going on around me and my surroundings. If I'm on a trail that I know very well at home, I'm not paying any attention whatsoever. I'm glad you made that point. It’s such a good point. Another question I get asked all the time is, “How do you eat dinner alone?”   It's great. I'm used to that by now. It's funny. A lot of the women I know are uncomfortable eating dinner in a restaurant by themselves. That is something you have to put your big girl pants on and go do it. What are you going to do? Not eat? Hide in a corner with your takeout? Go do it. Here's the thing. No one cares. I’ve finally figured out after all these years that if someone is staring at me, which does happen, I know why. It's because they're curious. They're curious about something. Whether it's why I'm wearing a backpack in this town or why am I sitting by myself or, “She's speaking French with an accent. I wonder where she's from?” People are curious. They're not out there like, “Look at that girl. She's by herself.” It's not like that at all. It's not like you're wearing a big L on your forehead. Think about it with you. If you see someone solo walking down the street of your town with a big backpack on, aren't you curious? “I wonder where they're going. What are they doing? Are they traveling?” It's all curiosity and it's not negative. If you're worried about what people are thinking, that's the first part. It is not negative. If you can figure out how to make that place comfortable for yourself, like for example, one of the things I love to do as I travel and as I'm at home is I love craft beer. I love trying different beers all around the world. You could do this with wines or cheeses or whatever, anything that has to do with a restaurant. What's your thing? When I get to a new place, a bar or whatever, I love to sit down and get a new beer. Beer is like home to me. I can do that anywhere in the world. I have the thing that I can go to that's my company. I work at breweries often. I will go to a brewery and get a beer. I call it a focus beer, #FocusBeer. I work that way. It's part of finding comfort anywhere I can be in the world. Those things matter. I will make sure if I'm going out by myself, I will get a drink. Something that makes me feel a little like maybe takes the edge off, I will get a beer and I will enjoy myself. I will people watch, whatever. You can choose to get out your phone and have a conversation with someone across the world if you want to or you can choose to put your phone down. You can bring a book. It doesn't matter. It's about you, it's not about what other people think. It's funny because sometimes I'll pass by a restaurant that's super full. I'm like, “I don't know if I want to go into that one all by myself.” If I pass by a place that I can see that there is a table where I might feel comfortable, that's where I'll go in because I'm still introverted. You’ve got to take care of yourself. That's what it's about, it’s taking care of yourself, making it comfortable for you, and adventure. I find too, if I'm traveling solo, I'll have more opportunity to meet locals because they feel more comfortable coming up to you when you're traveling solo than if you're with other people. If you're putting out an energy that says, “I'm approachable,” then people will approach you for sure. For people who don't want to be alone. Maybe you're only traveling solo because no one else wanted to go with you and you'd rather have a buddy. I highly recommend staying in hostels. It does not matter how old you are. You can find hostels with a private room, which is what I like to do. The beauty of that is you have an immediate community if you choose to have it. You can meet people in the communal areas. That's something that hotels do not offer. Finding either like CouchSurfing, staying at a hostel or staying at an Airbnb where there's a host on site and you can expose yourself to other people. If that's where you are in your travels, your life, and you want to be around other people, then put yourself in those positions. It's easy to retract and do things on your own if you want to be solo. That's easy. In fact, you'll probably still get approached because people are curious. There are other people who are solo who are going to sit down at the bar next to you and start talking about beer with you, and realized you're not Italian and be curious about where that accent comes from. I love that about hostels. I learned that for the first time about a few years ago because it is lonely. If you go to the hostel community rooms, you meet the people. If you're not staying in the hostel, my week time of being alone is cocktail hour. That's when I want to talk to somebody. I don't care the rest of the whole day, dinner, no problem, but at cocktail hour, I want to talk. Go find the bar next to the hostel because that's where they'll be and they're traveling solo too so they're looking for somebody to talk to as well. What advice would you give someone who's considering traveling solo for the first time?    Go and don't be afraid. I don't think you're going to regret choosing to travel solo. You're going to learn something that's time well spent. Getting out, seeing the world, any of these things, these are adventures. This is our one life. We get one shot so go do it. You'll find that you're much more resourceful than you realize. You're going to be the one with a story to tell afterward. I encourage you to try it, test yourself, get out there and make it happen. --- Next up, let's hear what Monica has got to say about solo travel. After her interview, we'll get a guy's perspective. Can you start by introducing yourself and perhaps telling us your age? I'm Monica Aranguren and I am 58 years old. How did you get into adventure travel? Quite honestly, I found myself single again. That was back in 2007, 2008. I started to do a lot of hiking on my own at that time. When I got to my 50th birthday, I decided I wanted to do something bigger and that's when I started to look into adventure travel and planned to go to New Zealand at that time. Was that your first trip to do the New Zealand hike? I take it that you were going solo because you were single again? Yes. I didn't want to leave adventure behind. That's great that you're adventuresome. How did you make the mind shift to say, “I'm going to go on my own?” because it's a scary concept for a lot of people to go on a trip all by themselves. The comments I've also gotten from friends when I've let them know what I'm doing. I've been an independent gal all my life and it's like let's push on through. I was like, “I'm not waiting for life to happen to me. I've got to do it. I'm going to go on these trips because I want to see these places.” That was my motivation. Did you do that on your own solo or did you go with a tour company or how did that work out?   The New Zealand trip I went with a group. I went with Active Adventuresthere and had been making different trips of that nature since. Our regular audience will recognize Active Adventures as one of my favorite companies and affiliates. I'm super excited that I will be going on the same trip that Monica went on. Monica, how do you decide where you're going to go? Sometimes I see a photograph and I’m like, “I want to go there.” I might get a vision in my mind of a place I had been thinking about and then I start to investigate the location and how I might be able to get a taste of it. Are you still traveling now? That's been many years since you were single. Are you still doing solo travel as your primary way? Is that all you do or do you mix it up with others? How does that work? I've made some group-led trips. I've also done some that are self-guided where I'm still with a company that's moving my belongings, setting up the itinerary and the maps and all of that, but I'm doing it on my own. I would imagine when you're in the group setting on the guided trips, that also gives you some more socialization. Can you talk a little bit about that? Each experience is a little different. Meeting people from different places and learning about them, joking with them, creating songs with them, eating with them, all kinds of things. It's a lot of social interaction with the group. When I'm on a self-guided hike, it's a little quieter, but I also tend to favor that sometimes because I like to be in the quiet of nature. Sometimes I like to interact with the culture on a different level. I enjoy that piece as well. What are the pros and cons in your mind of solo travel? The pros are that solo travel lets you expand a little bit more in "getting out of the box." It lets you meet new people that you might not otherwise meet when you're traveling with a companion that you've known for a while like a friend, family member, whoever that might be. Cons, I don't think there are any. I will say I choose a single room so that I don't get any snoring so I can sleep on my own. For me, that's important. That would be the only con for me if I can't sleep. That's why I tend to choose a single room. Other than something like that, I can't think of any, quite honestly. Since I lost my husband and now that I'm traveling solo, the thing I'm always getting is, “Aren't you afraid about the big bad wolf, getting raped, mugged or whatnot?” Can you talk a little bit about the safety issues?       I have never felt not at ease. I've always felt safe on these trips. With a group, you're surrounded by your group all the time because you're doing all the activities with that group. The only time you're separate is maybe if you have a specific day that you have in a particular town on your own. You might visit that, but never any concerns of safety in that sense. When I've been on self-guided tours, in the case of the company that I worked with, I had a GPS, I had instructions and I had a phone. I had a contact I could call 24 hours a day if there was an issue. I always had someone who would check on with me. I felt like I was supported in both styles of travel. How about loneliness? Is that ever an issue? I would say during the self-guided hikes because I might see something and not have anyone to talk about it. Other than that, not really. When I'm with a group hike, I'm with other people. I've always got companionship with me. Another thing I always get is how do you eat by yourself? I've been asked that as well. I carry a book with me and go with it that way. I've gotten used to it. I'm not very self-conscious about it and enjoy interacting with the waiters, waitresses and the hosts wherever I'm eating, and enjoy myself that way. There's also more attention and curiosity when you're traveling solo and that you get a lot more local interaction, which I enjoy very much and think of as a plus. That is true, especially if you're at little small restaurants. The host or the owner might chat with you more, which is great. I was on a trip where an older gentleman, I was walking around and I had my camera going, came up to talk to me in Italian. I was in Italy and he was talking to me about how he had owned a camera like that. We had a nice little chat and then I was back on my way. That was fun to be able to chat with him for a while. If somebody is sitting on their couch saying to themselves, “I’m like Monica, if I don't get off this couch, I'm never going to see the places that I want to see.” What advice would you give them so they get the courage and the confidence to go try this on their own? Don't wait. If you're attracted to making this trip, do it. It will open up a whole other level of possibilities, experience and independence. Do it and enjoy yourself and don't wait for another opportunity. Have you found that solo travel is important too, that it's somehow changing who you are?   I'd love the companionship, but it supports my being independent and doing my life. Living my life the way I want it and taking advantage of the opportunities, especially outdoor hiking opportunities, while I can do it. That's how it positively helps me out. It empowers me. When I get back from one of these trips, I'm like, “I did that.” If I can do that, then I can do this, whatever my current real-world problem is. It's self-empowering. If maybe a particular trip is going to be a little more challenging, I've got to rise to the occasion to work out and get read. It feels great when I'm out there and accomplishing it. It's an empowering experience and one that supports a good sense of independence and moving forward the way you want. Have you kept up with any of the people that you've met on your trips? I have. I made a trip in the Mont Blanc area of France, Italy and Switzerland a few years ago, back in 2016. There were four singles on that trip actually. The four of us have had a couple of reunions. Our last one was in Toronto. We always go out a little hike and then eat out and see wherever we're visiting together. It's a lovely experience and this time, we were also able to hook up with a couple that was from the Toronto area that had been on this same track and got to have a lovely dinner with them. It was a great time together. I found that usually in each trip, there are one or two people I'll meet that we ended up becoming friends. Even if it's just Facebook friends, we keep up that way. In fact, when I go to the UK, I will be staying with a gentleman and his girlfriend that I met in theWest Highland Way for a couple of days before I start the long distance trek on the Cotswold Way. I'm excited about that. Can you tell us some of your favorite stories about some of your trips? I know you went to New Zealand. When you look back on New Zealand, what's the one story you tell? It was deciding to do the bungee jump. There were only two of us in a group of ten that had the courage to do that. I'm glad that I did that and the rest of the group cheered us on. I had a blast doing that. It was a little scary and I was a little nervous once I got on the plank that I was supposed to drop off from. It was so freeing and so much fun to be hanging down on this large rubber band. I'm happy I had that experience, especially celebrating my 50th birthday then. You've also gone to the Galapagos. What's your favorite story about the Galapagos? What struck me is there are many amazing animals, penguins, sea lions, fish and iguanas. It's fascinating to be surrounded by these wonderful creatures that are not timid at all with humans. That was wonderful. I remember, in particular, going snorkeling and seeing manta rays, these giant ones underneath floating and then swimming below me. It was amazing to see their size and beauty. They were golden and had some black spots on them and they were moving on their leisurely pace. It was fantastic. We did cover the Galapagos episode. We also covered Mont Blanc, which you've done too. What's your favorite story there?       This is a social story. All the hiking was fantastic in particular because we were above the tree line a lot of the time. That was beautiful to see these huge snow-covered mountains in your face and you are looking at them. It was a splendor for me. The social story is that the group I was with, a few of us somehow got into rapping while we were hiking. They come up with these silly tunes and that made me start to create this particular rap, based on all the food that we were eating. I presented that at the end of our tour at our last dinner. One of my colleagues in the group backed me up, making all the funky little rap sounds. We put it together and it was a hoot. We had a great time doing that. That sounds fun. That's a great story. You've got another fun place you're going to, which also has been covered on the Active Travel Adventures Podcast. Tell us about that. I’ll leave to make a trip in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy, north of Venice. I'm very excited about that. I'm excited to be back with a group because I've done some more self-guided hiking in the last couple of years. I'm going to be with a group again, which I look forward to. I'm looking forward to the scenery and the exercise because that's what we love about hiking is the workout too. It's going to be good. Annie, who I interviewed on the Dolomiteepisode, has traveled all over the world. She's done everything and she said that was the perfect trip.She said it was the best mix of exertion, the hiking, the scenery, the people and the foods. I’ll carry that with me for sure. Any other thoughts on solo travel or adventure travel you'd like to share? Seize the day. There's so much to see out there and so much to do. Get out there and do it. --- There's nothing like going on an adventure. Finally, for our last interview on solo travel, we're going to get a guy's perspective. Can you start by introducing yourself, please? My name is Jason Waitkins and I am 37. How did you first get into adventure travel?   My first trip was in 2003. I wanted to visit New Zealand. I was reading about it growing up and it sounded like a cool and awesome place. The Lord of the Rings came out and that propelled me even more. I'm like, “I have to go here.” In 2003, I went. I didn't want to go there just to sightseeing. I wanted to hike. That's what drove me into that being my first trip. Were you already pretty active before you got into adventure travel? Yes, I hiked. I grew up and my parent's house is right next to a section of the Appalachian Trail. I grew up knowing, “That's the longest marked trail in the United States,” and all that. I hiked the sections of it nearby. I then branched out from there. There are some pretty nice and interesting trails not far from where I live. Where is that? New York. I'm in what's called the Hudson Valley region. I grew up in Garrison, which is the town south of Cold Spring. It has become a hikers town because there are a few challenging trails near there. It's easily accessible from New York City. On the weekends, a lot of hikers come up on the trains because you can easily get off at the Cold Spring Station and travel around and you don't need a car. You can work your way back to the station. Our topic is solo travel. Is that something you've always done or is this something new for you? I pretty much always did solo initially because growing up, it was a small town. I was one of the few who liked adventure travel, so it was only me. I enjoyed it a lot. I always join a group usually. If it’s a tour, there's a group I usually end up joining. If they're not solo, then they are either with a friend or a spouse or whatever. We are there for the same thing. It's a good way to meet new people. What would you consider the pros and cons of solo travel? My best thing is I can pretty much go when I want. I can center around my schedule. There's no coordination. If there are two, three or more people traveling, it's going to be harder to get time off from work, for example. For me, I prefer solo traveling for the most part because it's easy to coordinate with myself. I look at the dates, “This trek is going here and I can go here at this point and I have a certain amount of time off I can take.” I did one adventure trek with my father not too long ago and we do have to coordinate. There was a little more work involved to make sure, “We're going to do this. We both have time off. We can both get there without issue. We’re both fit enough. We both know what we're getting into and all that.” There are pros and cons to each, but for me, I have a set of places I'd like to go, a set number of countries or treks that I'd want to do and want to visit. To me, it's easier. If I don't know anyone else who wants to do it with me, I go ahead and do it. You make an excellent point because not only do you have to coordinate the time schedules but also the physical difficulty rating is consistent for both parties and all parties. At the time, my father had some knee problems at the moment, but at the time, he was okay. It was a not too challenging trip, at least graded three. We always look at the gradings of the trip with a grain of salt. You have to know what you can and can't do. It's better to read the descriptions rather than just reading by the number they give. The company we were with, they assigned numbers one through six, six being the hardest and this one is graded two. Afterward, I say, “This was more like a three,” and it was because we were in Scotland. There are a few sections where there was no trail, it was pretty much bushwhacking and it was muddy. Walking through that section was quite difficult more so than it was. Even our leaders said that. You have to be careful. Make sure everyone can do it and make sure you know what you're getting into. Female solo travelers have a few different concerns than males. Can you talk about safety as a solo traveler from the male perspective? I personally have never been worried about my safety, but it is always a consideration. My first big travel was to New Zealand, which is generally a country more on the safe side. My next travel was in Peru, which is a developing country. I read up quite a bit on it. What vaccines do I need to get? What is the crime rate? I always read up on the countries I'm visiting, although you also have to take those with a bit of a grain of salt. A website I usually go to at least at first to check out the country I'm visiting is the US State Department website because it gives descriptions on visa requirements and any vaccines that are recommended. I always try to look that up. It also tells what the crime is. However, it is over-exaggerated to a degree. You always read about the bad things and I also look at what they say of the crime is. However, it tends to be over-exaggerated sometimes because you will only read about the bad things. They'll always say there are very high crimes and there are police corruptions or there's this or there's that. You’ve got to be aware of your surroundings is what I always do. When I was growing up because I lived close to New York City but not in it, going to New York City, I was always told like, “Put everything in your front pocket, not your back pocket. Watch out for muggers. Watch out for this or that, anyone who tries to bump into you.” You've got to be diligent and to do that. As a solo traveler, the first time where I was there ahead of when the official tour, I was joining started was in Peru in Cusco. I want to go there. I was worried about acclimatizing to the altitude and so I got there a day ahead of the main tour and walked around. I was feeling winded at least at first. I ended up adjusting perfectly fine. I was looking in all directions and making sure there were a lot of people around. No one ever came up and I never felt unsafe, but I was extra careful. The thing I do is a lot of the pants I wear for general walking around have zippers on them. I don't know if that helps or hurts. My biggest concern is my passport or my wallet getting stolen. Let's talk a little bit about what you feel when you're doing an adventure, whether it's hiking, paddling, cycling, and you do it solo. There's the possibility that you get hurt and there's nobody around to help you. Do you have any concerns about that or is that one reason that you do group travel? I experienced that personally. A couple of years ago, I was hiking in Acadia National Park in Maine. I ended up slipping and falling and not able to stand. I was traveling solo at that point. I had to take out my cell phone and I dialed 911. There were a few trekkers who walked by. This was a day hike. I wasn't backpacking or anything like that, but still, it was a very rugged terrain. A couple of hikers nearby stopped and said, “We'll wait until people come and get you.” They had to carry me off and that was a humbling experience. I kept thinking, “I'm not going to fall or this isn't going to happen. I'm still within civilization. I'm not in another country.” I can only imagine what would have happened if I was on the Inca Trail, where you have to hike for three days. What would have happened if that happened? Having a group and having a leader there who at least always had a radio or a cell phone to contact whoever that is, it’s quite comforting and more so now than it was many years ago. I did an episode on safetyon adventure travel and also another interesting story is the episode Part Two of the Kilimanjaroseries where our guest had to go down the mountain on a stretcher. It's a very interesting episode in that regard. Let's move on from the scary things and let's talk about how do you choose where you want to go next. When I first started this back in the early 2000s, I had a bucket list. The main two were I want to visit New Zealand, I want to hike there, and I want to hike the Inca trail. I was reading about how beautiful the trail is, how it's a great payoff ending up in Machu Picchu, which is also beautiful. After that, I started making a list of countries and places I wanted to visit and then looking at, “I want to visit here. I want to do this. Where's this located?” My biggest goal after making the Inca Trail was Kilimanjaro. I said, “Where is that? That's in Tanzania. That's in Africa.” I went from there. “What else is there?” Choosing that trip, there are a lot of tour companies that do Kilimanjaro and the one I ended up picking with was one that was doing a specific route up the mountain. It had extra days. It was more expensive, unfortunately, but it had extra days while climbing and it did a specific way. It did the Western Breach if you're aware of that trail, which most companies do the other way. This one, we did the Western Breach. We stayed in the Crater Camp, which is also rare for that, but I figured that was good for getting used to the altitude. That's why I ended up going with that tour company. Beyond that, there's a list of countries I'd like to visit. The main ones were Kilimanjaro, Galapagos was one, and the next one that I haven't done yet is the Alps, which is on my bucket list. Basically, I said, “Where can I hike that I haven't hiked before?” I started looking at the companies I've gone with before and a few other notable ones. I look at what they offer to see if it's financially feasible, if time-wise it's feasible. I pretty much go from there. I have a semi-life goal to visit every country in the world. I don't think I'm going to get there, but I want to visit and hike everywhere I can. I go with the ones I want to the most and I've done quite a few of them but there's still quite a few left. Have you found that solo travel has changed you in any way? Initially, I don't know if I felt different. I enjoy it like that's my vacation. That's how I get away from it. My first few trips, I wouldn't even take my cell phone with me. I'd leave it at home and that was my disconnection from the everyday hustle and bustle. As far as changing me, I don't know if I have an answer for you. It's helped me grow a certain way like enjoying because I live alone. I'm single and pretty much live alone. To me, it's a great way to meet new people because even if you're not with a group, you're always going to meet someone on the trail most likely. That's the way I interact with people, my fellow hikers. I don't know if it changed me in any way other than that. It's just something that drives me to continue going. I have places to visit. I want to keep going. Have you kept up with any of the people you've met on the trails? A few but not too many. There are a few like with Kilimanjaro because that was such a small group and that was a long track. It was a long trip. The whole trip was eighteen days, but to trek up the mountain was nine days total. We got to know each other well. We still communicate through email every once in a while. It’s usually around the anniversary, which is late January. We usually send emails saying, “It's been five years, it's been six years, how is everybody doing?” There are two people who I do send a Christmas card to because they send one to me each year. We write down what treks we've done or what we're planning on doing. They sent me one a few years ago and they said, “We finally made the Inca Trail that you talked about. It was as you described it. It was great.” I always write down what I did. “I did the Galapagos. I did Nepal and all that.” A lot of people, when they find out that I'm going to be traveling solo, say, "Aren't you scared or don't you get lonely?" What advice would you give somebody that's on the fence and trying to decide whether or not they should try a solo trip? Try to join a group of some kind, an adventure trekking tour where you'll be joined with other people, preferably a smaller group. A nice number would be between eight, twelve, fourteen people is probably ideal because then it's not too big and it's not too small. Do that. Try to look up an organized tour of an area where you want to visit, whether it's Machu Picchu or somewhere in Europe, wherever. See if you can find a tour company that has a group that you can join because of the way I see it, everyone is there to do what you're doing. We're here to hike this trail. We're here to visit this landmark or whatever it is. That's going to be a thing you have in common. Every trip I've been to, I'm nervous when I step off the airplane, especially if it's a country where English isn't the first language. I made it through passport control. I handed them my passport. They stamped and I went through. I'm like, “Where's the meetup point?” I'm always worried that I'm going to miss the meetup. It's never been a problem. Usually, they always say, “The leader is going to either hold a sign or they're going to be wearing a brand of shirt of some kind.” I came back from Ireland and we had to meet in Belfast in a small out of the way bus station. There was a bus station and the train station and they're both connected by a hallway. I was walking back and forth a couple of times through it because the leader was late by five to ten minutes. I was worried like, “Am I missing this tour? What's going on?” I ended up seeing, “There she is.” She ended up walking through and she was trying to find parking because parking was limited in that station. Everyone nearby walked up and said, “I'm part of this group.” I get nervous for the meetup, but once the meetup is done, we all say hello, and we're all like, “Let’s go. Let's do this.” By the end of the trip, we're all saying our goodbyes and saying, “It was a pleasure to meet you and this was fun,” and everything. If you're worried about traveling solo, to sum it up, it's good because you're going to be with other people who are like-minded, possibly other solo travelers, and you don't have to worry too much about the organization. Everything's planned out for you. You just got to get to the location. You make a good point. When you use a tour company, they pretty much take you by the hand. You don't have to worry about the logistics of getting to the different places, which can be quite complicated, particularly if you're traveling solo and you can't juggle cars or whatnot. It makes it a lot easier for you, plus you're solo but with company. In certain countries like I'm about to take an Italy trip. I was going to take a few days ahead of the tour to visit some of the cities and I sat and planned. That was fun now because I can quickly look up, “I can take the train from Rome to Venice. That sounds good.” What hotels are nearby and whatever? I'll just join. My whole plan is I've got to get to where I meet the tour in Venice. After that, all I’ve got to care about is my flight home is the day they drop us off like, “That's it, done. I don't have to plan anymore.” If you're new to the program, I do a Travel Planner for each of the destinations that we cover on the show.You can download these for free by going to the page for each corresponding destinationor go to the directory page and click on the destination and get it from there. If you sign up for my monthly newsletter, you will get them automatically for free. It's my way to help you plan your adventures with confidence. It will have weather information, safety information, recommended tour companies and suggested itineraries. Everything on a handy, usually a two-page printer-friendly with active links document so that you have on one piece of paper everything you need to know and do to plan your adventure. How about we finish up with you sharing some of your favorite stories from your trips. When I name off some of the adventures I know you've taken, can you tell us your favorite go-to story when you think about that destination? Let's start with Annapurna, which is one of my most popular episodes. For those unfamiliar with Annapurna, it's in Nepal. I wanted to see the Himalayas. I didn't want to do Everest because I had already done Kilimanjaro. I was climbing so high to see altitude for the sake of saying I climbed it. That's not on my bucket list anymore. Annapurna, that whole circuit was very beautiful. You see a lot of mountains one after the other. Each one beautiful and the highlight was completing it, getting to Annapurna base camp. I forget the altitude offhand, but that was actually a trek. We had pretty good weather and we got up early one day and saw the sunrise over. I got some great photos of the sunrise over the Himalayas and that was probably the best. It was maybe not of the hiking part, but it was interesting being in the city of Kathmandu, the capital city. It was quite interesting that it was organized chaos on the roads. The section where we went, the Thamel area, where there are a lot of trekkers. The roads are very narrow and everyone was walking around. It was quite a cultural experience to see how people every day get up and do this, but from a hiking standpoint, every day had more beautiful views than the next. What about your first adventure trip to New Zealand? My favorite location, I enjoyed the area where we went to Milford Sound. It was very beautiful. It rained that morning and then it stopped. Our guide had told us this is perfect. When it rains there will be a lot more waterfalls that you'll see because a lot of them just trickle or whatever while it's sunny out. When it rains and after the rain, you'll see a lot. That was beautiful walking around that area. I also enjoyed Mount Aspiring National Park. That one we walked in and we camped in a hut for a night. It snowed that night. On the way back it was snow covered. It’s not a lot. It was maybe an inch or two, but it was cool to have pictures going one way where it's all green grass and clear, and coming back, everything was snow covered. It was beautiful. How about your Galapagos adventure? Did you do just the Galapagos or did you also do mainland Ecuador? I did both. In terms of hiking, I enjoyed the mainland better without a doubt. I can't remember the town we were in, but it was a town down in the jungle. We did what was called reverse canyoning, which is climbing up waterfalls. These waterfalls aren't like the raging waterfall. They are not the Niagara Falls type waterfalls. It was an awesome and challenging, but not too challenging, hike through the rainforest. They told us ahead of time, “You're going to get wet. If your camera isn't waterproof, don't bring it.” It was nice. It was a three-hour hike to where we were going through rivers and up the waterfalls and whatever. It was an hour or two off the trail that was dry to get back to where we were. The Galapagos itself, honestly, the best thing was snorkeling and Kicker Rock. We came up close with hammerhead sharks and they said, “You don't need to worry.” There were quite a few times where I was like, "Are you sure we don't need to worry?" Swimming and seeing, I saw at least three types of sharks. There's a Galapagos shark. The whitetip reef was the other one. We saw quite a lot. There were tons of wildlife in this little area snorkeling. We spotted eagle rays. They are beautiful, that’s another thing. I can't say enough how awesome the sea turtles looked. Everyone that I saw was beautiful. Whether it was sitting still in the areas where we saw them resting or whether they're swimming. The Galapagos, hands down. It was the snorkeling. We did hike a couple of spots, but these hikes were nothing compared to the mainland. You've made some killer trips. How about Patagonia? The biggest accomplishment with Patagonia was definitely the W Trek. That was difficult. It was the second hardest trek I've been on because the way we did it was the first day we go up to Torres del Paine or The Towers of Blue. That was twenty kilometers total round trip. That was the first day and by the end of the day, everything was hurting. I was like, “We've got four more days of this? What did I sign up for?” After that, the next day was only eleven kilometers and it was mostly flat. That was a joke there. They always would say mostly flat. It was never properly flat. It was always ups and downs all over the place. That’s the whole completing the W Trek. After the second day, I was like, “This wasn't too bad. I'm going to do this.” I've never backed down from a hike before. “I'm doing this.” The very last day was beautiful viewpoints over the huge Grey Glacier. That was the biggest accomplishment and the best hike of the Patagonia trip. When is your next adventure? I'm going to Italy and hiking the Dolomites. It's my first trekking in mainland Europe. I've trekked in Ireland and I've trekked in Scotland, but I've never trekked in mainland Europe. It's been on my bucket list and I'm doing it. I'm sure you're going to enjoy that. Annie who I interviewed on the Dolomites, who has traveled the world and done amazing adventures all over the world, said that was the perfect trip. It was the perfect mix of culture, food, hiking people, everything. She said it's marvelous. I'm looking forward to it for that reason. Do you have any final thoughts for our readers? The only thing I can think of is if you're worried about solo traveling, just do it. Go with a tour company. You don't have to organize it completely by yourself. That sounds like a daunting task even for me now. Do it. You won't regret it. I agree because you can plan regular travel on your own but trying to plan the logistics for adventure travel is super difficult. I always recommend using a small group tour company. Seeing some of the trips I've been on, there's no way I would've been able to know to do some of these things or been able to organize it. There are a lot of logistics going on there with fees and permits and all that. Not only is planning an adventure trip logistically difficult oftentimes, particularly in foreign countries, but it can also save you money by using a small group tour company. You don't have to rent all the different vehicles and hire different guides in different places. It's all planned for you and you have the benefit of having other people help share that expense. It's been great having Jackie, Jason and Monica on the program to help share their insights in solo travel. I'd like to share with you some of the rules that I've made for myself now that I'm doing solo travel. These are in no particular order and many don't apply if you're with a small group tour because all this is taken care for you. If I'm truly traveling solo, here are some of my rules. I want to know where I'm staying that night by noon. I don't mind winging it and figuring out my itinerary and such when I get to a place, but I want to know where I'm going to rest my head. I'll make sure I book something at least by noon of the day that I'm going to be staying somewhere. I make sure I arrived before dark, in case I get lost or run into some other complication. I always keep my eyes on my food and drink, making sure they don't leave my sight. I don't go to the restroom and leave my drink on the table so I don't have to worry about somebody slipping a drug into it. I'm careful of overly friendly locals, particularly if they have no reason to be overly helpful. You might find somebody on a bus or a train that says, “Let's share a cab,” or they're all of a sudden your best friend. Often that could be a setup for a con that it's their partner in crime that you're “sharing the cab” with. Be a little bit cautious about that. Get your hotel to call you a taxi or take the ride share programs like Uber or Lyft and use somebody that's got multiple stars. When you get to an area, ask the locals about the area. Show them a paper map and have them circle areas that you should avoid. When traveling, always be aware and keep mindful of your situation. Be aware of who's around you and if the hairs rise in the back of your neck, your subconscious has seen something that you may not even be aware of. Take action and don't be afraid to make noise telling somebody to back off or make a scene. I know we're raised to be polite, but that is not the time to be polite. That’s the time for you to make a commotion. When you're in an area particularly if you don't know, always have an exit plan. Figure out how do you get out of the situation should something arise. Make sure somebody knows where you're going to be and what time you should be there and at what time they should raise the red alert. If you're traveling internationally and don't want to use up your data, still periodically turn on your phone so that your phone registers the GPS of your last known location. If you're not sure if solo travel is for you, try doing what I call doing the plus one. Wherever you are in your comfort zone, push it a little bit so that way you stretch your boundaries. Build up your courage, build up your self-confidence, and get the benefits that I keep talking about by doing this travel. You're not going to regret it. If you've never taken a trip by yourself, why don't you try going for a weekend? It doesn't have to be some big exotic place. Go someplace by yourself for a weekend and see what it's like. Maybe after that, you'll have the courage to try a week and then perhaps after that you might try going on some international trip. Each time you do it, push yourself just a little bit more outside of your comfort zone. In all the times I've traveled and all the places I've gone, I truly have never had an incident that I can even relay to a problem. You heard the same thing from our guests, particularly Jackie who has been everywhere, has never had an incident and she's been doing this for many years. We also talked about a whole bunch of destinations. You can go to the directory page and click on any of the different destinations and see all the cool places we've covered on this program. Finally, I'd like to ask you, as I'm planning the adventures that we're going to be doing, can you reach out to me? I don't care if it's email at Kit@ActiveTravelAdventures.com, via Facebookor our Facebook group, at Twitter @Kit_Parks, on Instagram, @Parks.Kit. Let me know where you do want to go so I can put together the programs that you need to plan your next big adventure. I will be back with another great adventure. Until then, this is Kit Parks, adventure on. Important Links: Traveling Jackie The Budget-Minded Traveler Travelling Jackie blog CouchSurfing Active Adventures Cotswold Way– Past episode Galapagos– Past episode Mont Blanc– Past episode Dolomite– Past episode Safety– Past episode Kilimanjaro– Past episode Directory Page– Active Travel Adventures Annapurna– Past episode Patagonia– Past episode Kit@ActiveTravelAdventures.com Facebook– Active Travel Adventures Facebook group- Active Travel Adventures Closed Group @Kit_Parks- Twitter @Parks.Kit- Instagram Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Active Travel Adventures Community: activetraveladventures.com Active Travel Adventures Facebook Page Active Travel Adventures Facebook Group Active Travel Adventures Twitter Active Travel Adventures Instagram Active Travel Adventures YouTube Kit Parks LinkedIn

