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As we go into this next cycle, and look ahead at what we desire to create for ourselves, those we care for and influence, and the world, two thing I do know for sure is this:  HOW we do this must be done together. It's the design of how we create a different reality, rooted in wholeness, compassion, interconnection, inclusion & sustainability. Our relationships are a big part of both our personal and collective healing & elevation.  The time of the lone wolf, hero, guru, star, indivdual leader is done. The time of putting the world on our backs & doing it all on our own, and sacrificing ourselves for our cause, company or just mere survival needs to be complete.  As we watch the world around us transform, one thing we want to really open our eyes to is the realm of our Relationships and what I call our "Webs of Connections". So much of our personal and collective transformation and elevation can only happen in relationship ... to other people, and to communities, groups and eco systems of people.   Our relationships - the ones we have or the ones we lack - are where we work through our wounds, heal our hearts, return to wholeness, and as result become like agents of elevation in our families, partnerships, teams, communities, companies and the larger world. Our relationships are the how we move out of working in ways that make us sick... how we create a culture in which people are compassionate, collaborative and inclusive... how we create a reality in which people stop making choices from fear and instead open their imagination to see different possibilities where there is enough for all.    I am curious ... Do you have the relationships you need now, and to create the next?  What are the relationships + webs of connection that will support you to grow, express in your full genius, & be sustained now and in the next?  Are you up for the experimenting with different ways to engage in relationship?  And making changes to how you show up within them? Live the next months and years like a "yoga of relationship" where you can elevate your frequency and experience of relationship in all realms of your life?  Today we open up the portal of elevation for the now and next .... to empower us to create the relationships and connections we really do need for this next 3 year cycle and beyond.  In this episode, #208 (#3 of 3 of our extended Power Pause)- we will focus on your Relationships and Your Web of Connection. I will share with you two frameworks:  The 4 kinds of relationships you want into place - from conscious collaborations to mutually beneficial connections to your heart line to resonant communities.    The 4 different kinds of actions you can take in existing or non-existing relationships: Release. Redesign. Reconnect. Reveal & Reach Out.   I will share wisdom on both as well as take you into these 3 inquiries: 3 Co-Creative Inquiries 1. Who am I keeping company with? What is the frequency of the connection or the field? What is draining/dissonant? What is fine/no sweat? What is energizing, empowering and resonant?  2. Who are the people I am meant to connect with?  3. If what and who I am seeking is also seeking me, what could be creating interference?  Creative Actions:  Write these inquiries out. Increase your awareness of current company. Make a visual of the people you are meant to connect to and invite the Universe to help you make connections.  Choose one relationship from each category to work with these next 3 months or year ... Release. Redesign. Reconnect. Reveal & Reach Out.  See you for the conversation. Honored to be on the path with you! With heart, Christine p.s.  REQUEST to CREATE CONNECTION: SHARE THIS PODCAST with a friend. Ask each other the inquiries. And reflect to each other what you hear to bring more insight forward.   ____ UPCOMING EXPERIENCE & PROGRAMS 1. Burnout to Balance 40-Day Practice - learn more www.BurnouttoBalancePractice.com RESOURCES 1. Overwhelmed and Over It Book - Chapter 1 - www.OverwhelmedandOverIt.com CONNECT Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinearylo/ Instagram: @christinearylo Feminine Wisdom Cafe: www.FeminineWIsdomcafe.com You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChristineArylo ______     000003DA 000003DB 0000471E 000046BC 003219EB 003219EB 00007E85 00007E86 0020EDB1 0020EDB1

In this episode, Andy and Lisa review the management maxims Lisa laid out in her 2010 e-book The Digital Deca: 10 Management Truths for the Web Age. In this episode, they talk about truths one and two: "Your Web presence is the digital manifestation of your organization;" and "In a digitally transforming business environment, bold leadership is vital." Episode Transcript