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE AND FIND THE SHOWNOTES AND OTHER LINKS BY CLICKING RIGHT HERE.   Eve Picker: Hey, everyone, this is Eve Picker. If you listen to this podcast series, you're going to learn how to make some change.   Eve Picker: Hi, there. Thanks so much for joining me today for the latest episode of Impact Real Estate Investing. My guests today were John Perfitt and Jason Neville, who've come together in Los Angeles to disrupt the homeless housing market. Their award-winning first homeless project, Bungalow Gardens, not only will house homeless tenants for at least the next 15 years, but also is crowdfunding equity from everyday investors on SmallChange.com.   Eve Picker: These boys are innovating where it is hardest to innovate, so take the time and listen in. Be sure to go to EvePicker.com to find out more about John and Jason on the show notes page for this episode and be sure to sign up for my newsletter, so you can access information about impact real estate investing and get the latest news about the exciting projects on my crowdfunding platform, Small Change.   Eve Picker: Hello, Jason and John. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am really thrilled to have you here. I would love you to start by just telling our audience a little bit about your background. I know a lot about you guys, but they don't know anything at all.   John Perfitt: Great. Thanks, Eve. It's a pleasure to be part of this. I'm really excited about the prospects of crowdfunding for real estate. My name is John Perfitt, and I work with Restore Neighborhoods LA, primarily - RNLA, as it's called. We're a smaller-scale infill developer specializing in affordable housing as well as homeless housing. I've got 25 years plus of community development experience in both the public sector, as well as the private sector, as well as with nonprofit organizations. I've also worked internationally in the former Soviet Union. I've been around all parts of community development, commercial redevelopment, and affordable housing projects, both on the financing side, really all the way through the whole project lifecycle.   Eve Picker: Well, now I have to interrupt and ask what on earth you were doing in the Soviet Union?   John Perfitt: Well, I was a Peace Corps volunteer. It was right after the Soviet Union was- basically the government collapsed over there, and they "transitioned" to capitalism. I was working in a very grassroots capacity, doing small micro lending in a rural agricultural area and mostly immersing myself in local culture, which I like to do. That was in the early '90s and had an indelible mark on my paradigm, oftentimes, on community development and so forth.   Eve Picker: Cool, and what about you, Jason?   Jason Neville: My name's Jason Neville. I'm an urban planner by training, originally from New Orleans, Louisiana. My first seven years of my career were spent on the public sector side and the redevelopment agency at City of Los Angeles until it was dissolved in 2012. Then at the New Orleans Redevelopment Agency, in my hometown, for a couple of years afterwards.   Jason Neville: It was about that time that I started getting frustrated with and also aware of the opportunity to make an impact in cities outside of the public sector, sort of call it accidentally, founding a company with two buddies of mine in New Orleans to do some historic renovations and got the taste for doing real estate development and also increasing appreciation for the role that entrepreneurial, private-sector, impact-minded real estate developers can have a positive transformation in cities.   Jason Neville: I spent a couple of years in the mayor's office here in Los Angeles and worked on some of the policies and research related to accessory dwelling units. Left the mayor's office and founded a design-permit-build ADU company called Building Blocks with my business partner, John Perfitt. It was through that collaboration that we partnered up a little bit on the Bungalow Courts project, which we've been working on for the past year and a half.   Eve Picker: That's why I had invited both of you onto this podcast show, because you were working on a pretty extraordinary little project called Bungalow Courts, or Bungalow Gardens in L.A., and I wanted you to tell us a little bit about that? I'm sure you're working on other things, as well, but that's a pretty interesting project.   John Perfitt: Yeah. We have a variety of smaller scale, and when I say smaller scale, kind of up to 20-unit, kind of micro-unit, homeless housing projects in our pipeline. One of our favorites that we're working on right now is the Bungalow Gardens, as you mentioned. Jason will probably talk more about this, but Bungalow Gardens represents one of the first bungalow courts projects permitted and built in the city of Los Angeles, especially South Los Angeles, in a long time. It was a very common housing typology for a long time, 50-60 years ago, but it's really kind of ... Modern zoning code has zoned it out, if you will, of being a practical way to build housing.   John Perfitt: This is a really great project. We're highly influenced in the approach and design by Irving Gill, who I think was just a master of fusing together a very modern sensibility with a great precedent that there is for a Spanish revival in Los Angeles. What all that thinking, and wrangling, and  so forth produced was the Bungalow Gardens project, which is a really four duplexes or eight units on a kind of long and narrow sight, adjacent to a very busy street called Vermont in Los Angeles.   John Perfitt: We think it's beautiful. It's going to house, for at least 15 years, individuals experiencing homelessness. We like to refer to it as compact and dignified living. In many ways, it's a throwback, we think, very complimentary of the neighborhood; very contextual. It's a project that we just love and turned into a labor of love. To further extend it, we're attempting to raise some capital, via crowdfunding, to really make the project even that much more of an example of what can be done in the marketplace here in Los Angeles.   Eve Picker: Full disclosure, everyone, they actually have listed the project on SmallChange.com to accomplish the crowdfunding. I'm sort of fascinated ... I'm sure everyone else is, as well. If you're going to house homeless, how do you generate revenue to cover the operating expenses for a project like that?   John Perfitt: It's a great question, and I'll let Jason jump in here in a second to add to what I'm going to say, because he's actually been really the engine behind this and actually a lot of the direction that we had in going the bungalow courts direction was his idea and vision.   John Perfitt: Really, the thing that makes this possible in a lot of ways is we, unfortunately, have a housing crisis, as well as a homeless crisis in Los Angeles. Residents of Los Angeles, and of the county- both the city and county have voted to tax themselves to make capital available for building homeless housing. We were able to go in one of the programs that exists in Los Angeles; just able to go in and secure a rental subsidy from a credit tenant - namely, the County of Los Angeles - and get that commitment for up to 15 years. That really provides to the bloodline for the project, from an operations standpoint.   John Perfitt: Then there's a local, what's called a Community Development Finance Institution, or CDFI; really a community loan fund in Los Angeles that's super-aggressive, and smart, and will see these smaller projects, and see that they've secured a rental subsidy, and will land on these projects pretty aggressively. The name of that CDFI is Genesis L.A., and they've just been a tremendous partner and lender in the marketplace for many of the projects that we've worked on. I can't say enough about those folks at Genesis L.A. seeing this problem and helping to craft a solution, because it's really the rental subsidy and then the availability of this loan capital that really makes these projects possible. I don't know if you want to add anything, Jason?   Jason Neville: Yeah, I think that John explained it well, in terms of what makes it possible financially, but there's a couple other pieces to this, too, about what makes it possible, including policies. One of the new policies in the City of Los Angeles we're taking advantage of is called the Transit Oriented Communities Affordable Housing Program, which allows for parking waivers and other incentives for affordable housing projects that are built near transit, as our project is.   Jason Neville: As John was mentioning before, some of the background and history of bungalow courts is that it was a predominant form of housing in Los Angeles from the 1900s to about the 1930s, until modern zoning codes in Los Angeles began requiring parking on site, which made this particular housing typology infeasible. Now, because of the housing crisis we're experiencing and the efforts from our city planning department to address the housing crisis through innovative policies, such as TFC ordinance, we are able to build this bungalow court, which will be the first bungalow court project in Los Angeles in 70 years. So, there's a policy piece of this, as well.   Eve Picker: Be sure to go to EvePicker.com and sign up for my free educational newsletter about impact real estate investing. You'll be among the first to hear about new projects you can invest in. That's EvePicker.com. Thanks so much.   Eve Picker: Essentially, you're stepping back in time to address a very modern problem.   John Perfitt: Yeah, I always say, when we've talked about this, when you want to talk about innovation, and a lot of times, innovation is go back and look at what has worked, and then sort of synthesize that and come out with something that's unique. Yeah, we're going back to what worked a long time ago.   Eve Picker: Yes. Interesting. My second thought, first thought, I don't know, but I think about, like, eight units is not very much for a crisis, right? How do you begin to scale an idea like this, so that it really has a much larger impact?   John Perfitt: It's a great question and one that we grapple with, because the question of scale comes up all the time. We, admittedly, on this project - which we were trying to accomplish a variety of different things, including innovative financing on this - we probably left some density on the table. We could have built more. That being said, we are building other projects and have them in our pipeline that are three-four stories and 20 units on small infill sites.   John Perfitt: When we talk about scale, it's not the traditional way that developments looked at scale - large 100- to 150-unit projects, and so forth. We believe those are out there and should be done. What we're trying to facilitate, and show can be financed, and operated, and can work, and be feasible is the repetition. That would be the scale of a lot of infill sites that are either underdeveloped, or not developed at all, or obsolete uses, and so forth, throughout a county. There are many of these. What type of mechanisms can you use, and incentives can you use to do that, and then repeat it?   John Perfitt: We fully understand, and we experience that age-old sort of paradigm that lenders and developers have that the blood, sweat, and tears on  a 50-unit project is the same as 10, and so forth. We fully believe that a multifaceted approach to creating more units is going to potentially mitigate the crisis that we have going on. We are very active in sharing our information about how we do this, because we think there's a multitude of opportunities.   John Perfitt: We'd like to see other private nonprofit ... Especially the folks that are not necessarily not-for-profit ... If there is an incentive, a financial incentive, for folks and developers to build housing that we need, i.e. homeless housing, that's great, but that hasn't ...  But that hasn't- that's novel. That's different than has been done in the past. Our scale is that we want to be smarter and be able to optimize or maximize on these small sites, but be able to do it repetitively and have other people do it repetitively [cross talk]   Eve Picker: Yeah, so I'm going to put my urban-designer hat on, because the added bonus of creating a product that is an infill product is that it is a great, sustainable way to build in cities to fill small vacant sites, instead of letting them become what is oftentimes the highest and best-used parking lots, is another thing that's being solved here. Really large projects tend to take away the fabric of our cities, because they will raise a number of buildings and amalgamate lots for that efficiency and scale and, in the process, destroy the charming little neighborhoods and communities that we actually all like.   Jason Neville: Urban design is very, very important to us. We've been working with a great young architect, Studio 15, who's worked with RNLA on a couple of projects and with our ADU company, Building Blocks, on a few projects. We're really passionate about design and knew that good design would be a really important part of this project's success.   Jason Neville: When we won the Los Angeles County Housing Innovation Challenge, earlier this year, we were able to present to the county supervisors and some other VIPs, along with a couple of other winners of this grant challenge ... Those other folks were doing great work. However, their particular designs were reusing storage containers. There was a lot of sort of architectural innovation that was happening there.   Jason Neville: When we showed the renderings of our project, we got great response from everyone who was gathered there, including a supervisor, because when they saw that style, it really fit with Los Angeles's architectural trajectory and is also the scale that really fits in a lot of neighborhoods in Los Angeles; notwithstanding John's good point about leaving a little bit of density on the table in this round-   Eve Picker: Yeah, it's really lovely. I can't wait to see your next project in this little product line. I also want to know a little bit about Building Blocks and the ADU project that you're working on. Tell us a little bit about why L.A. went down the ADU path; what that means for L.A.   Jason Neville: Happy to answer that; Also, in answering this question about ADUs, I think it will also answer, Eve, your question about how you to get to scale. In Los Angeles, there's about 500,000 single-family-zoned properties. Up until about two years ago, the City of Los Angeles allowed ADUs, but due to restrictive policies, they were only producing about 150 a year.   Jason Neville: Two years ago, the state legislature adopted a statewide development standard for ADUs and compelled cities to either use those standards or create standards of their own. In doing so, that reform happened at the state level and made it easier for homeowners to build ADUs, which are accessory dwelling units; legal second units you can build on otherwise single-family-zoned properties.   Jason Neville: Production went, in just two years, from about 150 a year to about 5,000 a year, and I would not be surprised ... That was as of last year. I would not be surprised at all if, in 2019, we hit the 8,000-, or 9,000-, or 10,000-unit mark, because a) there's lots of single-family-zoned properties in Los Angeles; many of which, by the way, already have unpermitted ADUs, which are in operation. Many of the permits that are coming- part of that 5,000 number that I just mentioned is legalizations of existing ADUs and don't really constitute net new units.   Jason Neville: What happened- the trigger was the state law that allowed it. There's been, as you may have been following, in California, a lot of attention to the housing crisis and increasing attention towards solving the policy related issues at the state level, rather than at the local level, where NIMBYism and other issues can get in the way of housing production. Seeing that there was an opportunity, I approached John about starting a small company called Building Blocks, which was a design-permit-build project- excuse me, company. We just wrapped our first project about two weeks ago, and we've got two or three more in the pipeline right now.   Jason Neville: The services we provide, or we have been paid to provide ... The goal is to be an all-in-one ADU development company on behalf of other homeowners, where we provide all of the design, permitting, and construction services. John's a licensed contractor. The value-add to homeowners is that we can provide every step of the process, from A to Z, right within Building Blocks.   Eve Picker: That's pretty great. That's two really innovative products out of the two of you. Are you thinking about another one that you should tell us about?   John Perfitt: We would, but we can't. We're still too early in the determination process.   Eve Picker: Okay. Obviously, you think socially responsible real estate is necessary in today's development landscape, because that's what you're really focusing on. Are there any current trends in real estate development that interest you besides the ones that you're focused on?   John Perfitt: We're constantly thinking about a couple things. At least I am, in RNLA. This may seem small ... There's a real deficit of shade in Los Angeles, and there's a lot of literature out there, recently, about how that's a real negative thing for quality of life, believe it or not. We've figured out, or budgeted for, and are planning for more shade. We need to create shade. It doesn't have to be trees all the time, but we've sort of changed our approach on that.   John Perfitt: We also are constantly thinking about different modes of transportation because that is changing. I guess it would be- one of the trends is that building without parking is ... I've never done that before, and we're doing that routinely. That's sort of the paradigm we go in on these projects. I will say, too, the thing that I'm bullish on, and I've always said, if we can, as practitioners, come up with the right models and the right approaches, we can find the capital.   John Perfitt: That's why we're so excited about not exploring, but diving in with crowdfunding, because I think this represents an opportunity. I think there's a pent-up desire, just amongst my network and talking to folks, with people wanting to ... Especially with the problems of homelessness here in the City of Los Angeles, and other cities, and all over the country, for that matter, seeing those, I think there's just- there's a lot of potential there, and it's just a matter of connecting the dots. I don't think anything we do is just absolutely like, "Oh, that's incredible ..." We're just  figuring things out and connecting the dots.   John Perfitt: As you probably know, there are a lot of people that don't believe that this will ever amount to anything. That's the same thing with the trend that we're embracing of a building small, thinking, small - small ball, as I call it. There's a lot of people saying that's just small time. I don't want to be overly critical, but if you look at the affordable housing real estate delivery mechanism, it's largely failed, if you look at it on a macro basis, in terms of its ability to deliver units to the marketplace.   John Perfitt: We have huge crises all over in large cities. And I've been working at this for 20-25 years. It's been the same tune. Let's blow some things up. I'm hungry for, and I think Jason shares this, too,  for disruption. I don't see it- Construction's not famous for a lot of disruption. Real estate sometimes is. Affordable housing? I don't see it that often. To me, there's some room for disruption out there, and I think that's kind of one of the trends I'm seeing. I'm seeing the trends on things like crowdfunding, and otherwise, and it gets my blood flowing, because I think it's ripe for disruption.   Jason Neville: Yeah, I would echo that and just add that the partnership with a Small Change has allowed us to expose the thinking that we're doing on these projects to a wider audience and to give them some actual skin in the game, both neighbors that might be interested or folks that want to invest. That's a really exciting part, and answers ... It's part of the answer to your question about scale is prototyping this model and demonstrating that it's viable, so that it can be taken to scale by us and other developers.   Eve Picker: Yeah, I think what's happening about that listing is that the pace with which people are investing really early on, clearly a lot of people care about this crisis. The question is how can they pitch in and help? I think people really want to pitch in and help. It's really interesting. We'll see what will happen. Are you aware of any other innovation or disruption in affordable housing or homeless housing that you've seen that is of interest to you?   John Perfitt: Everybody always migrates towards different fabrication technologies, and so forth. I know there are people out there doing hard work on that. I have built, with RNLA, five or six modular projects. I'm hopeful that there is going to be a- that will be the killer app, if you will - infill environments - and in that context. I haven't seen it, and I run these things down.   John Perfitt: When people started talking about container, there was a local manufacturer in Los Angeles that I spent a lot of time with. I thought that was hopeful, because I thought the cost basis would be  low, but ... There are a lot of folks that are spending a lot of time. It's definitely, with the amount of, especially, public capital that's been put out in the marketplace for people to figure out some solutions, which I think ...   John Perfitt: Another thing I'll step back and say is one of the things I think, as a former government employee in community development, and so forth, is if you can come up with programs, especially rental subsidy programs - and that's the beauty of the one that we're using in Bungalow Gardens, is that it's basically said, okay, when you get this thing built, however you get it built, within certain parameters, the money is there.   John Perfitt: It relies on the private market, developers, funders, and so forth to figure it out and then get there. I think that's where the innovation can take place. I know there are people that are working on a lot of things. What we are concerned about, and I'm going to be real frank, is that, again, building departments, as someone that's ran a building department in the past, it's not the dominion of creative thought. It's oftentimes, and for good reasons, many times, it takes a while for innovative products to be accepted there. There's a whole process, at least in a large city like Los Angeles.   John Perfitt: We've tried to keep the technology, on terms of the building stuff, to be pretty traditional, making improvements and learning lessons about how to do it faster, and cheaper each time. But I know there's a lot of other folks, and a lot of my colleagues and friends in cities and otherwise are saying, "Why aren't you going down the modular path?" I would love to sign up ... I've spent a lot of time at the factories kind of preaching the gospel about this sort of infill market being big.   John Perfitt: I just have not seen enough proof positive to compel me, and us, to go in that direction, but I know there's a lot of thinking, and a lot of working. I'm sure you could do a whole episode, and I'm sure you will, with people that are modular builders that will refute what I'm saying. I'm speaking from empirical experience, or empirical evidence of my own personal experience in building these - I don't find them, in a compelling way, to be faster or cheaper.   Eve Picker: No, I actually have found the same thing. I have tried to go modular for a couple of projects and keep thinking about it. In the end, stick-built is cheaper. When you're really trying to get something built that is going to serve a more moderate audience, then you just really have to think about that. I think we're seeing a lot of modular products that are looking like luxury products now, because of that, and that's not really solving a problem [cross talk]   Jason Neville: -ADU example, just to validate what you're both saying ... An ADU market was created overnight throughout California without any innovation in construction technology, or finance, for that matter. It was merely allowing people to do it was the big innovation, because there was so much pent-up demand. Capital is flowing to it.   Jason Neville: There's a industry of ADU builders in Los Angeles, including some that are going to fabrication route, and there's some tech companies that are in the game; people experimenting with leasing out a home ... Companies that will lease out your garage, or master lease your garage from you, convert it to an ADU, handle the property management on behalf of the homeowner, and give the homeowner a cut of the money. After five years or so, the company walks away.   Jason Neville: There's lots of innovation happening, but the part of the problem in California, and other high growth areas of the country is housing just isn't allowed; even the housing that was allowed 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. For example, in Los Angeles in the 1970s, we down-zoned vast portions of our city from sites that would allow four to eight units down to one unit.   Jason Neville: Ordinances like the one we're taking advantage of, the TOC ordinance, which provide a buy-right permissionless path for housing, along with the subsidies- the operating subsidies John was mentioning, along with parking reductions, along with financial innovations, like the partnership of Small Change, those are all the dots. We aren't seeing, as far as I can tell ... I think we're doing a really good job of connecting all those dots, as John said; that big-picture perspective that comes from our background in broader community development rather than narrow finance, or narrow policy-making, is allowing us to do something really innovative here as a demonstration project.   Eve Picker: Yeah, that brings to mind, I was working on projects in the early 2000s in Pittsburgh, and what ... These buildings are called flipper buildings. They're kind of the interstitial buildings in downtown Pittsburgh that are only 20-feet wide, and over 100-feet deep, and only have windows at the front, and really don't fit into any modern-day zoning or building codes. The City of Pittsburgh, eventually, as we sort of pushed forward with developing these, they did eventually come up with a over-the-counter sort of checklist for developers who wanted to work on these buildings to save them, which was a lot better than what we originally had.   Eve Picker: I think building code departments are capable of innovating; it's just it always takes someone, some initial leader in a community, pushing the envelope and saying, "We've got to do this. We've got to be able to figure out how to renovate our warehouses into lofts. We've got to build smaller buildings that are on smaller lots that are not necessarily permitted in the code." It always takes someone kicking that off, right? It's not going to happen in a vacuum.   John Perfitt: Right. I always thought when this ADU, the changes made, that it might be valuable for ... There's a lot of attention being directed at ADUs by the policymakers and local electeds, and so forth. I thought, why not come up with a pre-approved 20 x 20 garage conversion-esque model that people could ... It'd be a fast pathway; the way that, like that kind of a car port at the building department, that if you just follow this, you get it. It's really fast and easy.   Eve Picker: I think that's a great idea, yeah.   John Perfitt: I do, too, but the countervailing argument that I've experienced, as someone that is in there permitting these things and doing these things, is that just really what we've found, as much as we think our neighborhoods are similar, the conditions, when you go to these backyards are ... We toured 20 backyards, and the prototype that we use only worked in one or two scenarios-   Eve Picker: Wow.   John Perfitt: -so different because [cross talk] of the time, incrementally and organically, things have changed and created new conditions that wouldn't allow the prototypes [cross talk]   Eve Picker: Yeah, yeah, yeah-   John Perfitt: -the thinking on the prototypes is very helpful. You can leverage that into a great solution, but being able to plug and play has been a loose ...   Eve Picker: We have a listener who was dying to know what you think about community engagement tools and which you have seen that have worked. We know you're using crowdfunding as a kind of community engagement tool, but as a non-profit, I'm sure you've thought about this a lot.   John Perfitt: It's interesting. I came from meeting with a organization that works with churches that have underutilized buildings, and so forth, and wants to throw in to help with creating homeless housing. It's a very interesting thing and an interesting question. You're going to get a schizophrenic answer from me, as someone that's worked on all sides of these things.   John Perfitt: Generally, when we pursue homeless housing projects, we try to do them as completely, as Jason said, permissionless. Meaning, we're [hemming] to the zoning code; we're using the incentives. There's a very vocal and, probably with a legitimate point - needing information and good information - but a vocal minority in Los Angeles that could be agitated very easily during the course of an approval process on homeless housing, so we try to avoid public hearings, whenever we can, because this has happened. This is someone that has been on the sponsor side with a project and someone that's been on a neighborhood council.   John Perfitt: We are absolutely willing to talk to anybody and show them probably too much in terms of what the project- under the hood. When we can hem to the code, and not have to do and have public hearings, we won't do it. I don't do that to try to be deceptive in any way. We believe in our product; we believe- we've all voted on this, not only with the zoning code, but we voted in terms- to tax ourselves to fund this. We've already kind of voted, and we're going to move forward on these projects.   John Perfitt: That being said, we are going to go door to door near the Bungalow Gardens project talking to neighbors about the opportunities that this project represents. We have no problem doing that, but we generally avoid - and this is the dirty little secret ... It's really, really, really painstaking in many large cities, especially in California, to entitle a project, even if it's a good project that people want. If you want to go through a protracted zone change or an environmental impact report, and so forth, you're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars and potential vocal minority killing the project.   John Perfitt: My long-winded sort of schizophrenic answer is were strategic about this, but when we can avoid the retread, if you will - this re-discussing these projects that we've all voted on already - we're going to go forth, because the problem here is production. It's disappointing for me, as a resident of the city, that works here, and lives here, and has dug in here ... When the first few larger-scale homeless housing projects got funding and got- were up for their [inaudible] decisions, and they've got shot down because of a vocal minority.   John Perfitt: There's probably never a good place for a homeless housing project in the eyes of some people, but we like to engage, when we can, when it's appropriate, and strategic, and otherwise, and provide tons of information that is authentic. We don't spin. We know lie. We tell it ... We're probably too honest on a lot of these projects, but when we can avoid that vocal [cross talk]   Eve Picker: Yeah, yeah, yeah-   Jason Neville: -agitating, we will.   Eve Picker: I think Deborah will appreciate that answer, and I do, too, because not many people will actually be honest about that. I've worked in community development myself, and it's extremely difficult. Part of the problem, I think, is that when you're working in an underserved neighborhood, or for an underserved group of people that are often working three jobs to put food on the table, they can't show up to community meetings. They don't have the time to show up at the community meetings, nor do they necessarily have access to the internet or anything else that we expect of everyone to stay informed. You end up with a lopsided group of people.   John Perfitt: Let me add one thing, Eve, if I can, too ... I've talked a lot on this, sorry-   Eve Picker: No, that's okay.   John Perfitt: -there's a straight-up economic reason. It costs money to do outreach. You have to pay people to go out there and do it, oftentimes. The large tax credit projects or other projects that developers do, they've got a team of professionals that go out there and do it. If you're trying to build for $175,000 - $200,000 per unit, which is half the cost of traditional affordable housing, you can't afford it. You don't have the luxury of hiring a public relations firm.   John Perfitt: You can do meetings, but it's going to be me or Jason, on a Saturday, going out there telling you the way it is. That's how we do it. Everybody wants to throw around - my advocate friends and otherwise - that community outreach, community outreach ... I'm down with it. I think it's great, but there's a cost to it. There's a cost to that to the project that has to be borne by the project, and that's another thing that people don't talk about.   Eve Picker: But I think the difference is that you two have the community in mind with what you're doing. Other small developers may not. I think that developers are a really dirty word in this country at the moment, because they are the word that's linked to gentrification.   John Perfitt: Right.   Eve Picker: I think that's why there's so much emphasis on community engagement, but it's so difficult to get it to work, as you shared. Anyway, that's a really tough subject, so I'm going to move away from that [cross talk]   Jason Neville: Eve, you reminded me of something that Andrés Duany said at the Congress for New Urbanism Conference that I went to in Detroit, where I met you and heard from Small Change for the first time, which is that one of the things he said in his keynote was part of the reason people don't want to see development is because development has been so bad in the past-   Eve Picker: Yes.   Jason Neville: -and part of changing the story is to do good development. I think I speak for John here, too; the project that we're delivering is going to be beautiful. It's going to have rooftop solar. It's going to have- it's completely 100-percent accessible for folks with disabilities, so people who have wheelchairs will have full mobility in the units. There will be fire retention gardens in the front to address the city's stormwater management goals, while providing beautiful landscaping. There's rooftop solar.   Jason Neville: It's going to be something that I- this is going to be probably the proudest project I've worked on to date, and I can't wait to show anyone from the community, or elected officials, or anybody else this project. I think that kind of sets- I think that tells people something about the quality of design that we are achieving.   Eve Picker: Yes, that's really great. I have a wrap-up question, and that is: where do you think the future of real estate impact investing lies?   John Perfitt: It's a really good question, and I'm bullish on the ability of smaller-scale projects to be able to raise good sums of money. I'm not an expert on where it's come over the last three or four years, and I know there are a lot of startup things that had to be sorted out, with the cost and otherwise.   John Perfitt: But I've always believed in it the same way that I believe in ... This is what's different, and it's hard to convince people in the marketplace. You go to conferences on affordable housing, and other wise, and, in addition to talking about innovation, people always say, "Oh, there's gotta be more money. Just throw more money at stuff ..." My thing is there's other sources of money out there other than the traditional shrinking ones that are out there, and this represents one.   John Perfitt: If we can prove this equation works ... When I talk about equation, I've been saying this for a long time, that there's got to be a way to reduce costs, streamline the capital stack, and deliver this in a different way. There's an equation that works, and this represents, to me, a way. It doesn't have to be traditional affordable housing. It could be people that are building units in lower-income areas, or straight affordable, and naturally occurring affordable. I think there's a lot of applications. We've got one narrow application of it right here, but to me, it's unbelievable.   John Perfitt: Also, it kind of connects ... What's beautiful about these offerings is that you can just immediately refer someone over, and they can look at it for five minutes and go, "Oh! I get what you're doing! Oh, by the way, I can get involved! By the way [cross talk] this is great. I know someone that's interested."   John Perfitt: That, I'm bullish on. I've been wanting to do this for a while, as I mentioned earlier. I'm bullish because I think there are people out there that once they see that someone has proven that this can work, and it can be ... This is cliché in my world to say, 'double bottom line,' but on our project, if people are making a return and we're achieving a social objective, social policy [cross talk]   Eve Picker: Yeah, that's pretty good.   John Perfitt: That's one of those things, in grad school, they throw around - the double bottom line, and all that stuff - or in annual reports. Well, this ... We're doing it now on a small scale. That begs the question of scale and otherwise that you asked earlier. I'm bullish, Eve; I'm bullish because it's really- it's micro, but the reach is ... The thing that's amazing. It goes down to 81st and Vermont, this project, but the reach is endless. My relatives [cross talk] the world, or their friends of friends of friends of friends of friends could invest in this.   Eve Picker: Yeah.   Jason Neville: John and I both had ... John and I both worked - although we didn't know each other at the time - at the Los Angeles Redevelopment Agency until it dissolved in 2012. When it went away, California lost a really big source of affordable housing funding that was funding this mainstream, somewhat sclerotic affordable housing industry that John was describing earlier.   Jason Neville: I, too, am bullish and think that, as those sources of- traditional sources go away, and as public budgets shrink, and as people realize that the cost to deliver affordable housing is way higher than it ought to be ... I mean, $400,000 to $700,000 per unit to build an affordable housing unit in California is insane. We're doing it for-   John Perfitt: A lot less.   Jason Neville: A lot, a lot less. We're providing value to [cross talk]   Eve Picker: Yes.   Jason Neville: -investing, including the public sector. John, and I, I think part of what makes us good collaborators is ... Well, I'll speak for myself, here. I sort of see myself, first, as a city making intellectual or thinker around these issues. The way that I go about trying to prove some of my thoughts around it is by doing projects. Bungalow Gardens and the ADU projects are definitely me reverse engineering what I think needs to happen in cities and deciding that execution of these projects is how we get there.   Jason Neville: One anecdote to quickly share is that I was talking with the with Chris Redfearn, who runs the USC real estate program or used to. We were talking about how you could create new models in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods where prices are increasing to give neighbors a stake in the project, a literal stake in the project, so that, a) they are more likely to support new projects in their neighborhood, and b) they can benefit from the economic upside of real estate development in their neighborhood. We talked about that about three years ago, and at the time, it just seemed like two people wondering about how things might work. Small Change is giving us that opportunity to do it.   Eve Picker: Well, you know, the way you've verbalized your projects is exactly the way I think about Small Change. I'm reverse engineering a solution around those funds drying up, because my projects, although non-profit when I built them, relied on funds that the Urban Redevelopment Authority had at the time. Those funds gradually dried up, and loan-to-values got lower.   Eve Picker: All of those things kind of made the business of building projects that are impactful and not just financially driven really difficult. My ultimate dream for Small Change is that we can fund projects like yours, or we can help you find- connect you with people who want to help you. That would be a fantastic solution, wouldn't it?   Jason Neville: Absolutely.   Eve Picker: We're just starting, so ... Well, I have three sign-off questions I ask everyone, because I want to see what everyone ... Everyone thinks differently about this. The first is what's the key factor that makes a real estate project impactful for you?   John Perfitt: To me, if people can view it as ... It's really a positive externality, if it really is viewed as an asset to the neighborhood, irrespective of its use or otherwise. It can have staying power and can have positive externality. I think that's what's really, really ...   Eve Picker: How about you, Jason?   Jason Neville: I agree with that. There's a conversation that one of my favorite voices in urbanism, Alissa Walker, here in Los Angeles, was posing a question recently online. What's a project in Los Angeles that people are excited about after it got built that they were welcomed and thought this really made the neighborhood better? I thought that was a great question to ask. I feel like, to answer your question, a project is impactful, if you can point to it and other people will look at it and say, "I want that in my neighborhood." [cross talk]   Eve Picker: So, it's something that makes a place better. Yep. Yeah.   Jason Neville: -real estate ... We have a problem in the real estate industry; even saying 'the real estate industry' sounds bad to a lot of people. I'm interested in changing the game, because every house that anyone lives in, any office that someone works in, any place you go to was built by developers at some point ... I like to think of real estate as you get a little piece of the city to build. It's our responsibility to build it well and build it enduring as a piece of this broader city.   Jason Neville: Also, one other thing that with our particular project is we are hopefully making a ... Although it's only eight units, we're helping put a dent in a very, very serious problem/crisis here around homelessness. I'm very interested, and I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm looking forward to meeting some of the folks that are living there and finding out how their lives were changed and, if it works, share those stories to other folks in the city - residents and officials - to demonstrate how these smaller-scale projects are making an impact, in the positive impact on the neighborhood and in the lives of the people who are living there.   Eve Picker: That actually segues right into the second question, which is what's the one thing in real estate development that you would change to improve buildings and physical places in the country?   John Perfitt: I think flexibility, and this has to do with building code, zoning code, and lenders. One of the things that has been liberating of working on the small-scale and otherwise is that we're able to find a place where there is flexibility, so we can think about different ways of solving problems. The zoning code ... When I've worked on the city side and we put in place what, here in California, we call specific plans, I was always arguing for how can we set forth code that is smart and will yield what we want to build, but gets flexibility, because we just cannot predict the future, in terms of the way things are going to go and the technologies that are going to emerge. Flexibility is something I think that is really helpful. That gets back to what I said about rental subsidies. People say, "Here's your rental subsidy. You have the flexibility now to figure out what's the best way to get from here to there."   Eve Picker: Yeah, that's an interesting answer. What about you, Jason?   Jason Neville: Well, my answer to that question has evolved over time, and has tracked my migration from different facets of urban planning and development. Five, or six, or seven, or 10 years ago, I would've said what we need is really robust urban design guidelines to ensure that these horrible developers everywhere are contributing to our neighborhood.   Jason Neville: Being on the side of enforcing design guidelines, I found myself in awkward situations, where we had folks who were trying to do- developers and their architects trying to do a really beautiful, interesting projects that weren't allowed [cross talk] weren't foreseen by the developers of those design guidelines.   Jason Neville: Today, my answer is we need a level of public-minded, public-spirited developers in the real estate industry who are modeling good behavior for everybody else and that are passionate about it. I would like to think that John and I are two of those people. If we can make it work financially, then that is something that will make it ... I think a lot of developers don't particularly care about the design, per se. They're looking at other aspects of it, and that's fine. If we can model a particular typology that makes financial sense, that helps scale it, that helps bring capital to it, and that helps make the city better.   Eve Picker: The final question is that you're using crowdfunding for this project, and other than raising money, how do you think crowdfunding might benefit you as real estate developers?   John Perfitt: I think actually it's going to add an element of exposure, which is not just spin. This is a real project. The reach of that, it could help with people seeing a new model, new methodology. It's also going to inject a certain element of discipline. We want to show this, and it's very public, if this works, and we want to make sure that all of our objectives for development, as well as profitability and otherwise, are met because we're pledging this.   John Perfitt: We know crowdfunding is an equity or an investment that people could lose, but we're not going to allow that to happen. Two things. There's a there's a new exposure, a heightened level of a different way of approaching it and doing things. Then there's a discipline injected into this that I think is really energizing for me [cross talk]   Jason Neville: I agree with everything John said and would just add that one of my lessons learned from the ADU experience over the past couple of years is that one of the big opponents of ADUs, initially, when the city was trying to pass [its own] ordinance was homeowners who had fears, amorphous fears, about density, and parking, and everything else.   Jason Neville: When the law was passed that allowed homeowners to do it, homeowners became- are now some of the strongest advocates for ADUs, because they are, in a sense, the developers. The miracle, in my opinion, about the ADU legislation as it turned one of the biggest opponents of a particular form of housing into some of its strongest advocates. It was transformational in that regard. I think crowdfunding can do something along the same lines.   Jason Neville: I know people that would never have the means to invest in regular traditional real estate development, or they would be scared, but this project- like the ones that we're doing, they can put in low amounts, and have a little piece of it, and get exposure to it, and be bought into this idea that great architecture and great real estate development can make cities better and be a part of it. I see it as a as kind of marketing, so to speak, for good real estate development [cross talk] upside, yeah.   Eve Picker: Yeah. Well, thank you, guys. I've really enjoyed the conversation, and I am really excited about the current project that's live on Small Change. Also, I'm excited to hear about the next thing that you're working on. I'm going to be the first to know, right?   John Perfitt: Of course, we're very bullish. You're doing great work. Small Change is doing great work, which is badly needed and has the potential to be very disruptive. I think that's just fantastic [cross talk]   Eve Picker: That was the other thing I wanted to add to your comment. Disruption and change is really hard, and it takes a long time. It takes early adopters or early disruptors like you and perhaps me to kick something off and then be patient, while people get used to the idea. It takes a while. Most people don't like that sort of change and come to it slowly. I'm married to one of them, so  I appreciate it. Okay, well, thank you very much.   John Perfitt: Thank you, Eve.   Jason Neville: Thank you, Eve.   Eve Picker: Thank you.   John Perfitt: All the best.   Eve Picker: What a great conversation that was with John Perfitt, and Jason Neville. John and Jason are tackling many problems with just one little project. Not only will that project serve homeless persons by providing them with compact and dignified living, but they are stepping back in time to a housing typology that died in the 1950s - the bungalow court - to solve a modern-day problem.   You can find out more about impact real estate investing and access the show notes for today's episode at my website, EvePicker.com. While you're there, sign up to my newsletter to find out more about how to make money in real estate while building better cities. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today, and thanks to Jason and John. We'll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.  

Episode 3 - The story so far. A brief one just to bring you up to speed on where I am at the moment. Its been a tough 2 years of filmmaking but there is finally light! Transcript for our hard of hearing/deaf listenersGareth:Hey everyone. Welcome to Action, cut & everything in-between, episode three. This episode is about the story so far, because it's important for me with this podcast to take you on the journey that I'm going on, so that we can all learn together, so let's jump right in.Speaker 2:Welcome to Action, cut & everything in-between, a comprehensive guide to shooting a feature film all on your own.Gareth:Okay, so here we are. It is now mid-June 2019, and I've just had a massive move over to the UK. I lived in Australia for nine years, and now I've just made this huge jump over to the UK to be back closer to my family, and to hopefully shoot a new feature film in the UK. I have my two feature films now in post production, Saving Grace and Life After Man.Gareth:Now, let me just tell you a little bit about Saving Grace and where all that has come from. I started Saving Grace back in about March 2017, so this hasn't been a quick process for me. This has been a very lengthy journey to get to where I am today, and that's because of just life getting in the way. I run a video production company in Australia, so that would take priority over any kind of film stuff, because obviously you've got to make money, and you've got to make money to make these films as well, so it was my business that pretty much paid for my feature films for all the budget.Gareth:Yeah, all the budget came from me, self-funded. I didn't have any investors or anything like that, because well basically I didn't even have the experience to know where to go, to go out and get these investors on board. So I was like, "Right, I've got the equipment. I've got the crew. I can just go out and just give this a go myself and see how it turns out." That was hard going, you know? Started writing the script in March 2017, and then from there, getting the planning going was pretty quick, and then actually doing the first bulk of the shooting only happened over kind of a couple of weekends at this property that we had. Then, Christmas came and stuff, and we had a break over Christmas, and then actually had a bit of a falling out with my co-writer at the time, and that just kind of put the brakes on everything.Gareth:So why that messy situation was happening, I started to write Life After Man. Then Life After Man really came around pretty quick, people were jumping on board, and I kind of learned from my mistakes from Saving Grace and the process that I went through with that, like the script. I spent a lot more time on the script. I sent it off to a script doctor, who is actually in the UK, got feedback from them, and then went back, edited the script, and then within a month or two I started shooting Life After Man.Gareth:So I started shooting Life After Man in May 2018, and from there, again, it was just what I could fit in between work, doing it at weekends or midweek, if I was quiet with work, and whenever I could get the crew and actors together basically. So yeah, went through all that process, shot right up to Christmas basically, and then had a break over Christmas. Now, one of the major things that I've learned is to not have a break between filming, like a large break. I know you can break for a week, or two, or three while you're kind of getting work stuff and getting your budget back together, or trying to sort things out for the shoot. But, having a large break, especially kind of over Christmastime and all that, is really difficult, and in Australia, the summers get super hot, and a lot of the shooting requires kind of exterior shots, and it would just be horrendous for the crew and the actors.Gareth:So yeah, we had this big break and then kind of was really struggling to get up to speed after Christmas came, just due to the fact of getting everybody together. My DOP and a couple of the crew started to work on their own film, which we've spoken about in the last episode, so Guilt came in in the middle. That slowed things down to get back into it, so I went off and I decided to finish what was left of Saving Grace. I went back in. There was a lot of planning involved, and kind of stunts and things, so I think I was just procrastinating with it as well, and I was putting it off, ut I just thought, "No, this has to be finished, has to be done," so went back to Saving Grace, finished off everything that needed to be done there, and then that was an amazing feeling, like, "Okay, right, Saving Grace is done." So, that's gone off into post production now.Gareth:Then, went to help out on Guilt with Carl and Lindsey. You'll hear from Carl in episode four, about the cinematography. Went to help them, and then my English move was coming up as well, so suddenly there was this deadline looming, of, "If I don't get this film finished before I leave, then it's not going to be finished." So, crazy preparation, super stressful, trying to get everything together. I had multiple locations. We had stunts. We needed more horse shots. The logistics were just pretty horrendous, especially for one person.Gareth:When you're a producer as well, you've got so much pressure on you. You have constant emails, phone calls. Everything needs to come together. It just needs one person to be, you know, "Can't make it." Caitlin, my lead actress, she was pretty ill leading up to me leaving, so we were just worried that we may not even be able to shoot at all with her, because we didn't know when she was going to be better. But she was an absolute trooper, and she just pushed on through, and she did an incredible job, and what we've got is just so good. I'm so happy with it, and I can't wait for everybody to see it.Gareth:So, yeah, that's kind of a quick process of kind of my filmmaking journey. It hasn't been easy. It's been a real mixture of stress lonely nights, trying to work things out, no one really to kind of bounce ideas to. I had my assistant director, Chase, but he's been busy with his own film that he shooting now, and then he works and things like that.Gareth:So you know, just endless nights of to plan things, and I'm not the best at planning, either. I like to think I'm more kind of creative-brained, and I don't like systems and things like that, so for me, to plan ahead is quite a big deal for me. I tend to leave things to the last minute as well, so that's not great. But it all turned out in the end, and I'm super happy with everything we've got, and some of the things that were difficult that I put into the script, actually having to go back and think, "Okay, that's a major stunt. I'm going to have to pull that out or come up with a new idea." I think it's actually stronger with what I ended up with on the final shoot.Gareth:So that's just kind of a brief overview of how I put my films together. You know, this pretty much started in March 2017, and it's now June 2019, so you know, two years to get these done, and that's with full-time work, trying to run a business as well, and now a big international move back to the UK. Plus, my businesses still actually running in Australia, so I'm having to deal with that, get the films finished here, post production, and then build up my business here as well, because I don't have any contacts here either, so I'm pretty much starting from scratch. That's with my business and with the filmmaking.Gareth:All my filmmaking experience came in Australia, so I literally don't know anyone in the business here. You know, now it's about getting out, networking, and just meeting new people. I've been here four weeks now, and already I've got interest to speak at a uni and things like that, so slowly but surely, we'll get there, and I'm just excited to get Saving Grace and Life After Man all done in post, get the screeners ready, and then head out to AFM for November. That's kind of my deadline at the moment, is November, so full screeners kind of ready. I'll be hoping for October, sometime like that.Gareth:Yeah, that's it. I just wanted to bring everybody up to speed, because I would like to kind of hear from people who are going through the same thing. When I've listened to podcasts and all that, it always seems to be kind of Americans who've already made it, and they've got all these kinds of celebrity friends, and they're in Hollywood, or they're in LA. So I just wanted to put a different spin on it, and say like, you know, you don't have to be in Hollywood. It's not about who you know, and everybody says, "Oh, it's about who you know." I think that's bullshit, because you make your own path in this world, and if you just keep pushing on, and you've got the passion, then there's no reason why you shouldn't make it.Gareth:That's about it for now. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe, and write in the comments if you've got any questions and things like that, because I'd love to know that you're out there, and you're enjoying it, or if there's anything I can do differently with the podcast. I am just going to started and building up, and we've got some great interviews lined up, so can't wait for you to hear those. And yeah, keep making your films, keep planning, and just get it out there. It's not about who you know. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you on the next one.Speaker 2:Action, cut & everything in-between, a comprehensive guide to shooting a feature film all on your own.