Today I spoke with renowned OBGYN Debra Shapiro. Dr. Shapiro. is a Board Certified Obstetrician-Gynecologist who has practiced medicine in the Bay Area for 27 years.  She is vegan and began formally studying plant-based nutrition in 2013.  She has a Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and Cornell. www.anewviewoffood.com This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is Investigating Vigen Life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vigen life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as common and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals, you can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to investigating Vigen Life. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:14] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. [00:01:16] And today we are sitting down with Dr. Deborah SHAPIRO. Dr. SHAPIRO is a board certified opg Y n plant based physician and vegan lifestyle coach and educator. You can find out more about her on her website. A new view of food, dot com. Welcome, Deborah. [00:01:34] Hello, Patricia. Hi. Thanks for having me. This is quite an honor. [00:01:37] Absolutely. I'm so excited. And I really we've talked a little bit off the record. I find you're at your career and your history and your voice to be so prolific and profound. I'm really excited to have it added to that. The language that is becoming the platform of our podcaster for everyone listening. I'll offer a bio on Deborah. But before I do that, I'm going to get into a quick roadmap of today's podcast. Some of you who are looking for a trajectory can follow along. We'll first look at Deborah's academic background and early in professional life leading up to where she is now. And then we'll start unpacking some of her interest and work. She is obviously a huge career with her Ojibway and practice and then a huge passion of hers now as epigenetics and how it traverses some of the multi-generational platforms of the new studies being done and some of her observations, and that will unpack some of those things as well as give everyone nuts and bolts for everything that I just mentioned, for those of you that don't know what epigenetics is. And then we'll wrap everything up with looking at career advice and goals that she has, even for science and the future of the vegan lifestyle, as well as the work that she's doing in the services that she offers through her own personal website and brand right now through vegan lifestyle coaching and education. A quick bio on Deborah SHAPIRO. Deborah SHAPIRO, M.D., is a board certified obstetrician gynecologist who has practiced medicine in the Bay Area for 27 years. She is a she's vegan and became and began formally studying plant based nutrition in 2013. She has a certificate in plant based nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell, Center for Nutrition Studies and E. Cornell. Currently, in addition to practicing general gynecology at the Genentech Health Center, she is a vegan lifestyle coach and educator, Main Street Vegan Academy and a certified health coach through Health Coach Institute. Privately coaching clients so they can thrive on a whole plant food diet, reversing chronic disease and getting off medications is her passion. She is currently developing a group coaching program called The Pregnancy Advantage, aimed at assisting women physically and emotionally prepared for pregnancy. And I'm excited to kind of climb through all of those areas. I think that, Deborah, you have so many different aspects of your career that are currently happening, but they all have this very similar tone and tie in. But before we get to that, I'm hoping that you can kind of unpack just a brief overview of your academic and early professional life to this point. [00:04:08] Sure. Thank you very, very much. Well, it took me a long time, actually, to decide that I was ready to be a doctor. I actually went a little bit late back to college. So I dropped out of high school. I had some early issues. My mom died young, actually, of medical complications and diabetes and cancer. And so that threw me into a bit of a tailspin. But when I finally got back into academics, I really did thrive. And I was inspired by a doctor in college. Since passed away, but she taught a class of female physiology and gynecology and she became my mentor. That was quite an inspiration. So you go to medical school and we learned almost nothing about nutrition in medical school. And so when I started my practice after residency too mean there was just nothing to be learned about approach. You know, the usual. So it's the number of calories and proteins and carbohydrates and thoughts and it's about it. Video I learned about, you know, things that we didn't we were never going to see, like protein deficiencies, the quasi work we're writing. So write all the things that we normally see, which are all diseases of obesity and over overfeeding. Did my residency in obstetrics and gynecology, which I loved and came back and sort of my practice and it was really from a patient that I started to learn about. Issues with diet and with wealth. So first, give a patient who had mercury poisoning and then it turned out that I had mercury poisoning as I've been eating too much fish because I was sort of transitioning, I was I was paying