"When I've got the music, I've got a place to go!" That's right Wall Fans, we have LOTS of music news in episode 95 including the recap of Back To Beach Festival! Of course, all the usual common sense, entertainment news and some interesting sports stories... Grab a Green Flash Brewing beer, sit back and enjoy the soothing sounds of Go Tell It To The Wall! #Poway #RIPMayhew #Endgame #MrRobot #GalaxysEdge #BackToBeachFest #Blink182 #Goldfinger #RBF #Parenting #SesameStreet #MentalHealth #GlitterBan #WindowsNarrator #CommonSense #WeDontNeedRails

In 2016, Red Wing Downtown Main Street hosted a Retail Challenge to bring one retail store to downtown. The competition was so successful that it filled four storefronts! Learn about how we did it, and how you can replicate it in your town. To download the pdf of all the materials Red Wing used to host the challenge, CLICK HERE. To View this Podcast with the presentation slides, go to our YouTube page HERE: https://youtu.be/d47sEl8cWN8 To learn more about Red Wing Downtown Main Street: http://downtownredwing.org/ Intro and Outro Music by Sam Tsui and Casey Breves GUEST INFORMATION Name: Megan Tsui Organization: Red Wing Downtown Main Street, Red Wing, MN Title: Executive Director Email: director@downtownredwing.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DowntownRedWing/ Instagram: https://instagram.com/downtownredwing Megan Tsui has been the Executive Director of Red Wing Downtown Main Street since 2016. She loves working with the local businesses and being their advocate. She recently completed the “Historic Real Estate Financing’ Course offered through National Main Street and the National Development Center. She hopes to use that training to help bring new development to Red Wing’s second and third stories. She lives in Red Wing in an 1875 Italianate Victorian with her husband Kent and their cats and dogs. TRANSCRIPT Megan: Hey, everybody! It's Megan Tsui. I'm super excited to be here today and I'm going to be the guest. You lucky ducks. I'm going to talk about a contest that Red Wing did in 2016 to fill vacant storefronts. We called it a retail challenge and it was really successful and really fun. And I'm going to go over some of the details. I'm doing this podcast a little differently today. If you're listening right now on a podcast, all you hear is audio, but I also have slides and I'll put that up on YouTube so you can actually go to YouTube and watch the whole presentation. If you'd like to, it's meetmedowntownpodcast.com and then search on YouTube and it should pop right up. I'll also link to it off my website, meetmedowntownpodcast.com website. And you'll be able to find it there as well. So, like I said, I have slides and I'm doing the audio and so sometimes I might forget that you can't see what I'm talking about so I apologize in advance. Otherwise, I also want to encourage you to go to the website because I'm going to have a downloadable packet for you of how you can do this in your town. And it has all of the information that we used to make this happen in Red Wing. And you can download it there. It's a PDF that has everything from our criteria, the plan, what we gave away, the marketing, everything. So, it's pretty much a plug and play kind of a download. So I'd encourage you to go to the meetmedowntownpodcast.com and then click on the latest podcast, which right now would be the, How to Fill Vacant Stores Using a Retail Challenge Contest. And you can click and download that kit there and get started on your own, and you don't have to reinvent the wheel, which is something I do not like to do. So let's get started. And again let me remind you, if I refer to something on the slide, I'm sorry, I forgot that not everybody can see. All right, let me tell you a little bit about my town. We're situated along the Mississippi River and it's this beautiful river town, very historic. We have everything you could think of for outdoor fun. You can go fishing, boating, biking, hiking. We have skiing, both Nordic skiing and downhill skiing. You can climb a bluff if you want. And it's just this very idyllic setting right around the curve of the Mississippi. And like I said, there's bluffs and all sorts of beautiful scenery around our town. We have a legacy manufacturing community in this town, I guess. We have the Red Wing Shoe, which some of you may have heard of. They make boots and shoes and, especially for the working, working folks. The Red Wing Pottery is also located here. And then we have Riedell Skates. They make skates for a lot of the Olympians. And these are manufacturers that have been here a long time and are very rooted in our community. And we're really lucky that, especially the Red Wing Shoe is still owned by the same family, as it was when it was started. And so they are very dedicated to our community and to our downtown. Actually, the Red Wing Shoe Corporation is headquartered right in our downtown. So we have a beautiful place to live. We're very lucky. It's idyllic. It's, it's wonderful. But we had a problem in 2016. I mean the recession hit us in 20--, you know 2008, 2009, 2010, and we weathered that a lot. But for some reason in 2016, we had this rash of vacancies that really left some gaping holes in our town. The reason we had some of those vacancies was that some owners retired without a succession plan. They retired and they closed their business and that was it. Some businesses just became obsolete. You know, when in this challenging retail environment, some businesses just can't make it or they just got tired. That absolutely happens. And then we had, we identified a couple voids, one especially in the outfitter idea. We did not have someone who you could, you know, if you were a tourist and you stepped into Red Wing, stayed overnight, you couldn't ride a, rent a bike or anything like that. So we knew that we wanted some sort of a business to be in that, to help fill that void. The other area we knew that we wanted to do to make sure to have some, somebody fill in some way, was Red Wing-themed products. Nobody was doing, you know, the T-shirts and coasters and bags and buttons. And nobody was doing that in our town, and we felt like there was a really missed opportunity to market our town. So, what did we do? We started the Red Wing Minnesota Retail Challenge. This was the primary marketing slide. Again, sorry for anybody who's listening on the podcast. It's basically a very simple drawing of a building in our downtown. And then it just says, “Red Wing, Minnesota, Retail Challenge” on it. And it says, “Do Downtown.” And it was very simple for a reason, because we wanted to make sure to have, to keep the idea of what we were going to do for the retail challenge and the kinds of businesses that we wanted to attract, to have it be pretty, we wanted to be ready for anyone. We knew there were those voids, but we also wanted to make sure that people felt like they could come to our downtown and open a store. So we didn't want to be super specific, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. There were six goals of the Retail Challenge. One was to recruit businesses that would enhance the business mix in downtown Red Wing. Number two is to provide businesses a head start during the toughest year of operation, which is, of course, the first year. Number three is to strengthen the local economy by attracting unique and specialty businesses. Number four, transform empty business spaces into more attractive and beneficial locations. Number five is to build a buzz and promote Red Wing as a great place to start a business. And number six is to display the community's commitment to downtown Red Wing. That's one thing that we're so proud of, is our community loves our downtown. And it’s apparent in everything we do and how much support we get. So it's wonderful. So those were those six goals of the retail challenge. We had very clearly identified eligible concepts. This was an important piece and I'd highly encourage you to think about these very carefully. And again, if you download, if you go to the meetmedowntownpodcast.com website and download that kit, you'll see all this in there and how we communicated these eligible concepts to potential contest entries. One, they had to be a new retail business. It must add to the downtown business map mix. It has to drive traffic to our downtown. Second or third retail satellite businesses from an existing location in another town were eligible. A significant expansion of a current downtown retail business that includes an added business concept. So, we weren't just looking to fund a retail business to get bigger, they had to add something. And then the last one was, this is a retail-specific competition. Service businesses are not eligible. The main difference between a retail business and a service business is that a retail business stocks and sells tangible goods, things you can touch and feel, whereas the service business sells non-tangible products, things you cannot touch and feel. We really wanted to stress and help to define that for folks because we didn't want to waste anybody's time and we didn't want to set anybody up for failure. So we really identified those clearly, and I think that was very important. The next thing we did is, we built an incentive package for folks, the business that was going to win. And there were different parts to that incentive package. So the assets and rent portion of the package was $20,000 in cash to be used to buy hard assets. That was sponsored by the Red Wing HRA, the Housing and Redevelopment Authority. They had a special grant program where they could grant funds to a Downtown Main Street and then we could distribute those funds in hard assets. So that's a pretty big deal to a business starting out. There was a low-interest loan from the Red Wing Port Authority that they offered up. And rent and utilities were subsidized by landlords. We asked all the different various vacant spaces, the landlords of those spaces, if they would help to offset some rent and utilities for a certain amount of time. And that value ended up to be about $4,000. And as you know, when you're starting a business, that's a big deal. There was also part, an incentive package of marketing. And that included merchandising and retail consulting, which was a $500 value; social media consulting which was a $1,000 value; cash for social media advertising, 500 bucks. We had someone who donated $500 so that we could do that. Graphic design services, $2,500. Local newspaper advertisements, up to $1,300 value. Gift certificates towards signage, $150. A one-page basic web site, $750 value. And the local radio station donated $1000 in ads. So, what a great way to kickstart a business, was really what this ended up being. All right. We also had legal, financial, and technical aspects of the incentive package. Those included $500 in legal counsel, $500 in accounting and tax services, business consulting, 500 bucks, value of that. We partnered with a bank that waived all the fees for this first set of business checks and endorsing stamp, etc., for $125 dollar value. And then we had some technology support for $150. A few other things that were offered up, and this is where you can really see, we have a great community, the first thing is we, the Downtown Main Street, offered up a one-year membership to our organization. We had one sponsor package for Downtown Main Streets Events for 2017. So, we put on a bunch of events especially the holiday stroll at winter time. And so that was a thousand dollars that we gave so that they could advertise or sponsor something that we were doing. There's a one-year membership to the local YMCA, $572 value. We have a local State Technical College and they offered one free online course for $100 in value. And then we had $2,000 cash to go towards facade improvements. And so what an amazing package we had in a total of almost forty thousand dollars by the time we were done. And we really had to partner with all these local organizations, and they were all really excited to do so and to offer, you know, the why, probably normally wouldn't think of being in the retail, you know, recruiting business. But all of a sudden, look at how that could really help make a family think twice about moving a business to Red Wing or opening up a business in Red Wing. So the timeline for the contest, on March 18th in 2016, we had the initial press release and announcement of the competition happened. By April 15th, we have Phase 1, where there was a business concept and officially the entry form was due. We wanted to prevent people from spending a lot of time on a concept that wasn't going to meet our needs. So we wanted, we had that part of the entry really helped us not waste anyone's time, again. By June 3rd we had, business plans were due. June 24th, that's when the final proposal presentations or the pitch happened and personal interviews happened. And then June 29th we announced the winner of the grand prize. And the business had to be opened by October 1st. We really wanted people to take advantage of the amazing tourism that happens in Red Wing during the fall and then also take advantage of those holiday sales that can really get you through some pretty lean months in the bleak winter around here. So we promoted the contest, like I said before, with a press release. There was a package of information that spelled out everything that was available on our web site. We visited shops in nearby towns that we thought would be a really good fit and fit some of the voids that we had and talked to those store owners about moving here and about the contest and what we could offer. And then we had signs in the window of participating locations and participating vacant spaces that alerted you that this contest was going on. So as you know, one of the biggest things a person needs before they start a business is a business plan. So, Phase 1 is really the business concept. Phase 2 is the business plan. And like I said before, in Phase 1 we really wanted to make sure we weren't wasting anyone's time. So we asked them to define what types of merchandise they were going to sell. What the definition description of, is the market for their retail business. How they will enhance downtown Red Wing and the Red Wing community as a whole. What resources, assets the applicant has and what resources would be needed to develop their concept fully. That included personal finances, etc. What their qualifications were to develop or expand their business, and what similar businesses and how they propose their businesses were different than those businesses that were already in town. And any other information that they might really sell the committee on the concept. So that was Phase 1. We asked for that in writing and got, I believe, 10 different concepts. Phase 2, if you were a business that we felt, or had the idea for a business that we felt, would be a good fit, you moved on to Phase 2 and I believe we had eight move on to Phase 2. Phase 2 was a business plan. And that includes things like the company summary, the products, the market analysis, the challenges, opportunities and strengths, a financial plan, a resumé, any management history, references, how many full or part-time employees this project would or business would employ. And then the finances, of course. We also asked for a community impact summary that asked them how this business would impact our community, because ultimately that's what we were after as much as anything. One of the ways that we help support businesses during this contest is we offered a Business Plan-in-a-day Workshop before that Phase 2 was due. The business plan was due in between Phase 1 when people knew that they could move on in the contest. We offered this Business Plan in a day. It was a six-hour-long workshop about what goes into a business plan, and it allowed people to get started writing their business plans, and then ask questions about writing a business plan. I taught that class and it was really a great way to help people get this part done because it's oftentimes the thing that they put off the longest and yet is the most necessary to actually getting started, to getting up and running. We also had some business writing assistance from the local small business development center in our area and some consulting with their consultant. So it really helped people to feel like they were more ready. At this point, it started to feel pretty real to a lot of these business owners who had said, you know, and for 10 years I want to start X business. And all of a sudden, it's looking like it could actually happen for them. And so we wanted to make sure that they were realistic and had the tools and the resources they needed. We also did a pitch clinic, something that I've done, worked with my alma mater college that, I was entrepreneur-in-residence there, and helped get those students ready for a pitch competition, a business plan competition there. And so I brought those skills and did a pitch clinic for anybody who made it into that Phase 2 and was going to pitch their business to the judges. And so that was a great way for those folks to get used to talking about their business, hone their presentation, get to the meat of the presentation and really be ready for that, that Phase 3, which was the final presentation and the pitch and then interview with the judges on the committee. The judges were made up of some retail business owners, community residents, city officials and then the Red Wing Downtown Main Street Board of Directors. So we had six businesses finally submit and go through the pitch. So of those six, let me tell you who the business was that won. The business that won was Red Wing Bicycle and Outfitter. Again, you'll remember I talked about the void that we had in the outfitter area of a business here in town. And so this is Andrew Peterson and he was the lucky winner. He had had a business, a bike shop, repair shop before in Red Wing and closed it to spend more time with his family and, he said, kind of get a normal day job. And he hated every minute of it. And he really missed his bike shop and we missed his bike shop in town. So he was the winner. And in the slide if you're watching on YouTube, that's one of the members of our Red Wing Main Street Board of Directors and Andrew. And so he has kayaks and bikes and equipment and he repairs bikes and sells bikes and all sorts of outdoor stuff. So that was great. But that's not the end of the story. Well, we wanted to have one retail business started and we had the funds for that one business all identified in the kind of winning package. There were three additional stores that opened as a result of our retail challenge. So three additional stores opened as a result of the retail challenge. Isn't that just crazy! That just blew our minds and we were really, really excited to have one store much less three. So let me tell you a little bit about the stores that opened up during this time. Red Wing did not have a comic book store and it didn't have a game store. So that was definitely one of the businesses we were super excited about that was interested in coming to town. Adam Hansen and his wife Sarah had a little baby, they were living in Minneapolis, and they wanted, Adam had always wanted to have a comic book store. And so they actually sold their house in the Twin Cities and moved to Red Wing to open up River Town Comic and Games. And they bought a house in town, and they really became members of our community because of this contest. They happened to be in Red Wing one day during the, when we were marketing the retail challenge and saw a sign in the window of one of the vacant spaces announcing the challenge. And that's how they got involved. So that absolutely works to put things in windows, etc. You know, sometimes we wonder what, what works and what doesn't. But we knew from their story that it did. So Adam opened his comic book store and the local port authority offered some low-interest loans to the other folks who decided to open because of the retail challenge. Backwoods Framing & Engraving is a big story. Luann Brainerd is the owner of the store and she actually purchased the building. She was a part of the competition. She didn't win, but she purchased the building and received some funds from the Port Authority to help her fix up the building and then open up her framing and engravings shop. She had had it out of her house for many, many years and needed to get it into town. She lived out in the country a little bit. And so it was a great opportunity for her to make the move into Red Wing. And, like I said, she bought a building and then converted the second floor into apartments. And she has one and then I believe she rents out another one. And she did a whole bunch of improvements to that building. It had been a long time neglected building that the landlords just hadn't invested in for quite some time. And so it really helped bring up the value of the properties in downtown because of what she did. So, again, I know the Port Authority helped her with some of the costs of the things that she had and some low-interest loans and some other things that helped her. We had a pop-up store, The Red Wing Mercantile, that opened up for that Christmas, as a 2016 Christmas season, and it was wonderful. It had those, that Red Wing merchandise in it. It had all locally made, you know, regionally made products, and it was just a beautiful store. Unfortunately the woman who ran the store had a family and had, you know, a regular job and so it was just too hard to do both the store and her job and have a family, so she did end up closing the store after the holidays, but it still was, we think it was a great success. There are some additional dollars that were brought in to the contest from the City of Red Wing. Those stores that didn't win the contest received five thousand dollars in seed money. And then again, many of them received an additional low-interest loan from the Red Wing Port Authority. So it was a really amazing thing to see everyone step up and collaborate and get excited about this program and this contest. I've been asked before about how much time did this take, and it took a great deal of time. But what took a lot of the time was getting the contest set up. And so again, if you want to go to the meetmedowntownpodcast.com website, we can help you get through a lot of that part of, what are the goals and all the things you need to convince people to help support the effort by putting in things that you can give away. I'll tell you, though that in Red Wing, this contest happened, the executive director was let go. It's a long story. But this program was 100 percent administered by volunteers and board members. So, if you think about the amount of time, you know, you could have to make this happen. It was really, I think a good way for volunteers and board members to understand how to plug themselves into a very specific contest. And I think that was one of the, a big advantage to this and how we got more than just staff to put this together. I was not the executive director at the time. I had helped in a consulting role with the organization before I came on board as the director, so I was pulled into this contest a little bit too. So it was just such a great way to make this happen without a bunch of staff time. I mean, and because the director had been let go and there was some drama around that, this contest really helped the organization be seen as still very viable and important for our community. There were a couple ripple effects that happened that we attribute to this contest. One, a shoe store from a neighboring town opened up a pop-up store that Christmas and decided to stay. So she stayed for about two years in her store, with a shoe store, and it was really great. It was right along Main Street and it was a beautiful store. And then she had some things happen in her business and so ended up closing it. But we know that, you know, she came because we invited her because we stopped by and handed her something and said, "You should come and move to our town, you know, move your business or open another business in our town." And so she did. And we were really glad to have her in our community, and she didn't take part in the contest but she did open a store. We also had Duluth Trading Company, is a really fun company that does work apparel and footwear and accessories. And we had, during the retail challenge when we were out, when the board members were out trying to recruit businesses to come to town, we'd reached out to Duluth Trading Company a couple of times. And we don't have any idea if our reaching out for sure brought them to town but we know that we did. And then pretty soon after they actually opened a retail store right in our downtown. So, who knows? But we're just going to say that all of it adds up in some way. We can't be sure there's a correlation there, but we're going to say there may be. So here we are about three years later. Here's where we stand. So Red Wing Bicycle and Backwoods Framing & Engraving are still open and they're still in the same locations and I think that they're doing very well. The comic book store is closing this spring and Luya opened up a store in a neighboring town and closed ours. So the shoe store did close. The Red Wing Mercantile pop up was open for one holiday season. But what we've seen is a continued pretty low vacancy rate in our downtown for retail because we think that we learned a lot during the retail challenge and it really helped us to support our retailers and we're continually trying to do that the best we can. So, could you make this happen in your town? I hope so. The biggest takeaways that I want to give you are, the keys to the success in Red Wing were the partnerships. When I've given this talk before, that's kind of when people go, "You know it's hard. Our local EDA or local port authority doesn't understand that, you know, fill in the blank, or we don't have, you know, a group that's willing to give that kind of money, or we just don't have..." And that could be a problem. But I think you just go where you can find the partners that are willing, and a lot of times what happens is the, you know, one partnership leads to another which leads to another. So, give yourself time to build up those partnerships and figure out what are the ways that those different businesses and different organizations in your community can help contribute to this effort. I mean, at the end of the day there were probably 20 different businesses or organizations that supported this new retail business. If he were to come in, you know, let's say he'd moved to town and had, you know, started this business, didn't know anybody. Think how much harder it is to start a business than with when you have 20 different partners behind you either in marketing or the newspaper or radio station. All that stuff adds up to really help support and create an environment in which the business can be successful. I think the other keys to our success was creativity. We were trying to think outside the box, and then we had very clear expectations and guidelines. Because we had clear expectations and guidelines in the very beginning, we didn't have a lot of hurt feelings towards the end. I mean, we, yes the people who didn't win were disappointed and, but a lot of them opened their business anyway. So, we had clear expectations and guidelines. But then I also think, I want to add, that we also created that level of support with the business plan and the pitch clinic and having the consultant from the Small Business Development Center, because those resources then became somebody, you know, people that that business could count on into the future. So, they were not just on their own. So that is how Red Wing did their retail challenge in 2016. And I really, really hope that you will consider doing one in your downtown. I think that they're really fun. It's actually, it's time-consuming, but I wouldn't say it's difficult. And I think it's something that can help change a conversation and a lot of downtowns. And it really puts you on the, the frontlines of filling those vacant spaces. So, it really, the landlords and the building owners, you start to become pretty important to them, which, sometimes it's hard. You know, we can sometimes reach those, those business owners but they may be just leasing this space or something else. But when you do a retail challenge like this and you start to connect to those landlords, all of sudden you become a pretty important resource. So, I think that was another thing that we learned from the challenge. So, I welcome your questions You can ask me questions either in the comment section on the web site, again meetmedowntownpodcast.com, go online and download the packet. It's a PDF that has everything that we used to make this happen and you can steal away, duplicate away anything you want out of there or you can go on social media. I'm on Instagram and on Facebook and you can ask questions there as well at the www.Meetmedowntownpodcast. All right. That's what I have for you today. Have a great day and I'll see you downtown.