attention to what was going on in the world. And I was transitioning away from being of a foodie and eating whatever I wanted to. Eating more seafood and less and less meat. But that sort of backfired. And I ended up with mercury poisoning. And after that, a patient told me about Farm Sanctuary, and that's where I really started to learn about the plight of farm animals. And then that same patient told me, I really owe. I owe her everything. I've talked about her before. But then she told me about Michael Gregor's work and nutrition facts start work. And once I learned more about the science of plant based nutrition for reversing chronic disease and preventing chronic disease and preventing all the suffering that my family had endured, really, really think about it for generations. I I I just wanted more and more. So I started attending conferences, the international plant based nutrition health care conference every year. And DR. That's by the plantation project. And then I also became involved in the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. That's Neil Barnard's organization in D.C. And this conference I would attend. And I just tried to learn as much as possible that he Colin Campbell KORRIS Park, for example, is good for anybody. You don't have to be a physician or a nurse or anybody in medicine to take it. It's fine for anybody. And I would recommend that anyone is interested in being more it being the healthiest organ you can be. We could talk about why just being vegan isn't necessarily equating health. But if you want to be the healthiest plant based eater that you can be, then I would take that course. [00:07:11] Yeah, I got on their Web site not too long ago after I spoke with another guest that had done it as well. Years ago. Decades ago. And she said that and she just found it to be one of the most moving experiences for her. [00:07:23] And then I got on the Web site and I did appreciate I think a lot of people consider certification to be something that even further, you know, your actual professional career with rather than augmenting both professional and personal. And they talk about on the Web site saying, you know, who is it for? And it talks about everyone from parents to just personal growth. You know, people interested not just in veganism or specific agendas, but that human health, you know, just one's own personal health, I think, is for everyone as exactly as you're saying. So that makes sense. [00:07:55] I'm wondering your personal vegan story, because it's so enriched and intertwined, if you will, with education and your scientific pursuits. [00:08:06] Did you find yourself acclimating to the lifestyle slowly as you were unearthing these things, or were they just solidifying what you had already done? Like when was the moment that you actually became vegan or was there a moment? [00:08:19] You know, I've been criticized for talking about this because it's a little woo-woo, but I don't know how you feel about that. But I did have sort of a moment. I really just did wake up one morning and just announced to my spouse that I wasn't going to eat animals anymore. And I can't entirely. I can't entirely. Explain it. It was just a moment of clarity about the future and about what was necessary for me to feel good about myself and the world if everything that I learned from Farm Sanctuary and from from PCR. [00:08:58] From the physicians to be responsible, responsible medicine, everything I learned from Michael Gregor's work and and Dean Ornish and Michael Klapper and I just there was just no reason after after hearing. It was just a level of understanding about both human health and the environmental health and the animal welfare that I just didn't want any part of it anymore. [00:09:22] Yeah. And I think it's interesting, the relationship. It sounds trivial. It sounds rote. You know, when you say the relationship with a lifestyle when studying it as compared to actually engaging in it, it it changes your relationship with the understan knowledge that you've studied as well as the knowledge that you create, you know, the work you create after that. [00:09:40] I'm wondering, did you have any health benefits when you kind of became completely vegan that affected you to that kind of testimonial standpoint? [00:09:48] Absolutely. It was amazing. And mostly actually not just going vegan, but because when I first went back and I was roasting my vegetables and coconut oil and my cholesterol shot up and I didn't lose weight and, you know, I didn't have all the benefits, the symbol. When I learned how to cook, I took a cooking course. The Ruby Auro you XP Ruby Cooking School through forth the Forks Over Knives course, which was a three month course. They also have a one month and a six month. I learned how to roast on parchment without oil. I looked at it, learned how to cook without oil, and then I lost 20 pounds without trying, without any additional exercise. My cholesterol came way down, my total cholesterol became less than 150 and my mail deals