When I've been in the ocean, I don't have to convince anyone. Luci and my kids can literally smell the ocean in my hair!

This question was sent by Lukasz. He writes: Hi, I suggest You a new subject, with a pinch of salt. Organ playing as a fitness. Yesterday evening I spent more than 1 hour the with Bach trio sonatas. When I've finished, I was completely wet. Maybe You could make a list of pieces that not only builds the skills, but also takes care of the physical form of the organist? ;-) ​ At the beginning of the list of pieces that make me wet I'll put of course Bach trio sonatas. What You will add to this list? What Yours friends from all over the world will add to it? I am very curious to know what Yours experiences are in this matter?

Ah yes, cataloging. One of the most common complaints handlers have. "UGH! My dog is not telling me about the hides when they find them, they catalog first!". In this episode, we discuss what cataloging is, what it means when your dog is cataloging, why they may be cataloging in the first place and whether cataloging is really an issue, or a training hill you should die on. ----more---- Scent Work University is an online dog training platform focused on all things Scent Work. SWU courses and webinars are not only for those who are interested in competition, but also for those dog owners who are simply looking for something fun and engaging to do with their dogs. Check out Scent Work University today! Interested in another dog sport? Dog Sport University is sister online dog training platform, give it a peek and see what it has to offer you and your dog. Want to help your dog in the manner department? Maybe you have a new puppy? Check out our newest online dog training platform, Family Dog University, where we offer online dog training courses, webinars, seminars as well as a regularly updated blog and podcast for all of your dog training needs! PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the All About Scent Work Podcast. In this podcast, we talk about all things Scent Work, whether it be training tips, a behind-the-scenes look as far as what your trial official or instructor may be going through and much more. In this episode, we're going to be talking about cataloging and trying to determine whether or not that's an issue or not. Before we start diving into the podcast itself, let me just do a very quick introduction of myself. My name is Dianna Santos, I am the Owner and Lead Instructor for Scent Work University, Dog Sport University, and Family Dog University. At Scent Work University, what we do is we provide online dog training focusing on all things Scent Work. So, this can be whether or not you're first getting started in Scent Work, whether or not you're trying to hone some skills, or if you're preparing for trial. We also offer webinars as well as our blog. I've been a professional trainer since 2011. I've focused with working with both reactive, fearful, and aggressive dogs. I'm also an approved Scent Work trial official for both AKC Scent Work and USCSS. And I've also worked with a competition organization as a staff member. So, now that you know a little bit more about me, let's dive into the podcast. So, one of the most common things that I have found as far as a complaint from dog handlers is when their dog will catalog and what I hope to do in this podcast episode is to talk about what cataloging actually is, why it's so stressful to handlers and whether or not it is an issue to begin with. So, you may be asking, "I have no idea what cataloging is. Please enlighten me dear podcast teacher lady." So, cataloging is when a dog will go into a search area. It doesn't matter what kind. And let's say there are multiple hides in that search area, let's say two or three. And the dog will go in and they will actually find those hides, but they don't communicate it to the handler in anyway, whether or not the dog has been trained a formal alert behavior or not, it's almost as though the dog is going in and saying, "Let me find these first and then I'll tell you about it later." From a handler's perspective, particularly when you're competing, this is nerve wracking, because when you go into this space and your dog is moving around and doing all types of stuff, in your mind, all you're thinking about is time. And they haven't committed to anything yet, they haven't told you about anything yet, they haven't even shown any natural tells of, "Yes, that is definitively a hide. That is not just me figuring out where odor may be going or odor may have been or where odor may be trapped or anything like that." They have not communicated any kind of decision point to you whatsoever, formal behavior alert, behavior or not. So, as a handler, it's super stressful, because you're sitting there at a trial waiting for that communication from your dog, again whether or not you have a formal alert behavior such as a sit, a pause, a down, a bark, stand on their head and spit nickles, or you're just reading their natural tells. You're not getting any of that, because your dog is trying to get this information first. So, from a handler perspective, cataloging, you would think is a huge problem. Because from a handler's standpoint, you think this is actually going to take more time. The dog could have just told you when they first found the hide instead of having to find all of them and then tell you about it. I have to tell you, though, that that perception, I think, from my experience is actually incorrect. Now, here's the interesting thing: for the dogs that I've seen either in-person when I was officiating or when I was working in scoring and I knew of the dogs who cataloged, because they were either students or colleagues or whatnot. Or in going to seminars and watching lots of videos of other dogs work, the interesting thing about dogs who catalog is that typically speaking, in a very general term, they're faster than dogs who don't catalog. I'm gonna say that one more time. The interesting thing about cataloging, for dogs who catalog, is they actually turn out to be faster as far as their overall search times than dogs who don't catalog. Now, there hasn't to my knowledge and there very well may have been, I just don't know about it, a formal scientific study about this, a A&B comparison test or anything like that, dog who catalogs, dog who doesn't, and then making certain that you have different categories of dogs who don't catalog. But I think when people are viewing this in the lens of what is faster, what is not, obviously search times will tell you all the information that you need to know. But every dog has their own searching style, so what I'm going to guess and this is an absolute guess, I have no empirical knowledge or data to back this up. But what I'm gonna guess is that a cataloger is going to be a lot more efficient, to the point, and will be faster of an overall time than a dog who runs into the search area, stirs all the odor up and is zing zanging and ping ponging all over the place. That would be my guess and that's what I'm assuming that we're seeing as far as the differential, as far as search times is concerned. Now, why would that be? Because again, when we think about this from a million miles up, of course it would be faster if my dog just told me about the hides as they found them. Why would it be faster for my dog to tell me about them afterwards? Because you have to think about how it is that the dog is actually going about this and there are a couple of different parts to a cataloger. But the most consistent thing that I've noticed is that the dogs who tend to catalog are dogs who want to be right. So, when your dog catalogs, they're making 100,000 percent certain they actually know where the hide is before they tell you about it at all, before they make that final decision point. That's important, because they're not just throwing behaviors at you, they're not just guessing. They are making absolutely positively certain that as far as they know, that's where that hide is and then they tell you about it. That's really important, because I could have a dog go into a space and they could be throwing behaviors at me left, right, and center, but if that's not where the hide is, that doesn't help me. Sure, they did that three seconds into the run, but it's nowhere near the hide. It's on the other side of the search area. That doesn't help me. I want a dog who works efficiently and I think that this is where just as handlers, we need to be a little bit more, I don't know if honest is the right word, but we just need to be more open in how it is that we're viewing our dogs and what it is we're actually asking them to do. And what it is that we need them to do, particularly when we're talking about competing. So, again, this is a very common complaint that I have from handlers across, again, the entire country. When I used to work on the East Coast of the United States, now I work on the West Coast of the United States, from the very, very beginning of when I first started doing Scent Work, even when I would go to seminars and work shops, one of the most common things that people complain about, "My dog catalogs, my dog doesn't tell me about the hides right away. It drives me crazy. I hate it." Would be a common thing that people would say. And from very early on, it always puzzled me, because I understood having been taught and having seen it that the crux of it is that the dog wants to be right. But isn't the most stressful, heart wrenching sort of, "I wanna vomit right now" thing to happen when you're competing is getting a no? So, if you have a dog who's showing you, because they've made an actual decision point, "I know where this hide is," that should make you happy. That should make you feel better not worse particularly, again, when you compare against the dog who's just kinda flinging themselves all over the search area. Sure, that other dog is probably gonna find some hides, but depending on the type of odor problems that you're posing, they may actually miss some, because they're just flinging around too much. If they had just slowed down and were a little bit more focused, they may actually find more. So, what does all this mean? To me personally, I think it underlines something that as handlers, we have to be mindful of is our dogs are who they are. They're never going to change who they are. And what I mean by that is your beagle is not going to magically going to become a malinois. And your malinois is not magically going to become a beagle. There are definitely differences from breed to breed. There's differences within the breed. There's differences even within a litter. There's differences individual wise. There's preferences, there's all kinds of things that go into the individual dog, so while you may be watching videos online, maybe things on YouTube, maybe you even went to volunteer at a trial, maybe you're doing something in person, you're working with friends, you're at a group dog training class, whatever. You see other dogs search, you go, "Oh, I wish my dog would do that." What part of that search are you actually hoping that your dog would do? To do it competently? Okay. To do it where they find it joyful? I'm all for that. To do it where they are excited to play? Hey, those are all great things for me. But if you're saying that you want your dog to "look like another dog," because you think they're "fast", I don't think that that's first of all, achievable, and second of all, I don't think that that's fair to your dog particularly if you have a cataloger. In my opinion, having a cataloging dog is not a bad thing. It's not a detriment. It's a good thing. Your dog is trying to make certain that they're right. That's great. One of the things I try to tell students or people who are working with me is please don't try to change who your dog is. It's a battle you're not going to win. It's who your dog is. So, for instance, for myself, we'll put this in human terms. I am ... I was born in New York, whenever I get upset, we're talking really, really, really upset, that New York accent comes out. That's how you can tell. If you can hear the New York accent where you're like, "Wow, she sounds like she's from the Bronx even though she's not," then maybe you should give her some space. That is a hard, baked-in thing that's been there the whole time of my life. Could I work on that piece so that that involuntary change in how I speak depending on how I feel emotionally, could I work on that? I guess. Is it worth it? No. It would take an awful lot of work and I can tell you that it would just revert back to that if I was upset enough. And it's also a really good tell for people around me. It's like dogs, why would you punish a growl? Growls are good, growls are information. Don't punish me when I'm talking New York, then maybe you should just back up a little bit. But the reason I bring this up is your dog is a cataloger for Scent Work, that's who they are. Don't try to change that. Work within it. Find ways of maximizing on it. Find ways of manipulating your search areas, manipulating your exercises, manipulating your practice sessions, changing how it is that you approach this. Maybe changing your perception of how this all affects your searching. Actually have some real, raw data tying your searches. If you have multiple dogs in your household and one of them catalogs and others don't, compare them as far as times are concerned and then try to figure out if you do think that your cataloger is slow, are they "slow", because they don't understand the odor problem, which is more often the case than not, or is it because they're cataloging? Which I just don't think is true. When I've seen people who I think they're conflating two different things. They're conflating the fact their dog catalogs and conflating the fact that their dog may not know how to work out a particular problem. When the dog actually was working out odor problems that they understood, they were very fast. They would go through let's say an interior space that's all perimeter hides. We'll say there's four hides. They go around the entire perimeter, they smell them all out. If you watch that video really super closely, you can see tiny, tiny, tiny tells. Okay, there's a hide there, there's a hide there, there's a hide there, there's a hide there. They then go back to where the handler is and then they go, "Here's my alert, here's my alert, here's my alert, here's my alert," and then they're done. I mean, you can't ask for anything faster than that. That's brilliant. So, what I'm hoping that we can do as handlers is to understand what it is that we're trying to work on in any given moment. Recognize who your dog is as a hunter and then try to figure out whether or not that is a problem. More often than not, it's not. It's just who they are. And then you have to figure out, do you want to maximize in certain parts of that thing that they present as? Do you want to maybe fine tune it? Do you wanna improve it? Do you wanna finesse it a little bit? But know that that's who they are. That's probably always going to rear its ugly head at some point and it may not be an ugly head as all. As far as catalog is concerned, in my opinion, it's a very beautiful, wonderful head. I think it's a fabulous head. So, again, this is a very, very common thing that people complain about. Particularly when we're talking about competition, but even for people who I've worked with who weren't gonna be competing, but they would be in class and they're like, "Oh, they're doing that cataloging thing again." It's like and the problem is what? Your dog was the only dog who found all the hides in their run. All the other dogs missed one. Be like, we have to understand what it is that we're asking our dogs to do. What is the end result? What is the goal that you're looking for? And just be really specific about that and then try to figure out how can I get there? Again for competition, if your goal is I want my dog to find all the hides, I think that's a perfectly fine goal, then obviously you would want to break down each of the different odor puzzles that could possibly be posed and ensure that your dog could do those individually. A lot of this is just gonna take time and practice. There are people who, when they're working with their dogs, if they were to have someone else handle the dog, that person would have no idea what that dog was telling them. That's not what Scent Work is about, though. Scent Work isn't about you being able to hand your dog off to Joe Schmoe A and have them go do well. Scent Work is about you doing well with your dog. So, if you have that kind of connection with your dog where they may not have to stand on their head and spit nickels, but you know when they've made that final decision point, that's all that matters. That's it. That's all you need. You just need to call alert correctly. That's it. So, again, I think a lot of this stuff is people conflating what it is that Scent Work is really about, particularly when we're talking about competition. But also keeping up with the Jones', trying to figure out, "Okay, what's the fast track? How do I get to excellence quicker?" Which again, in my opinion is not the right way of going about it. I think the journey is a lot more important. And if you take your time, you can figure out the things that you really enjoy about the journey and things that you may not enjoy about the journey. And then you can make better choices as far as what it is you wanna do, not only as far as competition, but the types of games you may wanna play. If you just wanna play at home or maybe you wanna do it on field trips. Maybe that's the time that you jump in the car and go to new places with your dog is when you're gonna go play Scent Work. But you've found that you don't wanna practice in this place, this place, and that place. That's okay. So, how does all of this wrap up, Miss Podcast Teacher Lady with cataloging? Should I be doing anything if my dog catalogs? And I would say yes. One, you should try to tell if that's exactly what your dog is doing and the way to tell that is if ... perimeter searches are the easiest as far as interior searches. You can do it with a container set up as well. But if you have a number of hides, usually you have to have at least three to really see if that's what the dog is doing. But have three hides in a perimeter search again, interior or container, and just wait to reward them until they've made a decision point. Again, I'm not asking for a formal alert behavior, I'm just asking for you to actually tell, "Okay, my dog has actually found it. They didn't stumble on it." And if they do, that final decision thing pretty quickly, then they're probably not a cataloger. But if they have to go through that entire perimeter and then go back and make decision points, they very well may be a cataloger. In that case, what I would strongly urge you to do, I strongly urge everyone to do this, but particularly if you have a cataloger, video tape your practice sessions. You want to be able to see what your dog looks like. What's the difference between them cataloging and when they've actually made the decision? And also, see if there's a difference about the types of searches that they're doing that in. So, what I mean is do they only catalog in certain search elements? Do they only catalog with certain odor problems? Do they only catalog with a certain number of hides? Because that's absolutely possible. My dog can do a number of different things. He doesn't really have a set pattern. There are times when he will catalog. More often than not, it's when my stress level is a little bit higher or it's a very busy search area. One of the things that he's very consistent with or I should say more consistent with is he will do what's called triangulating and we're gonna do a different podcast episode specifically about that. But there are other times he'll come up and he'll just find hides right away. So, I need to know and be comfortable with what all that looks like so that I can actually read the communication that he's giving me. So, video tape, video tape, video tape and actually watch back. Watch back each individual run individually. Watch them multiple times, watch it full speed, half speed, and really break down each thing that you're watching. Watch how the dog works the entire space one time you watch a video. Then, watch how they're working each individual hide then another time you watch the video. Watch individual parts of their body. What are they doing? What's their feet doing? Are their mouths open, are their mouths closed? Are their tails wagging, are their tails still? Are their ears up, are their ears down? What's their eyes doing? What are their whiskers doing depending on how close you can get in. What are they doing with their bodies? What are they telling us with how they're working out this space? When did they get to that hide? Were they working that hide from a different part of the search area, they made a bee line to it? Were they struggling with that hide initially and then they worked their way back in? How does all this work? That's what you're trying to figure out by trying to watch these videos. And this is particularly important if you have a cataloger, because then as they are in the process of cataloging, you can determine how many hides they've actually found and which ones they may still be working out, which is important. And then, when they start giving you those final decision points that you can call alert and everything is good. So, I would suggest that cataloging is not a bad thing at all. I would suggest that cataloging is just a way that the dog is attempting to ensure that they're correct, which I would assume a lot of handlers would really appreciate particularly if you're trying to compete. Because if your dog is trying to be correct, you're not gonna be saying, "Oh, my dog lied or oh my dog was wrong." No, because your dog was trying their best to be right and then there are some people who will be astute and say, "Well, wait a second. If my dog is worried about being right, could that be that my dog is nervous? Could that be that my dog is concerned about being wrong?" And I would say, "You're very astute and yes, that's correct." And I happen to see it with dogs who are students of mine. There is that one pattern of these are dogs who definitely are concerned about being wrong. They don't want to make a mistake. And that doesn't mean that anything bad has ever happened to them, that's just their personality. I personally hate making mistakes. It makes me really, super uncomfortable. It makes that little, weird, uncomfortable feeling in my chest and I feel as though my stomach is up in my throat and like my blood pressure drops. It's not fun. I don't like making mistakes. They make me very, very uncomfortable. So, I'd much rather do what I need to do to make sure I do it right the first time. And I think that's probably what dogs go through as well. Maybe not all the same physiological symptoms, but they don't want to be wrong. They don't want to make the mistake. Instead, they want to get it right. Why would you be upset with that? That's a good thing. You want them to be right, that's the whole point. So, I hope that we can somewhat shift the way that we look at cataloging and maybe don't spend as much time trying to change it. Because, quite honestly, I haven't seen it be that successful. I don't think that it's a hill you need to die on. There's so many other things that you could be working on. Just get your dog really solid on working out those different odor puzzles, make sure that your handling is where it needs to be. Do they catalog more when you're using the leash? Could it just be that your leash handling skills need some work? I know mine do. There's always different things that you could be working on. When we really sit down and think about it, there's always stuff we could be working on in all of our training, even with Scent Work. So, I don't think that spending a lot of your time and energy trying to change a dog from cataloging to not cataloging is a good and efficient use of your time and energy. I would say embrace it and find how you can use it to your advantage, because again, from the dogs that I've seen both whether they be students in practice sessions or the dogs I've seen in person at trial or what I was scoring or when I was at work shops. They're actually faster, because they go in, they figure out where the hides are, then they tell their person and they're done. There's not all this flinging around and it may look more exciting, but the times don't lie. The catalogers tend to be a little bit faster, so just something to think about. And that doesn't mean that if your dog doesn't catalog, that means that somehow your dog is worse than the dog who does catalog. No, that's not what I'm trying to say at all. What I'm hoping, really, is that everyone can recognize the individual hunter that their dog is, really embrace that individuality and figure out how you can make that dog the best hunter they, individually, can be. And they may look completely different than another dog that you know of when they're doing Scent Work. And that's completely okay. No two dogs are gonna work a space exactly the same. No two dogs are gonna work out every single problem exactly the same. It's just not gonna happen. And nor should they. And nor should we expect that of them. What I'm hoping to do in this rambling podcast episode is to at least get people thinking about recognizing who their dogs are as hunters. If their dog is a cataloger that it actually isn't a bad thing, it may actually be a good thing. And how they may be able to approach their training a little bit differently, that instead of trying to turn their dog into a different type of dog or into a stereotypical view of what they think a certain dog would be like as far as hunting is concerned, that maybe they could just work on individual skills instead. Both on the dog side and on the handler side, because you're a very important part of this team as well. So, I hope you guys found this podcast episode a little bit helpful as far as diving into what cataloging is, why people complain about it and that it may not actually be such a bad thing after all and that if your dog does catalog, you know you don't have to walk around with a big, red scarlet letter on yourself or anything like that. Embrace your dog's catalogingness and find ways of basically taking your training to the next level as far as improving their ability to work out different odor puzzles. And also just being able to improve how you read your dog. That would be the best thing that you can do. So, it wouldn't matter, so you'd be like, "Oh, yeah. So, they're working this space. They're cataloging, I think from what I can see from the very subtle cues that they're giving. They found maybe four hides. I know there are five in here, so I'll have to keep a really close eye on for that other one, but I know that they actually didn't work that one corner, so once they tell me about these four hides, maybe we need to work over in that corner together." That's what Scent Work's all about. It's not supposed to be a "you can turn your brain off, you just stand in the corner, the dog stands on their head and spits nickels and you go yeah, okay, alert." It's supposed to be an active communication between you and your dog during that entire time where the rest of the world just kind of fades away and then you just hear a voice off and yonder, "Yes," that wonderful, glorious, "Yes." So, I hope that this podcast achieved some of those things as far as a better understanding of what cataloging is and that it may not actually be that big of a deal as far as something that you should be upset about or trying to change in your dog. It'd probably be better to just embrace it and then build some of the other skills. So, thanks so much for listening. I hope you found this podcast helpful.Happy training and we look forward to seeing you soon.

A face paint tutorial with a twist: learn how to use camouflage paint to blend into your surroundings, army-style. Meet the men and women who work every day for NATO. From soldiers to scientists, cyber experts to civilian emergency responders, NATO members are committed to supporting and protecting each other. Private First Class Elva Karzova of the Latvian Army talks you through the stages of applying camouflage face paint in a 1-minute video tutorial. Effective use of military camouflage paint means breaking up the visual patterns of the human face – applying dark paint where light hits the face (cheekbones, chin), and light paint where the face is shadowed (eyes). Elva shows you how, with a few fingers of paint, she can blend into her surroundings. Interview in English. TRANSCRIPT: Karzova applying paint --SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH)-- Private First Class Elva Karzova, Latvian Land Forces ‘I’m Private First Class Elva Karzova. And this is a camouflage paint tutorial. First colour we put is black. On our forehead, cheek, nose, jawline, because these are the lightest places of the face. Now we’re going on to the green one. With the green one we actually break the contours of the face. Here. The jawline is a really big contour. And maybe a little bit of forehead. We need to break contours because there are no sharp edges in the nature. The main mistake is forgetting your ears and your neck. Next up we go to the brown, to blend everything out. So when you're done, you shouldn't have any white spots on your face. When I've done all this, I can use the environment and my surroundings to my advantage.”