were 60 or 70. My blood pressure, which had been really creeping up when I was on labor delivery, I used to I would check it sometimes and it was one fifty over ninety five really high and now it was 110 over 60. I even fainted one day in my job because it was so low and I stopped having to take a an antihistamine which I had taken for decades. Every single day, every day. I took Desertec for decades. I also used to have to go to the contractor every week for years, decades, also probably 20 years to get something tweaked. You know, I heard something and it would be you would just stay off until I had it put back. I used to go to a chiropractor every single week. I stopped. I haven't gone to the chiropractor in years. So I would see I would say, oh, my hemoglobin A1C came down. [00:11:13] It sounds like you had a lot of really beneficial health attributes when you switched over just on a personal level. Did that inspire you? I was wonder with with M.D. in particular. Eastern medicine seems to navigate this a little bit differently. But Western medicine, if you can even diversify the two that way anymore, I think that they're kind of blending more and more these days. But it feels like doctors are a little reluctant to advise anything for their patients. You know, their clients, even anything that they might particularly believe in and practice. It's just this kind of held regard of Western medicine, this old staunch of like, you know, science is science. And we only advise based on like, you know, what we've agreed upon as a government or as a scientific community and all of those things. And I'm wondering if you personally experienced this change, if you currently had your practice when you were doing that, you know, you had over a 20 year long practice, private practice and women caring for women and dealing with LBG. Why N? And I'm wondering if you had the opportunity before wrapping up that chapter of your life to advise some of your clients looking into this kind of whole food plant based moment? [00:12:24] Oh, absolutely. Once I felt comfortable with the science. I actually put on a conference call at our hospital plant based attrition conference and brought in amazing speakers. Not only did I have, you know, Brenda Davis and Michael Klapper and John Robbins at our and our conference, but I also then brought in other speakers. Michael Greger came to speak. Juliana Haver, Neal, Neal Barnard. But it was amazing. The response from the response from my clinician colleagues was not all so positive and very, very discouraging. I remember quite a few. I can tell you it's it's discouraging. So once I had your board speaking and I was I was standing outside the room, he was going to do grand rounds. And I I was trying to encourage you to some of the doctors who were walking by to come in and hear him for grand rounds. And when cardiologists came up to me and I said, here he's coming in and you're in your border, and he said, Oh, Debbie Dominionist, diminutive Debbie, you're too naive. It's too extreme. No one will do this. And, you know, we always think, you know, cutting open someone's chest and pulling out things from your legs and, you know, that sort of extreme. The surgery when does for cardiovascular disease are number one killer, but which we know now from disorders can be reversed with a plant based diet and healthy lifestyle. So that was one there. There are others. I could tell you when I did what I did my conference, when I put on my conference afterwards, people came up to me and said, oh, this was so great. My friend didn't get to come when you gonna do it again? And marketing was right there, the marketing person. And she she said she kind of looked at it and said, you'll never do this again. [00:14:10] That sounds like a challenge. I had a hundred and fifty people and I did 50 people and everybody loved it. And I'm believable. [00:14:17] And also, just given the lack of I mean, you know, I would hope that in any community, let alone a scientific based one. [00:14:24] The lack of education is a sure sign that, you know, that more research needs to be done and to have very little nutritional knowledge taught to M.D. on the whole, you know, as they go into medicine should just be a sign that more research should be done, reaching conclusions and things like that. Find make your own decisions. But to not research something and then make a decision that it is inapplicable or naive just seems in and of itself naive. [00:14:52] So there is certainly a mountain of evidence. I know people can challenge it. There are people who are the what are they, the caveman diet and the high fat, high protein diets that the paleo and the pito to manage illness. We are reimbursed to manage disease. We're not really getting any remuneration for reversing disease. That would be amazing. You know, if you could get people if you got paid to get people off their medication. Not not to get them on more medications so their blood sugars are stable. But to actually get them or when I was when I was working at Kaiser, I saw people on six or seven. Most those Filipino patients were on six or seven medications if they were over 50 or Heiko, because the diets are really just this high saturated fat diet, high any diet. So, you know, a couple for their blood pressure goes, some for their diabetes and their high cholesterol and cut their cholesterol and and usually reflux. [00:15:56] So there's a lot of different kind of climbed into a large area that even people who, you know, don't hold medical degrees have kind of started to come into the fasting and and even other other friendly communities with the vegan community, you know, talk a lot about these auto immune fighters. [00:16:13] Right. And the vegan lifestyle is one of these things that's seen as something that goes into auto immune diseases which are across the board. You know, on this incredible spike in our population, at least in the United States. And and and how these things fight and switch it. I'm wondering if you can kind of speak to just briefly, like what are the number one things when you work with clients? And, you know, even from back during your OBIS, you in practice your current work with Genentech or even the work that you have privately on a new view of food dicom with some of your services where you coach, people don't like the top five things that you see an immediate turnaround with someone that you switch to a vegan based diet, a side, a whole plate. [00:16:55] We try to we try to encourage people to be more of a whole package. Well, let's eat a lot of changes. You were asking before about my practice. So I was able. I'm definitely able to reverse some. And still probably bleeding disorders can be normalized. [00:17:08] And definitely I've had a lot of success getting people to have more regular and lighter menses when they got off of dairy. Just minute, Roger. Just heavy menses. Yes. That would just be better. But also, polycystic ovarian syndrome is much better on a plant based diet and also watching out for something called Agee's. It is location and products. So that would be eating more raw and things that are not cooked at very high temperature, but especially meat. You can look up tables of agent use against location and products in the foods that have the most agent. These are going to be things like broiled sausages and your broiled processed meat as the most agencies. And then the least would be fruit, you know, raw fruits and vegetables. So yeah. But even so, it turns out that people who have polycystic ovarian syndrome have much higher levels of Agee's in their blood level than most. So getting. So if you want if you people are suffering from places school syndrome with with irregular bleeding, maybe only a few periods a year, they can also be heavy and have problems with hair growth. And and they're more at risk for developing diabetes later on and having heart disease later on metabolic syndrome, then getting them onto a plant based diet and reversing that by reducing Jacky's exposure would be great. [00:18:23] Well, given that we have those correlations and in some cases causational, you know, aspects, when do you think it will start to infiltrate mainstream? When will I call up a girlfriend who said, listen, I was just at my Ojibway and she said, if you want to, like alleviate that heavy bleeding try, you know. [00:18:39] Whole food plant based diet and that type of a. When do you think that that will permeate? If we have all these studies and all of the success rate, do you think that it's I mean, a lot of people will say it's you know, it's it's accurate studies, it's accurate testing, it's proof, but it doesn't seem that those are being taken with them as much brevity as some of the other industry back things. So as it as a clinician, when do you think that that time will start to infiltrate, especially with female based medicine? [00:19:07] Well, interesting. Good, good questions. Good questions, because even though there is a lot of data about things like heart disease and diet and diabetes and even autoimmune disease for sure. The research specifically on women's health, this lag, I think, lagging behind. But there's a new college, the College of Lifestyle Medicine to the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. And they they're plant based. Absolutely plant based. But they're also interested in things like sleep and stress reduction and exercise and looking at the whole the whole picture of human health and the all the influences on it. And they are starting a women's health group within that. So it's true that I have reached out to a the American college verbage man and asked them about their recommendations, their dietary recommendations, because they're still recommending for pregnant women just three milk products a day. And when I asked them years ago, a few years ago about that, they said, well, we're waiting for the new dietary guidelines. So you you were right when you said it's the government that sets the tone and then the colleges sort of go along