Overview: Self-service checkout technology is transforming the way Americans think about customer service. Not long ago, good customer service meant properly training sales associates to assist shoppers in need. Now, more and more companies are shifting to tech-based customer service. As of Q2 2018, 95 percent of American consumers had encountered at least one form of self-service retail and 49 percent used them on a weekly basis at the supermarket. In this episode, PYMNTS in collaboration with Diebold Nixdorf, examine survey data collected from 2,170 American shoppers on their experiences with and impressions of self-service retail checkout options.   Resources:   Link to Self-Service Report   Blogs:  From Self-Checkout to Self-Service: The Retail Evolution:  https://blog.dieboldnixdorf.com/from-self-checkout-to-self-service- the-retail-evolution/#.W4Vn5DYY7IU Q&A with Frank Natoli, Executive Vice President, Self-Service Technology: https://blog.dieboldnixdorf.com/qa-with-frank-natoli-evp-self-service-technology/#.W4Vod-hKiUk   DN website: www.dieboldnixdorf.com COMMERCE NOW website: www.commercenow.libsyn.com Transcription:  PYMNTS Representative:                             00:00                     The early days of self-service were a bit bumpy in terms of functionality and obvious usefulness. Diebold Nixdorf's VP of Retail Strategy, Arvin Jawa, told Karen Webster. "That," he noted, "is getting better. The technology is becoming cheaper and easier to operate and consumers are getting more enthused for it by the moment." But he says, "In order to get all the way there, retailers need to think less about self-service as a new series of consumer touchpoints, and more about how to use it to reset the customer retail journey entirely." Amy Lombardo:                00:32                     This is "COMMERCE NOW."                                                                                 Hi, it's Karen Webster and our topic today is self-service retail checkout. With me to have the conversation is Arvin Jawa, VP Retail Strategy at Diebold Nixdorf. Arvin, thanks for joining me today. Arvin Jawa:                         00:59                     Hey, happy to be here Karen. Thanks again. Karen Webster:                01:02                     This is to take a little bit of a deep dive to go under the hood with the data from the survey that we collaborated on, to get to know what consumers think about self-service checkout, how they use it, and what they'd like to see more of. So shall we dig in? Arvin Jawa:                         01:23                     Sounds great. Looking forward to it. Karen Webster:                01:24                     All right. So here we go. Interesting, perhaps not surprising, 82% of consumers have used self-service checkout at least once in the last year. And people like it. In fact, 80% of people said they'd frequent a merchant if they could use self-service checkout. Why do you think that is? Arvin Jawa:                         01:48                     Oh yeah. We see this as a really great trend. Of course, we have a favorable view of self-service technologies of course and we agree that generally, consumers also have a favorable view of self-service technology. Clearly, there's a movement towards more adoption of these solutions in the recent years, attributable to some really big implementations.                                                                                 You've probably heard of Amazon Go. I'm sure everyone has heard of Amazon Go. Everybody knows Macy's in the US and Macy's has announced a recent deployment of self-service mobile application where they're allowing their consumers to scan-and-go within the store. And of course, everyone's favorite place to go and grab burgers and fries, McDonald's. A company we're very fond of. They've got a great deployment coming out here with self-order kiosks within their stores. So there's really a great buzz in the US around new self-service technology. Karen Webster:                02:48                     Is that because of the convenience that consumers get in order to basically be self-serving themselves in terms of getting in and out of the store quickly without having to wait for someone to check them out personally? Arvin Jawa:                         03:05                     You know, it's a great question and it was something that I found really compelling within the research. You see that there are lots of reasons for why consumers like self-service technologies. But ultimately, it comes down to creating value for the consumer. Consumers really enjoy either saving time, saving money, or really, really enriching their shopping experience. Retailers who have determined how to create that kind of value for consumers through self-service technologies have figured out how to actually have really good deployments.                                                                                 McDonald's is a perfect example of that, right? As I mentioned, they're implementing self-service kiosks and in order to figure out where they could create value for their consumers, they started looking at the journey, they started looking at where are the ways that consumers can actually order with us? For a long time, there were only two ways to do that: you either had to go to the counter and speak to somebody and place an order, or you had to drive and go to the drive-thru and speak to a machine with a person on the other side of it.                                                                                 They really reevaluated their journeys and how to reshape those beyond those two traditional ways of ordering. Where they were able to then give their consumers more choice in the ordering options, a way to actually create some sort of customization mechanism for the order they're making. Do I want lettuce on this Big Mac or not? The kiosks allow for a self-guided customization, but also self-enablement on the payment choice as well. Now the consumer has various options on how they want to pay: cash, credit, debit, or new fangled mobile technology payments.                                                                                 But then beyond that, they could take it another step further and say, "Hey, we're going to actually allow you to go seat yourself. Just go over to a table, take a tent card, and we're going to bring your food out to you." So they really reshaped the journey in a way that made it faster, more compelling, and more enriching for the consumer.                                                                                 When you look at those value elements, that's the type of thing that helps consumers really start to adopt usage of self-service technology. Karen Webster:                05:22                     And I think the technology has also improved the reliability and accuracy of the experience too. We'll talk in a little bit about self-service at supermarkets and drugstores, but it's now more efficient and faster to use these self-service checkout devices than, perhaps, they've been in the past. Arvin Jawa:                         05:43                     Absolutely. You know, I think there were a lot of earlier generation type of self-service implementations.                                                                                 The early self-checkout systems within grocery stores or do-it-yourself retailers, they were really clunky and not very user-friendly. In fact, they were probably the antithesis of self-checkout because you would always find a need to intervene a transaction because, well, you couldn't get past the age verification on an alcohol purchase. "I want to buy my wine, but I still needed someone to validate my driver's license," or, "I couldn't scan this item properly and so I needed some assistance," or, "The weight scale didn't necessarily integrate well with my purchase." So the reality is they were far from convenient. They had lots of issues in the user interaction.                                                                                 Same thing happened with kiosks and also a number of mobile apps that were early renditions of today's mobile and self-checkout solutions. Probably because the technology was sort of leading. It was almost the hammer looking for the nail, as opposed to, "Let's see what the journey is that we can improve and figure out how we can then deploy technology to eliminate the friction or reduce the time in the process." Karen Webster:                07:09                     It was interesting that those who don't use self-service options don't use them because they're not available at the places they shop. What is it that retailers need to do in order to implement a self-service technology? You talked about McDonald's, and the journey, and the flow. Is that what's getting in the way of retailers embracing this trend? Arvin Jawa:                         07:36                     There are a couple things and I mentioned a few issues around consumer adoption, which I think is one-half of the equation in the obstacles, in the barriers. Early generation technology wasn't necessarily great. But the second-half is probably even more of the reason for why there hasn't been wide scale adoption. On the retailer side of things, frankly, things are complicated. If you think about retailers having investments and legacy software platforms, they have to maintain these, and they have to integrate these. Point of sales software is a perfect example, right? Now, all of a sudden you want to implement a self-service checkout system or a kiosk system nearby the storefront. What happens is we have to then, retailers have to find a new way to integrate these new touchpoints because they would typically run on their own software, or they had their own software stack. This all costs money. It's expensive. It requires new integration and new certifications.                                                                                 The other thing is that retailers didn't have a lot of options. The vendors who were the first generation of solution providers for self-checkout technologies, they were very costly and they weren't the best solution providers. Now, I think there's greater choice and they have more options.                                                                                 But the other thing is, as I said before, retailers weren't necessarily looking at self-service as anything more than another touchpoint in the store. What we've found in our retail implementations of self-service technologies is that when retailers shift their mindset to thinking about self-service as a business transformation through the implementation of self-service technologies, then they really start to realize real benefit. The benefits case for deploying these solutions are amazing. They start to say and realize, "Hm, we can actually improve throughput and reduce the checkout area size within the store." In other words, "We can optimize the real estate."                                                                                 Second, "We actually improve overall customer satisfaction or net promoter scores because we're more judicious in where and how we allocate our store associates' time." In other words, "It's disproportionately geared towards helping customers who need help, as opposed to spreading ourselves in a peanut butter-like fashion across every customer. We can focus our customer service on those who need it most and that optimizes our payroll investment. So now, when we improve throughput in a smaller checkout space and optimize the real estate footprint, and we do that with better customer support, we can actually start to see that we're increasing sales because we're allocating or reallocating our staff time towards upselling and cross-selling."                                                                                 That's why we see success with self-service technologies without customers. We start with designing and enabling the journeys that our retailers want for their consumers. We don't start with the technology, but we instead start with addressing the pain points and the friction inside those journeys that the consumers experience, and then we design the optimal journeys that our retail clients want for their consumers. We call this Storevolution is the term we use. It's where we put the consumer at the center of the journey and we make the physical store a digitally enriched or enhanced experience that's always on and always secure. Karen Webster:                11:11                     It's interesting. I'll not share the name, but a QSR where I go every morning to get my coffee and breakfast sandwich implemented kiosks, but they were so cumbersome to use that the only people who use them now are the people behind the counter, which of course, defeats the whole purpose of having a self-service kiosk in the store. I thought that was kind of the craziest thing I'd ever seen. Arvin Jawa:                         11:40                     Yeah, yeah. No, I totally understand. And quick service is a really great place or a great space for self-service technologies to be utilized in. You know, I will name names. I love to go to Chipotle. I love to go to Starbucks. I love to go to Chick-fil-A. These are my favorites, partly because of kids, but also because I have a caffeine addiction. These are retailers who implemented self-service technologies. Some did it really well, some didn't do it so well, and some have learned along the way.                                                                                 I love eating at Chipotle, but I was really, really ... I wasn't happy with their initial outlay of their mobile self-ordering app because I could never find the way to maximize or optimize my time. I could never time up when I would place my order to when I would get it in the store and pick it up at the counter. There was always a synchronization of that process. They figured it out. They allowed me to then select the time that I want to come and pick up my order, which makes it a lot easier.                                                                                 Chick-fil-A did something really interesting. They don't want you to walk away with food that's cold or not fresh. And so you can place your order, but they won't actually start to make your order until you "check-in," which is basically geo located to some fence around the store location. So when you're within 100 feet of that location, you can then check in and say, "I'm here" and they'll start your order. The proximity to the store is an added feature to their mobile self-ordering application.                                                                                 But I still say the gold standard is Starbucks. They did a full-on business model change, right? This wasn't just about self-service technology; they started off as a digital gift card, really, is what they're mobile app was, and then they found a way to allow me to top up my store value amount on a regular basis. When it dropped below a certain level, I would always get topped up. But then, they took that to another level and said, "Hey, we're going to let you order from this app, therefore you can skip the line." So not only did I have my payment vehicle already in my hand and on my phone, but now I had an ordering capability.                                                                                 Then they integrated the loyalty points program, the stars, the rewards. And better yet, they encouraged me by changing my behavior or suggesting that, "Hey, you're going to gain more points if you actually use the mobile ordering app." That's when true adoption occurred. I don't have statistics at hand, but I think everybody that's in the industry understands that Starbucks has done a bang up job on deploying their self-ordering or mobile ordering ahead technology. Karen Webster:                14:41                     Oh, for sure. Arvin Jawa:                         14:42                     Their program is fantastic. They can use the data now to determine how to readdress or reassess their store footprint. How much are they going to serve by mobile ordering? How much are they going to serve by in-store ordering? How much are they going to do through drive-thru ordering? They can then re-staff or redeploy their staff accordingly. So fantastic business model change. Karen Webster:                15:04                     So they report earnings later in the week, so we'll be able to know exactly, quarter-by-quarter, what their progress has been. I agree with you. Arvin Jawa:                         15:04                     Exactly. Karen Webster:                15:12                     And it sounds like to do it well, what retailers need to understand is how to engage the consumer by addressing the pain points for which they want to use mobile order ahead to begin with. When I've used it in places where it's relatively new, there's always been that friction of cold food or there's been a mismatch in when I want to pick it up and when it's actually ready. So I know that it takes a little bit of trial and error, but it's like the kiosk experience; you have to be prepared to onboard the consumer at the same time the retailer's trying to onboard the technology, and those two things have to sync pretty quickly and pretty well. Arvin Jawa:                         15:58                     Yes, completely agree. I think retailers really need to convince themselves that they think it's good for their business, and once they've done that, they have to convince the consumer that it's a matter of demonstrating a value. What value is going to be provided to the consumer? Is that going to come in the time savings or is it going to come in the enrichment of the shopping process? If they can do that, they can create a value on both sides, for them and for the consumer. Karen Webster:                16:26                     So supermarket was probably one of, at least as I remember, one of the early adopters of self-service checkout. I found it to be useful for small numbers of items. For a full grocery order, boy, that was pretty tedious. And of course, with Amazon Go, they've taken that concept even further. Consumers like that. They like the option of being able to go in and go out. And almost more than a quarter, approaching 30% of consumers, say they'd visit those merchants more if they gave them self-service options to check out.                                                                                 Again, it goes back to, in this case, it seems like a pretty straightforward implementation. Why aren't more grocery stores looking at that as an option? Arvin Jawa:                         17:19                     Yeah. It's a great question. I ask myself that when I go to my favorite local grocery store. They're fantastic. It's the best produce around. They're the nicest people around. Maybe that's why they won't do it because they love the interaction that they are able to give with their consumers from their store staff, but there are time where it's just not convenient for me to stand in line. You have a couple, you have a small basket, or the lines are long because it's a very popular grocery store. I'm not the only one around that likes the local grocer.                                                                                 But again, it comes back to retailers determining the journeys for consumers. If they continue to just try to improve only those journeys that they have that are based upon a manned checkout station, then they lose the opportunity to create value for the consumer in different ways. If I can save or at least perceive that I save an extra few minutes in this particular shopping event because I could go and check myself out either through a self-checkout station, or through a scanning app on my phone, or through a personal self-scanning device that they may hand to me when I walk in the door, if any of these solutions can save me that extra few minutes, I'm more likely to come back to that store. Right? Karen Webster:                17:19                     Mm-hmm (affirmative). Arvin Jawa:                         18:52                     And so they have to recognize that the value proposition that's created through time savings or the value proposition that's created through perhaps an app that suggests to me that when I buy this kind of rice, I should buy these beans, these are the types of added value that consumers prefer and these are the things that create loyalty amongst consumers and the retailers or brands that they shop. Karen Webster:                19:22                     Well, I would think that in certain segments, and not to stick with grocery, but let's, the opportunity to bring people into the store is now, perhaps, more important than it's ever been. And creating those efficiencies in the physical footprint called the store would be things that, if I were running a supermarket, I'd certainly want to investigate pretty heavily. Arvin Jawa:                         19:47                     Yes, definitely. If you think about the space a retailer uses for a grocery store, it's massive. The real estate investment is incredible. So the staff has to be appropriately allocated to the things that are the highest value added activities. Frankly. Being stuck behind a cash register isn't always the most highest value activity at any given point in time. Sure, during peak periods, it's always necessary to have the right amount of staff. No doubt. But there are also times where that staff can be redeployed into helping stock shelves, helping serve consumers, helping in different ways within the store.                                                                                 And so retailers have to think about how to leverage that physical asset. We think physical is a very, very important part of the retailing future. It's definitely not dead, as a lot of people tend to say, but instead, their physical space is evolving to be a more purposeful and useful arrow in the retailer's quiver, especially an multichannel or an omnichannel retailer. And digital isn't just a channel; it's as much an enabler or a fabric that binds the consumer journey, whether they're at home, or at work, or at the café, or the restaurant, or in the grocery store, or on their phone shopping.                                                                                 What we see is that a consumer-centric design of digitally integrated or digitally enabled consumer journeys within the physical environment that are free of friction is what retailers really, really need to think about. And so if self-service is a component of that journey, we really think that retailers are going to win. Karen Webster:                21:37                     I also think that what you've said all along is that it's not a one size fits all, so it is about that customer journey, and then adapting the self-service technologies accordingly. So I don't know, do you think that retailers have this mental picture of what it means to have self-service, and in their environments, they think that either won't work because of store format or the type of store, and they're not opening their minds to think about things like scan-and-go in department stores or the Amazon Go experience in smaller formats? Arvin Jawa:                         22:15                     Yeah, that's a great, great question and a great observation Karen. I think it's frankly, it was at the heart of what we ourselves were looking to understand about the US market. What is it that's holding back consumers in adopting or more importantly, retailers, in deploying self-service technologies in the US at clearly what's a lower rate than the rest of the world? We're a global organization. We see what's happening in Europe, we see what's happening in Asia, and those parts of the world are definitely much more advanced in their adoption of self-service technologies.                                                                                 Some of the stats you've mentioned and some of the stats that are within the study are about consumers not being compelled to increase their frequency within a given retailer, even if self-service technology is available because they just don't see the value. I think you might be right in that retailers probably have a preconceived notion that, "Self-checkout is this and it must be this."                                                                                 When we look at it from the perspective of the journey, then the technology falls to the background and it becomes only the enabler of the journey that we want to create. And so I think your point is great. What we see in Europe, for example, we have some data from our own implementations that European customers, 53% of consumers prefer to use self-checkout in stores and 21% of retailers plan to actually increase the density of their self-checkout deployments. In other words, they already see the value. It's more than just self-checkout in a grocery store kind of solution. These are personal self-scanning, they're scan-and-go with the mobile device, they're kiosk solutions.                                                                                 So I think if you open up or reframe the mind to say, "I really want the consumer to have the best experience possible and that experience can be this or that," that's when you start to see retailers looking at this as a really positive way for their consumers to shop. Karen Webster:                24:34                     I would agree. And in some of the other studies that we've done, particularly in retail environments, apparel and accessories stores, consumers want the ability to scan-and-go because stores don't have has many people wandering around for help, and consumers are always time pressured. What they want is to be able to buy what they want when they see it. Certainly retailers, particularly now, should be thinking about how to enable that efficiently so that consumers walk out with something in a bag rather than walking out without having purchased anything at all. Arvin Jawa:                         25:12                     Absolutely, absolutely. I've spent a lot of time in the apparel and accessories field and actually, I think there's a really fascinating use case around self-service technology with a company, I'm sure you've heard of it, Rent the Runway. Internet pure play, right? Karen Webster:                25:12                     Yup. Arvin Jawa:                         25:27                     A subscription retailer who's really banking on the sharing economy. Fantastic business and interesting model. They've opened up, I think, about five stores in the US and recently deployed a scan-and-go solution in their stores. Karen Webster:                25:44                     Interesting. Arvin Jawa:                         25:44                     You'd say, "Five stores? Can't be that big. Do we really need self-service technology?" Well, the fascinating thing is that they looked at the journeys that the women who were shopping their stores or who were part of their club, they found that women were actually coming in before work, perhaps on the way from the gym or the way to the gym, and using that time period to trade out the clothes that they had gotten the week before and that they wanted to actually trade out today, so that they could wear something new to the office on that very day. Karen Webster:                25:44                     Oh really? Interesting. Arvin Jawa:                         26:25                     And so as a result, they were time pressed in their journey into the store location.                                                                                 They found that by creating some very, very simple self-service kiosks that had a scan-and-go type technology that was integrated to the mobile app, it allowed these consumers to very quickly help themselves, be able to return the items that they were bringing back, and take the number of items they were going to take on that day, and get on right away without ever interfacing with any of the store associates. So really, really fantastic utilization.                                                                                 Perhaps it's the mindset of having been a digital player before a physical player, but it really speaks to the idea of looking at what it is your consumer is trying to do in their daily life and specifically, in their journey with you as a retailer or as a brand, and trying to improve that in a way that gives them some perceived value. In this case, time saving. Karen Webster:                27:30                     That's great. Before we wrap, what was the one thing or one observation from this study that surprised you? Was there something that you sat back in your chair and said, "Huh, I didn't expect to see that"? Arvin Jawa:                         27:49                     Yeah, you know, I would say that this is both something I didn't expect and something that I did expect. There was a portion of the study which was related to the payment method, the various payment method would drive user satisfaction or frequency were most utilized by the members of the surveyed audience. I was not surprised by the utilization of debit, credit, and cash, especially in the US economy. You expect that. We tend to be a more credit and cash-driven society in retail.                                                                                 But I was really surprised by the very, very low utilization of tools like Google Pay or Apple Pay. That was something that was really, really fascinating to me. I would have expected, especially for consumers who were using more, what I would like to say more advanced technologies like self-service, either mobile ordering or scan-and-go or self-scanning or a self-checkout, that they would have a higher propensity to utilize newer digital payment mechanisms. But in fact, we see the opposite.                                                                                 I couldn't really explain it, but it was definitely an ah-ha. But I guess it mimics a lot of what we see in the rest of the world. We definitely see that in Asia, where digital payment is more highly utilize than in markets like, say, Germany or in the US which tend to be more cash or credit- driven, we see that the self-service technologies in Asia are also dominated by the utilization of WeChat or Alipay as the preferred mechanism. So perhaps this is more aligned towards the cultural norms than it is to the technology deployment. Karen Webster:                29:50                     Yeah, I think it also has a lot to do with acceptance, right? Consumers, if they're not sure and they're time pressed, are going to use a payment method that is reliable, maybe even on file in their app, and that isn't necessarily one of the alterative players, at least today. Arvin Jawa:                         30:09                     Agreed, agreed. Karen Webster:                30:12                     Interesting. Well Arvin, thanks so much for your time. Great conversation, great insights on an area where there's certainly a lot of familiarity from both consumers and retailers on the value, but perhaps an opportunity to rethink in the context of the customer journey and what new technologies exist at the intersection of self-service and mobile to make that journey more favorable and enriching for both parties.                                                                                 I really enjoyed it, the conversation. Thanks again. Arvin Jawa:                         30:43                     I did as well. Thank you Karen. Great to speak with you. Karen Webster:                30:46                     Thank you. Buh-bye now. Amy Lombardo:                30:47                     Find other episodes of "COMMERCE NOW" on iTunes or your favorite listening channel. Until next time.        