with that. Will that change? I don't know, because we don't you know, our Institutes of Health don't develop our dietary guidelines. It's the Department of Agriculture. Right. The USDA. Mm hmm. So we we give millions of dollars to support meat and dairy. So. Right. [00:20:33] Which are. I mean, it's and that can all be economically really easily broken down. [00:20:38] You know, I was just talking to a vegan bakery owner who said dairy eggs. And we are practically free. They're subsidized by the government. You know, and she said, if you ever want to a question, a food pyramid or anything else, look at like what they need to just funnel through our system that quickly. And that kind of breaks it all down into relationship as well as to how are our diet is being more mandated by even lobbyists and things of that nature for those groups. [00:21:04] You know, it's not really what's best for the human body. And once you know that, it all works best know and you can go rogue. Right. Once you figure that out, you can decide you better be captaining your own ship. And I kind of want to climb into more of this, because I know that one of your passions is epigenetics. And before I let you just kind of reign all of your wisdom down on us, I want to tell you that I went through a bunch of different definitions regarding epigenetics. And before we kind of climb into it for our audience listening, I wanted to say that I found a couple of ones that I feel like simplistically define it, but you need to tell me if you agree with them. So one is at epigenetics is the nutrition sorry, the biology relating to or arising from non-genetic influences on gene expression. And then further on, it says, is the study of changes in gene activity, which are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence. And it is the specific mechanism such as that, that epigenetics works by specific mechanisms such as the DNA methylation. But I wanted to kind of climb into the way I perceive it as as a layperson. Is there any factors that are affecting our genetic makeup that are not like genetically encoded into our DNA? [00:22:23] And so I wondered if you could correct some of that or kind of explain what we're talking about before we get into it? [00:22:28] Sure. I did this because of the Internet. I did miss the beginning of it. OK. And you just say one more time. [00:22:33] Yubari Yeah. No. Absolutely. So it's the biology relating to or arising from non genetic influences on gene expression. [00:22:42] Your end to end, the way I internalize that is essentially talking about our genetics. [00:22:49] We are a little frozen. Let me get back to that. Let me wait for just one second in my time again. [00:22:58] OK, we're back again. Said the way I mean, I was just saying the way that I am, I received that is just influences and then genetic changes that our genes can have. [00:23:08] People described it like an on or off switch, like something that is activating genetic markers and things of that nature, but not necessarily changing the genetic gene makeup. [00:23:18] Razi NCG OK. Yes, absolutely. So Eppie genetics just sort of means on top of the genome. So all of the cells in our body that have a nucleus, all the nucleotide cells have the same DNA. These beautiful coils of genetic material, they're all coiled around these big stones. [00:23:38] They're big molecules called histones are wrapped around that little caps at the end called telomeres that that keep them from unraveling. So this is the we have forty six pairs and two. Right. Yes. Twenty two sets of autism's and two sets of six chromosomes. Most of us. And do the same with the egg all the the cga 80 pairs. That's all they are. They're the same in every cell. But you know that what cell. Every different cell types do different things. Right. So they all the difference, all the different genes that are encoded in the DNA are not expressed in every cell. For example, your mouth make your celery glands, make saliva. Right. So they have Emilie's and your stomach cells like lining cells, make hydrochloric acid. And the cells in your cervix make a mucus, you know, cervical mucus so that, you know, it doesn't get confused. You wouldn't want your cervical cells to be making hydrochloric acid. That would be a disaster. Right. So so our body keeps cell DNA expression or expression very tightly controlled. [00:24:48] And we've now learned that there are we learned so much more about this just in the last few decades, really. We've known since the end of the last century and the beginning of this century that lifestyle factors, including stress and what we eat and whether we exercise and even our thoughts or even how our moods affect affect epigenetics. And so epigenetics, it works by attack. Gene expression is controlled. Now we know by attaching a little. So there's a methyl group, for example, a C-H three, a little methyl group. And it depending on where that metal group is attached, the gene can either be turned on. Up, up, regulated or turned off. [00:25:28] OK. Is this the same concept as they talk about with triggers when you have this underlying genetic propensity towards, let's say, type 1 diabetes and they're you know, they're doing all these studies, these massively large studies, generational studies right now that I know of with that particular disease. And they you have a marker and they talk about triggers and they're trying to figure out, you know, which triggers social, environmental diet, all of those things kind of playing in stressors, things like that. And and I'm wondering if it's the same thing that we're talking about here. It's having like a propensity, but not necessarily like a signed sentence. [00:26:02] Yes. Another good example of that is, I believe what we call the Nigerian paradox, that there is a gene that code that increases your risk of of Alzheimer's. It's called the EAP, a EPO, A for EPO, a for a little. And there's actually. A very high rate of that in in places in Africa like in Nigeria. And yet they don't have high rates of Alzheimer's because of their diet. I mostly plant based diet the whole time through diet. So I think that's exactly right. That your your DNA may code may code for things. And you may have you may be genetically inclined to have something it runs in your family, but you can change that. And that's why we say that our genes are not our destiny. They're absolutely not our destiny. [00:26:53] Yeah. Thank God. And I don't know, because I don't. I'm sure we exist as a species. But I'm wondering, what kind of research are they doing now? [00:27:02] You've you know, you've expressed to me off the record that you have this kind of interest in the generational span of what doing and, you know, looking at epigenetics and eating this vegan diet in utero and like all the way through. Can you talk to some of your research or some of your interest in those areas? [00:27:19] Right. I think the first thing that I heard about was Dean Ornish, his work on reversing early stage prostate cancer. And, you know, Dean Ornish published in 1990 in The Lancet, his landmark study, Reversing Heart Disease, The Lifestyle Heart Trial, where he showed that our number one killer could be actually reversed using a plant, usually a plant based diet. He wasn't present at that time. He was letting people have little bits of animal protein, I think nonfat yogurt, but also exercise 30 minutes, six times a week, an hour of either meditation or yoga every day and a support group. And he showed that heart disease could be reversed, which is really a game changer. And that should really be what everybody and every cardiologist we talked about before with every cardiologist is telling their patients, but they're not. So. But moving on after that, he actually showed that he could reverse early stage prostate cancer. Currently, he's working on see whether you can reverse Alzheimer's, early stage Alzheimer's. But let's just go back to this prostate cancer, because it was amazing. We took 93 men and divided them into with early stage prostate cancer. So they had they didn't need surgery when they came to him. They a lot of people with prostate cancer, it's early. They watch they watch ultrasounds. They watch their PSA. And they just watch you wait. Right. So we have that group of men and divide them into two groups. And one group got a very low fat 10 percent that plant based on it. One hundred simply based on the 30 minutes of exercise, six days a week. The support group and the meditation and stress and stress reduction, meditation or yoga. The other group just had routine care. [00:28:50] And what he found was at the end of a year, there were people in the watching weight group that actually needed surgery. But what he saw when he when he did PET scans, he could see that the tumors had actually reduced in size in people in the in his group that were in the study group. But more importantly, and this was so amazing after just three months, three months. It's only been a long time. You know, three months, over 500 genes changed expression. You had 453 genes that promoted cancer that were turned down and 48 genes that protected against cancer were unregulated. So this is amazing. After just three months. Yes. Yes. And then I was looking at something called the Canadian ice storm. Yes. You can look at project. Project Ice Storm online is quite amazing. So in nineteen ninety eight, I mean we've known about epigenetics. We've known about this even before this. I should say because there were studies looking at the Dutch, the Dutch famine. So we there were a lot of studies also on on mice. And what I found this to be even more interesting. So in nineteen ninety eight, there was a tremendous ice storm in Quebec. They let people many, many people lost power. It was minus 20 degrees for 40 days. That was tremendous social stress and upheaval. And people were stuck in Trenton, you know, women in buses. And it was really it's just very stressful time. And they decided to follow the offspring of women who were pregnant during