What’s the best way to overcome conflict in your relationship? How does it change based on your attachment style? And can you use what we know about our biology, and our memory, to keep a relationship from getting past the point of no return? In today’s episode, we’re blessed with a return visit from Stan Tatkin. Along with training couples therapists and conducting workshops for couples all over the world, Stan is the author of Wired for Love, Wired for Dating, and the recent audio program from SoundsTrue - RelationshipRx: Insights and Practices to Overcome Chronic Fighting and Return to Love. Stan’s work blends Attachment Theory with Interpersonal Neurobiology, helping couples leverage science to succeed in long term relationships. It’s always a treat to have him here on the show, and our conversation today will give you fresh insights into how to fight, how to repair, and how to transform conflict into something that helps you and your partner grow closer together. As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Also, see below for links to our other episodes with Stan Tatkin. Sponsors: Along with our amazing listener supporters (you know who you are - thank you!), this week's episode has two amazing sponsors. Each has put together a special offer for you as a Relationship Alive listener. Please visit them to take advantage of their offer and show appreciation for their support of the Relationship Alive podcast! First are the folks at TakeCareOf.com. Through a unique online quiz, they help you figure out exactly what vitamins and herbal supplements you need to achieve your optimal health. They use high-quality ingredients, and can save you as much as 20% over comparable store-bought brands. On top of all that, they are offering you 25% OFF your first month if you visit takecareof.com and use the coupon code “ALIVE” at checkout. This week is also being sponsored by Hungryroot.com. Hungryroot.com is a service that sends healthy, delicious, plant-based and gluten-free foods to you, each week. They're easy to prepare (either ready-to-eat or ready in less than 10 MINUTES). And - special shoutout to their cookie dough - which you can eat raw (or bake for a healthy dessert). This is by far the best prepared food delivery service that we've experienced. And you can get $25 off your first TWO orders if you use the coupon code "ALIVE" at checkout - at Hungryroot.com. Resources: Check out Stan Tatkin's website Listen to Stan Tatkin’s new release, RelationshipRx, offered through SoundsTrue. Read Stan Tatkin’s books FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict... Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE) www.neilsattin.com/wired3 Visit to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Stan Tatkin. Here are links to our other episodes with Stan Tatkin (prior to this one): Episode 19: Recipe for a Secure, Healthy Relationship Episode 50: Wired for Dating and Love - Psychobiology Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out Transcript: Neil Sattin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host, Neil Sattin, and we are coming to you in full Technicolor today, which is a first for Relationship Alive, not a first for our illustrious and lovely guest, Stan Tatkin, who's back on the show. He was here in episode 19 way back when we started, talking about a recipe for a secure and healthy relationship. He was also here talking about his book Wired For Dating and Love and talking about psychobiology, which we'll address a little bit in today's episode, back in episode 50. And you can listen to either of those episodes by visiting neilsattin.com/wired or neilsattin.com/wired2. We'll make this one neilsattin.com/wired3, so you can download. We'll have a transcript for this episode and any related links that we talk about over the course of our conversation. Neil Sattin: So we're here to talk about a couple of things like when we dive in to the work as a couple and that work involves how you maintain your connection, how you maintain your safety, while at the same time keeping things exciting, but not too exciting because you're collapsing into fights and distress. It's a balancing act and it requires a level of skill that we are just now really coming to grips with, like what skills are required when it comes to relational excellence in long term relationships. And Stan is one of today's leading experts in how to navigate that well. And one thing that I loved, Stan, in listening to your recent recording that you did for Sounds True called Relationship Rx, which is all about overcoming chronic fights in a relationship, I love that you were right upfront by saying, "Hey, if you're in a real relationship, you're gonna be dealing with this. I deal with this." I deal with this with my wife, with my children. And so there's not this halo that somehow because we're relationship experts that we're not affected by things like getting triggered and getting knocked off balance and having to come back and repair. I'm excited to have you here to get real about this art of how we stay safe and secure and there are also a few specific questions that I have for you along the way that have come in from listeners to the Relationship Alive podcast. Stan Tatkin: Sure. Neil Sattin: It's a pleasure to have you back, so thanks for joining me today. Stan Tatkin: Thank you, Neil. It's good to be back. Neil Sattin: Awesome. Awesome. I would like to just... Let's just have a nutshell summary of psychobiology. What do you mean by that since your approach is a psychobiological approach to couple's therapy, which is the PACT that we see behind you here for those of you who are watching. Stan Tatkin: Well, think of it as study of the brain and the body. We could say it's psycho-neurobiology or neurobiology, but psychobiology is basically taking a developmental approach to the human primate lifespan and in particular pair bonding with and between humans. This is basically a capacity model, meaning we're looking at social-emotional development from even in utero. But postnatally, we're looking at the networking of these structures and the function of these structures that allow us to be effective human beings with each other, particularly when it comes to attraction and when it comes to distress. Those are the two areas that encompasses the burden placed on people who are and are not socially-emotionally intelligent. Neil Sattin: Right, so this question of how we as organisms, like what generates attraction in us on a physiological level as well as a psychological level and then also how do we manage the problem states that come up. Stan Tatkin: Yes. Neil Sattin: On a physiological and psychological level. Stan Tatkin: Yes. And a lot of what we see between human beings is psychological to be sure, but not in the traditional sense. A lot of what happens between people is involving automatic systems that are recognition based and not thought based. They're recognition based because we're fundamentally memory. That's how we operate. Everything we do is based on memory. There is, on balance, very little that we do that requires the kind of cognition, predicting, rotating objects in three dimensions in our head, planning. All of these things contingent kinds of processing. We don't do that at any given time during the day, very much compared to how much we are automated and how much we are using these very lightning-fast recognition systems. And so we're talking here about the human condition, not about individuals, per se. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I loved in Relationship Rx where you talked about how when we first meet someone, we experience them, it's this amazing novel, new thing, a new person in our lives. But that very quickly, you use the phrase, "we automate them", we push them back into the rote memory that allows us to just function automatically with that person. Stan Tatkin: Yes, nature has built in energy conserving functions in our brain and in our body. If we didn't have these, we wouldn't survive, we wouldn't be here. So we can only perceive so much, hear so much, feel, taste, smell so much. We only have so many neurons for those things. And because there's so much sensory motor information that we have to process at every moment, the brain has to gate or limit that information. And especially limit the amount of information that floats up to consciousness or awareness. So most of the time we are doing things on a level where we're not being told, we don't get permission or give permission to some of the things that we do by these primitive areas that are recognition memory based that allow us to go through the day and do the many, many things that we do and still conserve energy. So, this is not a bug, it's a feature. But in relationships it can also be a bug. Neil Sattin: Yeah, right, exactly. Because then you could be stuck in painful memories of what's happened either in your relationship or the things that happened long ago that your relationship evokes, right? Stan Tatkin: Well, yes. In the love relationship in particular, a relationship I think of as the hardest one on the planet. The reason it's so difficult is that it is a dependency relationship that replicates the earliest ones we had before the age of 12. And it has a very long memory. Whereas at work, with friends, it's there but it's not animated in the same way as it is when we start to depend on somebody and they become permanent in our head, or at least we think they are. And that's when we start to remember what it's like to depend on somebody. The good things and the not so good things. So, this again, is how we roll. This is the nature of the beast, which is us. And it's normal. But the more history that's there that makes us anxious and fearful of what will happen, the more our behavior is altered in a way that causes relationship troubles. Neil Sattin: So, what you mean is the more history you have the more pain you've experienced. Stan Tatkin: The more history that's not resolved or corrected by other intimate relationships. So, we're hurt by people, we're healed by people. The kinds of things that we remember in relationship has to do with interaction. It has do with memory of how we felt and our perception at the time. Not to mention our ability to think at the time, developmentally. We're not... For instance, there's a misnomer that we marry our mothers or our fathers. That's not true. We marry those people who we recognize as familiar, both in ourselves and in the people that we've been around. But what triggers us is the experience of being on the other end of those interactions. So, I feel as I did when I was with my father and he yelled at me. I feel as I did when I was with my mother and she was late to pick me up at school, again and again. Stan Tatkin: So, these injuries are what we anticipate the next time we depend on somebody. This is simply a memory issue. It can go away, also, but that's another discussion. It goes away in the relationship through reparative actions. Both partners have to really understand this. Again, nature doesn't build this into our DNA as something we are aware of and we do well because nature does not have a plan for long term relationships. Nature has a plan for mixing up the gene pool. That's it. The rest of it is on our shoulders. So, we have to now understand how the brain works, how the human being works, what not just causes problems in love relationships, but many of those problems are gonna be with all relationships if we don't really understand what we're dealing with. Neil Sattin: Let's tackle that for a moment. And I don't want this to take over our entire conversation as it easily could. But, here we are in modern culture. There's a vibrant dialogue happening about whether or not we are designed to be monogamous. And we had Helen Fisher on the show talking about how in a lot of societies...In a lot of societies that more like serial monogamy is kind of built into the structure of their societies and that, in a way, that's more natural. And yet here we are talking about successful long-term relationships and acknowledging that in some respects, we're battling nature, we're battling biology in order to do that. And of course, doing that, when I think about clients I've worked with, and I'm sure you have this all the time, that there's this element of, "Well, why not? Okay, you're having a really hard time, go your separate ways, find new people, do it all over again. Why not do that?" So where do you come down, 'cause I think you, like I do, do come down on the side of, "No, there's a lot to be gained in figuring this out and supporting each other as you grow and blossom in your life and doing that with one long-term partner." And I'm curious to know, do you believe that? Or is it in flux for you? Or what are your thoughts around that? Stan Tatkin: Well, there are very... Very few animals on the planet are actually monogamous. The ones that are is what we study like the prairie vole. Prairie voles. The dik-dik. The smallest antelopes in Africa. One dies, the other dies. They work together. They are devoted to each other because their lives depend on it. And there are certain voles, by the way, that are absolutely not monogamous, and a lot of it has to do with the brain structure and a lot of it has to do with neurochemicals and so on. There are some humans that are more monogamous than others. You spoke with Helen. Helen believes that there are some babies that are born into an environment where there's a lot of testosterone, and those babies grow up into adults who have great sex lives, very, very long sex lives, but they also stray from their partners. They also have anger management issues. They also have other issues. So we have to have another reason, if we're going to be monogamous, to be monogamous, and that is entirely a top-down process. Top-down meaning it's one like we would do with moral reasoning. Why should we not kill? There's moral reasoning around that. Why should we be monogamous? Well, you don't have to be. If you say that you are polyamorous, that's fine, but why are you polyamorous? Stan Tatkin: So here, now, we're talking about the human capacity to override urges, impulses, mood, personality, all sorts of things, in order to get along. Here we're talking about social contract theory. How do societies, people get along? How do civilizations get along? Well, if you let people do what they do, they don't get along. They kill each other. They rob each other. They pillage. They do all sorts of things. History has proven that to us. So how do people then get along? Well, religion was one way, get people to fear a god and that God is watching you all the time, that will keep you in line. We come up with tablets from on high, the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not kill. That doesn't mean thou shalt not kill if I'm in the mood. Even a two-year... Or three-year-old knows what it means. You don't do it, right? So these are ideas that form societies, form civilizations so that people can get along together. That is not because they are the same people. They are different people with different backgrounds and different wants and needs, different brains. Stan Tatkin: Now, when we talk about a couple, we're talking about the smallest unit of a society. That's a two person system, and it operates by rules of social justice as well, unless there are no principles, in which case it's the wild west. So why are you gonna be monogamous? That's the important thing. Why is it a good idea for you? And why is it a good idea for your partner? And if you can't sell the idea to your partner, it's not gonna work. Stan Tatkin: If you can't say with complexity why it serves a personal good and a mutual good, you won't do it. So here we're talking about the human capacity to override what would be our more primitive natures, because human beings are fundamentally selfish, impulsive, moody, changeable, we're moving through time also. There are all these factors that can really get in the way of a long-term relationship. So there has to be some unifying ideas that pull people together, that both people are on-board with, otherwise they won't do it. So that's what I think. But we're talking about two people having a vision on the big ticket items agreeing on where they're going and that they agree on certain principles that ensure that they're protected from each other and everyone else, like does the relationship come first, above all things. It doesn't have to, but if one person says yes and the other person says, no, there will be trouble. Stan Tatkin: So that's how I'm thinking, not so much whether people are monogamous or should be monogamous, or they should be serial monogamists or whatever they do. Usually I don't see people that are unhappy, so they're doing all this stuff and they're fine. But when they're not fine, they come in to see me and you, right? Neil Sattin: Right, exactly. And I wanna dive into that 'cause I think it would be really helpful to talk about how to fight well, and I know that's the bulk of your Relationship Rx program that came out with Sounds True. And I also hear in what you're talking about, 'cause you have a new book coming out as well, right? We Do. Stan Tatkin: We Do, which is a pre-commitment, a pre marital book. Neil Sattin: Yeah, so it must be tackling some of these questions about, why are we even doing this to begin with? Stan Tatkin: Why are we even doing this? What's the point? Why do we get paid the big bucks? What do we serve? Who do we serve? What's the point of this whole thing? And it's remarkable how many people cannot answer that question. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Chloe and I are actually doing a series on the podcast for our wedding vows where we're doing one vow at a time and just talking about why they were important for us and what the principles were and the values underlying the various vows that we made to each other. Stan Tatkin: Right. And it becomes sort of your ethical and moral compass, which then when you have children, that is something that they see not hear about. If you wanna see how to fight, kids, watch Mom and I. We fight, we say things, we apologize, we come back together again, watch what we do. How many couples can say that. And so that's wonderful that you're doing that. Are you gonna make them plaque worthy? Do you have a plaque? Neil Sattin: [chuckle] I think posters are coming out for sure. They're definitely Instagram worthy anyway. [chuckle] And at the same time, it's great I think, because it's a dynamic thing. So even though we made vows and those in some ways are static, 'cause those are the promises we made to each other. But even in just sitting down to talk about each one, they become a living thing. I feel like I'm talking about the Constitution being a living document. But it's kind of along those lines where by being in conversation about our agreements, it gives us the opportunity to live into them more and to decide like, "Wait a minute. Is that what I really meant?" Or, "Is that what you really meant?" And yeah, it creates conversation. Stan Tatkin: The purpose of that, what you're talking about, is to make life easier, is to make the relationship easy because the world is not, life is not, but the relationship should be. Resource should not be resource expending to a degree where you're tied up with each other. So the whole idea of having these agreements, these principles that you believe in, whether you're together or you're not together, whether one person does it or not. This is what you stand for. The reason to do that is it makes everything easier. And when one of you falls off the wagon in some way, the other person just invokes, "Remember, this is what we do." And if you are true to your word, the answer should be, "You're right. I'm so sorry." That makes life easier. Stan Tatkin: When you both are on the same page with big items, that reins in both of your behavior. It's so funny, I just saw a couple this morning like this. They never talk about this stuff. They don't have any big ideas that bring them in or inform what they're going to do, if then. And so they just basically do what they want, which is what most people do, and then they wonder why they end up with a more threatening experience in the relationship and accrue all this unfairness and injustice. So these are very important things to have the big ideas that we can cling to, that we can see, that override these day to day shifts and changes in us. Otherwise, we're not safe. And so that's why the rigor of not just coming up with these principles, but also defending them when challenged by somebody. Can you say to somebody in a complex way why you've decided to be monogamous, why you decided to tell each other everything and be fully transparent. 'Cause if you can't then what's to hold you in when you don't feel like doing these things? So they're really important. Neil Sattin: Yeah. And that reminds me of something else you were talking about in Relationship RX that made an impression on me, which is the importance of creating safety in relationship not just to avoid creating problems and not just to foster positive energy in your relationship, but because when you are safe it actually allows you to live a more complex life. And I'm not talking about complex like, "I'm overwhelmed because my life is so complicated." I'm talking about the kind of complexity that helps you feel like you're alive and thriving and not just doing the same thing over again. You're not in a procedural, rote life. You're actually engaged and curious, but that safety is really required for you to engage in life that way. Stan Tatkin: This is something that people don't understand until they break the relationship, usually by some act of betrayal. Is that the safety and security system is really all the couple has. It is the foundation, it's the ground they stand on. And if either partner messes with that, it is like being... It's like having an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. It takes a long time to recover from that. And unfortunately, people will learn this by making that mistake. But that is really the foundation of these inter-dependent relationships, where lives depend on fealty and radical loyalty because that's not how the world operates. And so the couple is agreeing to do something that nobody else will do because people are basically a burden. They're doing things for each other as full burdens that nobody wants to do unless they get paid a lot of money. And that's what makes them special. But they have to both see that this is mutually assured survival and thriving, and also mutually assured destruction. That's the power they have over each other. And adult couples who are wisened to this, get it. And they know that there are lines they do not cross, and they do not mess with the safety or the security system of the relationship. Neil Sattin: And that brings us into the conversation about attachment and attachment styles and how that impacts safety. And we spoke about this the other times that you were on the show. So I don't wanna spend too much time there. But one thing that has been interesting since you've been on the show is that a lot of people come to the dialogue by saying, "Oh, I'm a wave and my partner is an island", or "I'm an island, and my partner is a wave". And I guess for the most part, it's the waves who are coming. The islands don't tend to come to the conversation, so at least in my experience, the waves are like, "What the fuck do I do with my island partner? How do I bring them to the table?" And this makes me think of two things. One is some reassurance from you about... Well, one like how to not bludgeon your partner with the labeling and how confining that can be. Stan Tatkin: Right. Neil Sattin: And then the second part is also... Actually there are three parts. [chuckle] So one is how to not bludgeon. The second is recognizing that there's some malleability in who we are. And I recognize that there have been times in my life where I've been totally secure. I've been that anchor that you talk about. And then even like Chloe and I were talking about this just before you and I started talking. Like at the beginning of our relationship, I was more of a wave and she was more of an island. And somewhere along the way, we actually switched sides and I became more island-ish and she became more wave-ish. And in truth, we end up more and more anchored with each other, which is, I think where you wanna be. So there's not bludgeoning, there's malleability and what's behind that. And then the last piece is, how do... This is for you waves out there and maybe for you islands too who are listening. It's how do you bring a partner to the table? Especially a partner who seems shut down. If you're a wave in those circumstances, you might be thinking, "Oh, I either have to learn to live with this, or I have to ditch this relationship because this person is not willing to show up with me. It's too threatening for them." That's a lot. Stan Tatkin: Okay. I've got it. Let me take them in turn. Neil Sattin: Alright. Stan Tatkin: One of the things that I was horrified when I wrote the second book with islands, anchors, and waves, was people starting to read it coming in and self identifying, and I thought, "Oh boy, here we go". And here's the problem with it. One, the human mind needs above all to feel, or to be organized, to be able to take experience and to be able to organize it. And one of the ways it organizes is by categorizing and comparing and contrasting, that's part of the human mind. And so as much as we don't like categories, we always seek them anyway. The problem with it is that the categories organize some kind of experience in order to understand something, but it also can be used improperly. Just like religious texts can be used improperly. Everything could be used improperly, the DSM IV, or V rather can be used improperly. So it's not going away. We will always categorize, but problem also, about misusing this need of ours is also not going away. So here's the skinny on it. These are not personalities. These have to do with adaptations to environment. Stan Tatkin: When we talk about someone who's anxious-avoidant, or anxious-ambivalent, or I call that group sometimes angry-resistant because of studying babies, how they look. We're talking about a reaction to a system or a relationship, the most probably important relationship, the primary one where there's uncertainty, anxiety in the interactions, right? The baby... The child learns to adapt to the needs and the behaviors and the expectations as perceived by the caregivers, right? And then makes the adaptations. Stan Tatkin: However, the problem is, is that these adaptations are born out of feeling afraid or anxious. "If I do this, this will happen. If I don't do this, this will happen." And so, as John Bowlby found, that insecurely attached babies, children, adults carry a bigger burden through life because their dependency relationships carry with it a memory of what could or will happen actually, that changes their behavior that actually, as I said before, will cause problems in the relationship. So I'm afraid of being used. I'm afraid of being interfered with, having my independence taken from me, having my stuff taken from me, being co-opted, used as a doll or as a performer. Dance for grandma, all of that. Gee, that was really nice, but also nobody saw me. Nobody really explained things to me. I didn't get that kind of interaction. This family was all about performance and all about appearances, and that is a burden. And I'm angry because I resent that. Or if I'm in a family where I had to take care of one of my parents and emotionally regulate them, I was discouraged from growing up, separating, individuating, and I was rewarded for being little dependent. I'm angry about that because I can never grab what I want. I have to wait for it to come to me and then I will be rejected and punished. How do I know this? I remember it. Stan Tatkin: So, we're talking about fear. When we talk about attachment, we're only talking about fear of what I know has happened and I anticipate it happening again. That's all it is. It's around safety and security. These descriptions are not real people. There is no theory that actually defines a real person. It defines aggregates of people. A general idea that might be useful for a physician or a clinician to be able to reconstruct, based on very little knowledge, what this person's trajectory might be, what they're likely to do in the near future. That is useful for helping people. But unfortunately, it's used to bang each other over the head and to wrongly self identify because of this condition that is part of the human bug of trying to label thyself, and it's false. So we have to understand that these are ideas. They're not people. Real people are more complex. Secondly, to your second point, this is... Attachment was studied with babies and adult attachment came later, it's still in its formative years. And it is, again, based on aggregates of people, not individuals, per se. And it doesn't take into account a two person system, which is ultimately much more complex, unpredictable, and phenomenological. So now you have two people interacting at lightning speeds, becoming a system where you cannot tell who's leading or following. Stan Tatkin: And is that an island or a wave? I don't know. This person is acting more distancing that causes the other person to cling more. More often than not, people who pair bond are more alike than they're not. More alike. They just look like a duck, but they're a dog. And we can test this out in clinic by shoving them together, especially the person who says, "Oh, I want so much more. I want to be loved. I wanna be held. I wanna be kissed. I want more sex and everything". And then you move toward them really quickly and you go, "Would you like somebody who'd cling to you?" And they go, "No, no, no, no." Okay. So, this is an illusion that's created by the homeostatic process of a two-person system, like a Mickey Mouse balloon. You squeeze one ear and the other one gets bigger. You squeeze the other ear and the other one gets bigger. That's couples. Where there's one, there's the other. I guess, all of this to say that it doesn't matter, because two people, no matter where they're coming from, can get along as long as they have a unifying idea of why they're together and why they're interdependent. That overrides everything. Stan Tatkin: And what you're describing about getting somebody to come to the table, whether it's an island, or a wave, or a jackal, it really has to do with survival. Is it in your best interest to be difficult and to cause your partner pain, which is gonna come right back at you, that's self-harming. Is it in your best interest to avoid conflict when that actually creates conflict, do it and have a good time. When you are in a couple, it is a three-legged race. One of you goes down, the other goes down. The two of you are affecting each other immediately. There's nothing I can do to you Neil that you won't do right back. And this is [chuckle] the clown show, sometimes. That is us. We don't realize this because we've been acculturated to this idea that we're autonomous, we should be autonomous, independent individuals, but we are not. That's partly true. We are dependent creatures. We are herd animals that pair bond in herds, and there's no getting away from that. So, that's the big picture answer. Stan Tatkin: As for the island, islands have to understand that conflict avoidance is by itself threatening. There's no way you can be conflict avoidant and not threaten your partner, it's not possible. So, that has to be looked at. And the other partner, the wave, who's constantly bullying and battering and pursuing and can't let go, that's not gonna work either. So, both of them have to reel themselves in, in order to create a secure functioning relationship that protects them both from each other. That's how it's, ultimately it's gonna work, there is no other way. I hope that answers all three. Neil Sattin: Yeah that was great actually. And it makes me wonder... Okay, let's bridge in to the conversation of... Let's just say, "Okay, this isn't quite working. And I wanna weigh whether I'm an island or a wave, to bring that up that creates safety and brings both of us to the table." So how would you approach that in coaching a couple through that kind of dialogue? Stan Tatkin: Also consider this, if the two of you, any two of you were on an island together alone, you'd either kill each other or you'd find a way to get along and work collaboratively and cooperatively. Collaboratively and cooperatively, that's the key. We have mutual interests, you and I. And sometimes people have to get beaten over the head until they figure it out. If you had two kids and they're not getting along, put them in a room, you don't get out until you guys agree on something that's good for both of you, they'll do it. And a lot of this has to do with expectation. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: I'm glad we're not veering into parenting strategies or... [laughter] Stan Tatkin: Not yet. I'm not gonna talk about... Just leave a little bowl of water for them. But I say this because there are places and conditions in the world where people get this naturally because they don't have time for this. They're dodging bullets, they're dealing with real world dangers, they have to work together. And again, the environment enforces this, but to get two people to do this really requires them to work together as a team to see that they depend on each other for anything that's gonna be good, and they have to work together or it will not work in any part of the universe. That's just not how it's gonna work. Unfortunately, we bring to the table our childhood experiences and what we saw with our parents, and many of us, maybe most of us did not see that. And so we only do know what we know, and what we know is what we experienced, and that's it. I experienced that there's too much unfairness in my family, too much injustice, too much insensitivity, so now I behave that way, and I accuse you of being that way. I know when you're doing it, I don't know or care when I'm doing it. So there has to be a "come to Jesus here" of reckoning of how are we going to do this, you and I. So we work together, given our differences, meaning that at the bottom of this we accept each other as is, and we go from there. And sometimes you work with what is not working. Stan Tatkin: How do we put that into a principle that both of us can buy into, that will reign us in, that will solve that problem, not by being different but by doing business different together. And again, that has to do with a certain level of maturity of understanding this is a two person psychological system, not a one person psychological system. And most people out there operating as a one person system, which will never work because it's too unfair, it's too insensitive. And so, people will eventually complain. So the answer to that is, what do we stand for? Why are we doing this? What's the point of this? What we're gonna do for each other we couldn't pay someone to do? Beyond attraction, beyond interest, beyond being in love, what's the point of us? And looking down the road in the long run, not just today or tomorrow. And it has to be cooperative and collaborative, otherwise it cannot work. That's what I'm heavy on with couples in my office, and when I see them not getting that, I'm very strong about this, I expect them to do this. There is no other way for them to get through therapy with me except if they do this, otherwise they'll fire me. But again, expectation is the big thing. Neil Sattin: And maybe what I'm also hearing there...Is the importance of both people realizing it's not that I have to not be me, it's almost like just a little bit less of me, a little bit, but less of me in the dysfunctional way. Like, if we're willing to both look at a situation and say, "You know what? When I just... " Rather than, let's just say like for me when I'm feeling more islandy, it's because I haven't trusted that my partner could really hear what I had to say. And it would be... Or that I could deliver in a way that wasn't gonna blow up into something crazy. So for me, it's easier to just go and be in my own world or deal with it on my own, than it would be to lean into the relationship and vice versa. When I've been more of a wave, I can recall times where I've been more like, "Oh, if I'm not willing... If I let this go, then it's never gonna get resolved. It's up to me to pull my partner into this conversation, into this dialog no matter what". And of course, in the process driving them crazy. So I'm talking about one person being able to have a little bit more space, but in the context of recognizing, if all I do is take my space, then the things that actually matter to me may never actually get resolved. Neil Sattin: And my partner may never actually get to know me because they just know the still waters part of me, but they don't get the run deep part of me. Or on the other side, my partner may never really know me because I've turned the volume up so loud on who I am that their system is just blocking them from me as much as possible. But in that context, both people can come to the table and be honored in who they are. Stan Tatkin: Right. This is a very good point. No, people have to be who they are. You don't do these relationships to be a different person, you do these relationships to be... To relax and to be exactly who you are. But having said that, you're in a two person system, therefore, when dealing with you, I have to take care of you and me at the same time. I can't just take care of me. If I want to get anywhere or get anything or to be heard, then I have to keep you in mind every moment, watch you, watch your face, you are my audience. If I blow you out of the water, game over for me. If I'm insensitive and I don't notice I just stepped on your toes or hurt you and I don't stop the presses and go, " I'm sorry, are you okay, did I do that thing again?" If I don't do that, I lose. And so this is this way. It's not this way, this way, and you're in each other's care. Therefore it's not just about you, it's about you paying attention to the other person, your audience. How do they hear things, how do they see things? I know you knew, I know what makes you tick. I know what scares you. I know what uplifts you. I know what I do that makes you crazy. And if I don't acknowledge that or take care of you at the same moment, I lose you as an audience and now we're going to be at war. Stan Tatkin: So people should be who they are. But they have to remember that what they do, what they say, how they sound has an impact on this other person who has their own prism that they're looking through, and that prism is changing constantly according to their state of mind. This is where the consideration and the realization that I'm talking to a different animal, the animal that is you, I have to be a Neil whisperer, or I get nothing. You have to be a Stan whisperer or you get nothing. And so many of us talk and act as if we're the only ones here. And it doesn't bother me if you did that, I don't know why you're upset. It's all about me. And I don't realize if with this animal, that's Neil. If I approach on the left, I get bit, I keep approaching on the left 'cause I'm angry, I should be able to approach on the left. I'll get bit every time. That's stupid. It really is about not being a different person, but about fucking getting it in your head that you are with someone who's different and you have to know that at all times or you suffer the consequences. Full stop. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Yeah. Stan Tatkin: And when we lose, we lose. We learn, we dust ourselves off. Oops! Sorry. And then we get another chance 'cause the universe keeps pitching us. There's always a chance to get it right and to work it out. But the key is also coming back to the table and fixing it. Always, because of the memory problem. If we don't fix things quickly it goes into long term memory, and now we've got a whole bunch of backwash that we have to litigate. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Wow! There's a lot right there in that last bit to unpack. So there's the question of, if we don't repair quickly, then we're creating more challenges for ourself in terms of how we recover as a whole, as a couple. Stan Tatkin: Yes and that's the Biology part of it. Memory becomes Biology, it becomes in our body, and it becomes part of that fast recognition system. So that as soon as you begin to tilt your head a certain way, your voice starts a certain way. "I know what you're gonna do. I'm gonna shoot first and ask questions later because I've been down this road." Neil Sattin: Right. And then there's the other piece which is so important, and it's come up over and over again on the show, which is that you're doing two simultaneous things. You're probably doing more than two, but let's just say you're doing two simultaneous things when you're in conversation or let's say an argument with your partner, which is, there's the content of what you're trying to resolve, but then there's also managing awareness of, "Oh, I'm triggered. Oh, my partner's triggered." And once that's happening, all bets are off and we have to come back to being in, you call them the ambassador part of the brain, but being in the fore brain so that we can actually be social and creative with each other. Let's talk a little bit more about like, "Alright, we've got some challenging shit that we gotta deal with as a couple." How do we do that in a way that honors an awareness that probably what's gonna happen is one or the other of us is gonna get hijacked, and how do we... How do we do it responsibly without avoiding it? Because we're worried that if that happens one too many times, we've just blasted ourselves in our long-term memory. Stan Tatkin: The rule of thumb is avoid nothing but keep it short. We're entering into an area of importance, where there's stress, where there's distress, where there's memory, where there's proceed with caution. Therefore it's incumbent for us to remain orderly. By "orderly", we stick to one topic and one topic only. There's no two people that can handle two or more topics when they're under stress, it will never happen. If we wanna get anything out of this effort, if we wanna get something done we have to be disciplined, orderly, and stick to one thing. That's on both people to do, stay on task. The first person who brings up an issue wins or at least goes first. And my job, if you have a grudge or something that you're upset about, my first thing I do if I want to get anything from this is I have to lead with relief. I have to do something that disarms you, let you know I'm a friendly, otherwise I lose you as an audience member, and now we're going down that road. "You're right. I know I do that. I know I have a... " And I don't say, "I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm sorry you thought of it that way. I know I do that and I'm sorry I did it. I honestly... It doesn't matter whether I meant to do it or not, but I'm sorry that I did that. Here's though my gripe in return." Stan Tatkin: But we're regulating each other because if at any time, because we have this negativity bias and our brains are built more for war than love, at any time, we can set a fire that's going to encompass or just kill both of us. A lot of this is being skillful, both people putting fires out quickly so we can proceed. If you don't feel that I can fix, repair, make right, make amends, admit a wrong, then you are going to increase your blood pressure, your heart rate, you're getting closer to what we call a hypothalamic system, which basically means fight, flight or freeze. And now we're going to start to go to war. Good times, right? So remaining orderly, sticking to one topic, first things first, one at a time, and keeping it short. People don't understand that when we're under stress our ability to take in words or to formulate words and thought becomes impaired the more our blood pressure increases. This is simply again, has to do with readying ourselves for what feels like we have to take action on. We have to watch that with each other, otherwise, we blow each other out of the water. Stan Tatkin: I'm gonna keep it short. I'm gonna say, "It really bugged me, what you did. It really hurt my feelings when you did that in front of everybody." Full stop. The more I talk, the more I'm holding you in a position where it's not neutral. You're going to increase in your arousal and I'm gonna pay for that. Also, the more I talk, the more likely I will throw in a dangerous word or phrase. And now, that's all we'll be talking about, is that piece that you're brain is sweeping for that says, "Okay, I thought you were pulling out a gun. I'm doing that now." Fast, short, friendly. Both people are agreeing that they're trying to get into mutual relief as quickly as possible. How quickly can we take this off the table and then have lunch? And people don't often know how to do this, they don't know how it works. We don't really resolve too much, but we relieve each other so we can push the ball forward. And now, I'm okay for now until the next time. "I'm sorry, I hurt you." "You do that all the time." "I know. I know, I'm sorry I did that. I was really nervous and that's why I did it. I wasn't thinking of you. That's not cool. You know what would help me, is the next time I do that, 'cause I know I'll do it again, is just when you start seeing me do that, just cue me, or just before we walk in the room, remind me." Stan Tatkin: Now, this is smart because we're creatures of automation and reflex. If I tell you, "Neil, don't do that again." You will do it again. Because like I said, we don't think we just act and react reflexively. So chances I'm gonna do that thing again is 100%. If you remind me just before, predict me, I won't do it. If you let me know right away and then I can fix it. And then I start to remember not to do it. People again, have to understand how memory works. But people let things slide, they wait until two weeks later, it's like being angry with your dog for peeing this morning. Dog is upset, but doesn't know what you're talking about. We're that way as human beings, we're not that smart. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: I'm curious too. There is one thing that jumped out at me as part of your conversation about resolving fights, and I love this emphasis on, Keep it simple and short, and come back, come back to each other. You also talked about the way that we sometimes start up a conversation that it creates more harm than good versus being willing to just kinda lay it on the table right upfront as opposed to the, "There's something that's been bothering me for a while and I really wanna talk." just blah, saying it. So what's behind that? Stan Tatkin: That is anxiety, and it's also a particular style of way of processing information whereby people many times think out loud. And thinking out loud is fine but you have to understand that as you're thinking out loud, you're boring your partner, or you're making them wonder what the punchline is. And so because we have this negativity bias, in the absence of knowing something, we're going to fill it in with something not so good. As I'm leading up to this and I'm telling you, "Neil, I don't wanna say this because it's gonna hurt your feelings. Your blood pressure is going up, your heart rate is going up. And don't get mad, please. Last time you got really mad at me, and then I had to go to my mother's for the rest of the weekend. Blood pressure going up there, and... And I'll try not to hurt you." By this time, the next thing that's gonna happen after I stop is you're gonna punch me because I alerted you to something and you're physiologically doing what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to prepare for the tiger who's gonna eat you. Stan Tatkin: That's not good. Where as we wanna lead with relief and go. The first thing is, you're right or I'm sorry I did that. Or can you explain what it is 'cause I don't even know what I did, but something that relieves that person quickly. Also, you wanna hit it and then repair, then take it down. "So you know what? I'm not going tonight and now you're upset with me. Let me explain why." Okay. So the reason for this is all physiological. I hit it when you have the most head room, because with news, anything, there's a spike and then I soothe it, then I fill in. But if I fill in before, that's called burying the lede, I'm taking too long to get to my point and arousing you unnecessarily. And so it's the other way around. All of this is based on, again, biology, physiology. It's not personal, it's just how we are. So you hit it and then you explain and soften from there, but you also relieve somebody immediately when they're upset with you. Does that make sense? Neil Sattin: Yeah, and I can see the value in that. Yeah, for sure. Because of that very reason that whether it's your own anxiety, I don't want to deal with this problem or the way that you're stirring up the other person's anxiety. At that point, you're in this reciprocal anxiety circuit. Your mirror neurons are probably going crazy. Stan Tatkin: Imagine you're a child and you're getting a shot. And the doctor says, "Okay, sweetheart I'm gonna stick this big fucking needle into your little tiny arm. And it's gonna hurt like crazy for a second. And are you up for that? I'm gonna give you a lollipop, so maybe you can choke on it." Right? No it's like, "Oh, look over there boom, done. [laughter] I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sweetie for hurting you. But it's all over now." Okay. So maybe people will get it with that image. Neil Sattin: Right. Right, I swear there's a viral video somewhere of that happening, and then the little kid, "Boom!" right in the nose. [laughter] I know I've seen that. Stan Tatkin: It's unwise. Neil Sattin: Right. Well, but overall, the message is intact, which is, if you're always setting the stage that you are there with your partner, you're not out to get your partner, and even when you have bad news to deliver, "I'm not going tonight and I'm still here with you. I wanna work through this. No one... We both don't get out of this unless we're both succeeding here." So if you can hold your own... Your partner's disappointment while you're holding your truth around why you can't go, just using that example, then you're gonna avoid getting punched on the nose by offering the bad news because you're there in a context of mutual support. Stan Tatkin: Right. The... Neil Sattin: Yeah, it's like, "How do we always preserve that context?" Stan Tatkin: The reason for these errors... 'Cause they are errors. The reason for these errors is, the reason I am doing that with you, is because I'm thinking of me. I'm not thinking of you. I'll say I'm thinking of you, but I'm not. I'm thinking of me. I'm afraid of how you'll react. I'm afraid of the consequences of my sins. And that signals something to you quite different. You don't know that. All you know is what I'm serving you with. And this is where people are misunderstanding each other all the time. I think I'm communicating this, but I'm not. That's because I'm thinking only of me, I'm not thinking of my person. So, again, we're back to this idea of a two person system, of taking care of myself and the other person at the same time. And this is the selfishness or the self-centeredness of insecurely attached people, is that they consider themselves first, and even they're sparing... Their partner is also saving themselves. And it's not really considerate. It's not really sensitive. A lot of this gets taken care of once we get the idea. I have to consider you, not consider the consequences for me. And if we're doing that for each other, we're serving each other, and that's how we remain respectful and safe. Neil Sattin: Yeah, great. It's such an important skill because disagreements will occur in relationship. They need to. They need to because you're two different people so... And that makes me think about one other thing, but do we have time for one more question? It's actually... Stan Tatkin: Sure. Neil Sattin: We're at quarter past the hour. What often comes up in this conversation toward the end, we established, "Okay, we wanna create safety for each other. We wanna... And I get it. Even when we're fighting, we're gonna focus on the safety." But then there's the flip side, which is, "Wait a minute. If we're feeling so safe and cozy with each other, where's that hot... Where's that passion? Where's the sex? Where's the excitement that comes from the tension of... " I don't know. That hasn't been my experience in relationship, but it's a question that comes up, which is like, "Wait a minute. Isn't the safety gonna kill something? Are we gonna be too safe in our relationship?" I'd love to hear a quick answer on that. Yeah. Stan Tatkin: Well, a lot of people keep the thrill alive by scaring each other and that's not good either. That'll kill you soon. Being safe with each other is not about eroticism. Being safe with each other is knowing that you can depend on each other with your life. But if you're always wondering whether the relationship will exist tomorrow or whether your partner's gonna betray you, that may make you feel more excited about your partner, but that sucks. There are other ways to be excited about your partner [chuckle] without scaring the shit out of each other. Neil Sattin: Yeah. [chuckle] Stan Tatkin: And that has to do with knowing how to co-create exciting love, which is the dopaminergic addictive love that Helen also talks about, Helen Fisher. But it's well-known, and that is through direct eye contact, it's through shared novelty attending to a third thing that's completely new, doing things together that neither of you have ever done, levels the playing field, but also quiet love, which is basically shutting up and just relaxing together without doing anything. So there's all sorts of ways to co-generate these states, but people have to understand that it's done that way. And it will never ever, ever be the way it was when you first met because it's impossible. You know too much about each other, that doesn't mean you know everything about each other, and it doesn't mean that you really know each other as well as you think because of that memory problem, that automation issue. Stan Tatkin: When we automate each other, we only think we know each other. And that's where we're all making all these errors. When I look into your eyes and we stay there in a gaze you suddenly become a stranger enough to me to where you are different and I can't predict you in this moment. That's exciting. And if I'm not looking at you, you're the same as I always thought in my head, I don't see anything different 'cause I'm not looking. So the antidote to automation, the only antidote other than senility is presence and attention. That's it, [chuckle] presence and attention. There could be a time when we become senile and we go, "Oh God, you look like a pretty young woman. Who are you?" [chuckle] Then it's all new and fresh again, but I don't think you wanna wait for that to happen. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I think that's also why it's so important to foster the skill of being curious, because as much as you wake up your curiosity, then you're probably pulling people out of that automatic place into a place of like, "Wait a minute. I actually don't really know you. And what can I discover about you?" Stan Tatkin: Automation is a trance. It helps us get through life and do things that we ordinarily couldn't do. We wouldn't get out of a corner of a room if we didn't have that feature. But it also makes us bored. It also makes us think that we know what we know. And by the way, people wonder why time flies faster as we get older. That's because we've automated more things and we're not exposed enough to new things. We don't throw ourselves into novelty anymore and so why wouldn't time fly by? Everything's automatic. So this is another reason to do this now with your child, with your partner, with your parents while they're alive. Is to be present, pay attention, look. Look at every detail of the face, of the eyes. People are interesting. They're not interesting in our own heads, just not. Neil Sattin: Yeah, so true. I love that. Well, Stan it's always great to have you on the show. You have such deep wisdom to offer and I'm glad to... Like now we've got the trifecta. Not that... I mean I hope to have you on again of course, but this is a perfect next dose in the series of Stan Tatkin on Relationship Alive. Your work is obviously having a huge impact on our culture. I know because people are talking about it all the time and I love your Relationship Rx recording that just came out, it's eight hours long. So there's a lot to offer a couple that's learning how to handle problematic situations with more ease, more resilience. Looking forward to your We Do book coming out. And as I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, if you wanna download a transcript, you can visit neilsattin.com/wired3, wired referring to Stan's earlier books "Wired for Love" and "Wired for Dating", or you can always text the word passion to the number 33444, follow the instructions and you can download the transcript that way. Stan, if people want to find out more about your work, what's the best place for them to visit? Now I know you're training therapists, as well as working with lay people. Stan Tatkin: Right, so if you want to attend any of our couples retreats, which we do all over the world, and there are several coming up now in East Coast and West Coast, go to thepactinstitute.com; our schedules are up for this year and also if you are a therapist and you want to be trained in this, that's how this started, was teaching therapists, and if you're interested it's really a fun approach. Same place, go there and our schedule is up there for the entire year inside United States and outside. Neil Sattin: Great, great, and I've heard from at least one person in your trainings how amazing they are and how much they're getting about how to work with couples. Hopefully you train people how to tell it like it is. [chuckle] You either come out alive or you die together, you gotta figure... [chuckle] So hopefully they get that from you as well. Stan Tatkin: Thank you Neil, and congratulations for your upcoming book. Neil Sattin: Yeah, thanks so much.  

Where are you stuck? What’s holding you back? We have all these reasons why we can’t do the things we can’t do what we want. But what’s really holding us back is fear. The number one thing that stops us is our fear. Now any time you're feeling stuck you can ask yourself What am I afraid of? And you can keep asking yourself this question. And when I ask clients this questions it usually boils down to fear of failure and if we fail that we won’t be loved... I hear… I’m afraid of failing or being rejected (Which in some form is failing).. so we’re going to lump rejection into a form of failure… And we’re afraid if we fail ….that it means were not good enough…and if we’re not good enough…we won’t be loved. Fundamentally this is the thing that we all are afraid of. Every single human being has fear and experiences fear often. But how you manage it is what makes the difference in the results you create. Its what separates those who are being bold — taking action — and intentionally designing their life… from those who are living by default… making all types of decisions and choices from a place of what if it doesn’t work out…what if i fail. So, if you're wondering why am I not doing that thing that I want to do… I know what I want to do but I”m not doing it… I know i want a new job but i’m not applying.. i know i want to be in a relationship but i’m not putting myself out there… i know i want my own business but i’m not starting it… i know i want these amazing clients but i’m not promoting myself…   If you want to know why your not doing something — why your stuck — it’s because there is some conscious or subconscious fear — …looking stupid..not being perfect…not getting the love or the approval we desire. When I've asked clients what does it mean if you fail? There might be some type of loss…loss in money, loss in identity, loss in relationship… But most of the time… if we simplify it — it means something didn’t work out the way we want it to.. or expected it to or imagined it would. Let me say that again.. something didn’t work out the way you wanted it to or expected it to or imagined it. DOES THAT MEAN YOU FAILED? ABSOLUTELY NOT. And this is where most people stop, quit or give up. They try something — it doesn’t work out… and they say they failed… and they quit! AH. Failure could be trying and it not working out or failure could be not trying right. So let's just try to do stuff and if it doesn't work out you know if it doesn't work out right away like try again and try again the first time you walked you didn't stand up and just start walking. You fell down you stood up again fell down you stood up again. Right. This is part of the process right of. You expect it. Expect some failure. Expect some rejection. And don't give it any meaning about you that there's something wrong with you or that you're not good enough.   We're just we're just kind of self-loathing and creating this storyline of how limited we are — we we’re not…  if something doesn't work how does it mean that there was something wrong or we're not enough. Right? Just follow the logic. We really need to investigate how or mind are working - and just see… how we are holding ourselves back.. instead of growing into embracing imperfections, stumbling along the way, and becoming more resilient, more confident, more interesting, more brave, and courageous. Take those steps — send that email, make that phone call… in fact… i want to invite you to expect failure… don’t be so afraid of it… make friend with it… we have become so sensitive… you can handle if someone says NO to you…believe me.. you can handle it… LEARN If you are learning… you are WINNING. See how that lands if you say “I failed”  versus “this didn't work out.” It's a lot more gentle. And within that space of something not working out we can expand on that and ask what didn't work out? what can we do differently next time? and then we can then we can really access the learning opportunity. Right. But if we use these really big overgeneralized words of failure or rejection. And when we use these really harsh words like I'm a failure or we begin to strengthen this idea or belief about ourselves that we’re not good enough and we actually want to go in a different direction we actually want to want to start to cultivate an understanding that we already are enough. We want to strengthen our potential of possibility …and what’s possible for us… to consciously create and design a life we love! 

Hold your own feet to the fire with this very unique episode, as Sarah Boxx interviews herself, asking some very timely and thought-provoking questions and providing insights that might help you along your journey. She leaves us with some key pieces of advice on life, the one suggestion she would have made to her teenage self, and ideas for dealing with those more difficult people in our lives. Inspiration comes in all forms. She mentions being inspired by the sports drama movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and the biggest lesson she learned was to "keep chipping away at the layers, or the inauthentic parts of ourselves, so that we can really be our full selves." How do you know when it's time to make a change? "The piece of me that knew it was time to make a change was that part that told me I wasn't living who I was. That happened in other positions. Not only just employment positions but in choosing a career path, volunteer work, all different types of things. I usually check in with my gut. When I've had the most trouble is when my gut has told me one thing and I've ignored it." Trust your instincts and hold your feet to the fire! Learn more at www.SarahBoxx.com or  https://www.facebook.com/strategicvisioncoach/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

There are times when life drives you nuts! It happens to us all. When I've had my fill of present day. I have to get away!  I want to share with you what I do when life gets to heavy. 

Making mistakes does not mean we've failed. Often, uncomfortable and negative situations occur to teach us something. Whether we have to learn something about ourselves or other people, falling flat on our face is something we should celebrate more often because they're learning experiences. In todays Words of Wisdom Wednesday episode, I talk about the various falls I've had, both personally and professionally. Each fall has been infused with insight and have often served as reminders to stay on-course. When I've lost focus and fallen because of a decision I've made, I'm reminded through the hardships of where I was originally headed, which in turn has  made me reevaluate the change in direction. When I've fallen because of a heartbreak, I was forced to look at the characteristics that were originally holding me together, which were often faulty because at the sight of loss, I'd lose myself. When I fell because of a lost business opportunity, I'd realize the control fear had over my being. I would often stay down because of fear that I'd continue to lose. But through the hurdles and bruises, falling has taught me me that you only truly fail when you refuse to stand up again. When you avoid walking into the arena that once defeated you, you relinquish control to a future that hasn't yet occurred. LINKS: Listen to More Words of Wisdom Wednesday Episodes “FEMALE is my greatest asset” Graphic Tee “My hustle will make you say WOWW” Graphic Tee “Unstoppable Woman” Graphic Tee WOWW Campaign Instagram Page {{LISTEN TO THE WOWW CAMPAIGN PODCAST ON ITUNES}}

​What does it mean to be fearless? Is it possible or is it an illusion? When I've researched high-achievers, not one of them didn't experience fear from time to time. In life, The key to success is facing your fears and taking action anyway. Learning to discipline yourself to take action in the face of fear is what separates the winners from the losers. Step into your fear and act as though it's possible and the fear will dissipate. Choose to be confident.

When I've been doing single-question interviews in 2017, the one question I've been asking folks is, "What's your favorite Star Wars memory?" I had the good fortune to hang out with Steele Saunders last Friday, and he graciously contributed a lovely story that harkens back to a special viewing party for The Force Awakens in Australia. Punch it! ***I'm listener supported! Go to http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to donate to the Star Wars 7x7 podcast, and you’ll get some fabulous rewards for your pledge.***  Check out SW7x7.com for full Star Wars 7x7 show notes and links, and to comment on any of the content of this episode! If you like what you've heard, please leave me a rating or review on iTunes or Stitcher, which will also help more people discover this Star Wars podcast. Don't forget to join the Star Wars 7x7 fun on Facebook at Facebook.com/SW7x7, and follow the breaking news Twitter feed at Twitter.com/SW7x7Podcast. I'm also on Pinterest and Instagram as "SW7x7" too, and I'd love to connect with you there!

When I've done all to stand, I stand!

Over the 11 years of having deeply immersed myself in the journey of truly choosing to know myself and to bring all of who I am into the world; the greatest unwavering feeling that has stuck deep within my heart has been the passion to bring positive change to the world. When I've connected with friends and clients, i've noticed that most people would love to make a difference in the world. Do you resonate with this sense and feeling? The post BF 30: Inner Secrets of Being a Change Agent for Positive Change appeared first on Lion Heart Coaching.

Paul Kirch’s BOSS Academy and Radio is helping entrepreneurs and small business owners build successful, sustainable businesses. Paul’s firm, Actus Sales Intelligence, helps clients sell smarter and creates a synergy for BOSS clients. “Throughout my career, whenever I've given the most, I've received the most. When I've volunteered and given back, supported people, mentored college students, it's amazing how this really pays off. On the other hand, when I'm focused on just trying to make money, I’m losing sight of the big picture.”

Working with a personal fitness trainer has helped me see parallels to what I do with Lean... how my clients maybe see the world and things that I can do better as a coach, trainer, mentor, and consultant.I don't often get to be on the "coachee" side of the coaching equation. When I work with other consultants, like Karen Martin, that gives me a chance to get coached -- receiving positive feedback and being challenged to improve. When I've used a speaking coach, Kathryn Partan, it's very helpful because I try to improve and I see how somebody else approaches coaching and client work. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

This is both a phrasal verb review, and a random made-up story. I decided to do this episode as a way to remind you of the first 50 phrasal verbs I've taught you in my Phrasal Verb a Day series of mini-episodes. When I've reached 100 phrasal verb episodes, I'll do another episode of The Phrasal Verb Chronicles, to help you remember #51-100. For more information, and links to the individual phrasal verb episodes, click here http://teacherluke.co.uk/2014/03/18/175-the-phrasal-verb-chronicles-1/