that time. [00:30:33] And what they found was remarkable. Hundreds of genes. They've been following these children for years. You know, 19, 20 years because it was 1998. So involving these kids for a long time. And what they found was they could actually they could they could tell that there were more changes depending on how much more stress people experience. So there's there are these heat maps where they look at people who had more stress versus less stress on actual stress versus perceived stress like post-traumatic stress syndrome, as opposed to actually losing power for many, many days. So and they just find that there were more children, more children with auto immune diseases, more shoulder with metabolic diseases where we're children with with autism. On the autism spectrum. So over I mean, hundreds of genes change expressions. And these were genes also. They coded coded for glucocorticoid activity. And also immunoglobulins. So with your immune system, the T cells. [00:31:31] So, yes. So what you eat and what happens to you? So what do we know what you eat. But also. What you endured during your pregnancy can show up for generations and not only these children. So this is what's interesting. If you're having especially if you have a girl, if you have a child inside of you as a female child, then what happens to you during your pregnancy affects that child's ovaries and the eggs developing inside the ovaries. And that's what affects the next generation. And that's how really in a way you are what your grandmother eats. You know, your genes and your gene expression has been affected by what happened to your grandmother. [00:32:11] Right. And so my next question and always charging forward and wondering how we use that to our benefit. Is there a way conceivably. [00:32:21] You know, since we know this and we don't know the full of factoring and the brevity quite yet, but is there a way, likewise, to start stacking the deck in our favor? Looking that you have, you know, this history and family with heart disease or diabetes or whatever it is and start eating according to that, like would it be likely stressors and things that we can't you know, I mean, the born a middle, the pandemic. You know, it's it's stressing the entire world out. And so there's things that you can't control on that. [00:32:50] So the ones that you can control, I'm curious, like if you think that likewise, as these these markers are set off in other ways, could you think it's possible to stack the deck in one's favor? Dietrichson Dietetics Lee through either in utero or as your existing like on this earth right now? Absolutely. [00:33:08] I mean, that was what we talked. That's that's what I meant when I said that Dean Ornish was able to show that these genes change expression. And in three months, you know. Absolutely that he did all four things. So this is important because Dr. Eskelsen was able to reverse heart disease in his cohort of patients with just diet. He wasn't asking people to exercise. He wasn't giving them support groups. So that's true. And that's why we have that data. But what's interesting about about this is we know that your emotions make a difference. And so even though I agree with you, this is a very stressful time. And honestly, I'm not sure I would be encouraging people to be pregnant right now. There's a lot of uncertainty about the effects of this virus on pregnancies and getting care and having access to care and and just the stress of it, it seems it seems like a stressful time. But this is definitely the time to get ready for a pregnancy if you have that time. This is the time to get rid of all the toxins. This is the time to to start eating organic. If you can't find it, this is the time to make sure that you're not. You know, there's a point, glyphosate, that that herbicide roundup in the umbilical cords of babies and DDT is still found in breast milk. So there's some incredibly persistent organic compounds that are that are still in the food chain. And so that's why Greger even talks about detoxing from fish for five years because of the dioxins and the and the p_c_b_ easily. Mercury is out of your system. Over a few months, because the Half-Life is 100 days, I was able to get my mercury level down when I saw patients. I was probably the only obese way that was testing mercury levels in women who were pregnant. And I was finding very high mercury levels in women who were having fish. You know, a few times a week, a cockatiel says you could have fish twice a week. I would. I would really worry about that. So some things we can't control. But something's you can. So paragons and phthalates and and P and BPA. And, you know, these are the things to clear out of your system. [00:35:16] Absolutely. And I think that's why a lot of people we do a lot of, you know, crisis control and and crowd management, you know, things like that with disease in our lives. [00:35:27] But I think looking at a preventative level is really where the next gen should be coming from. You know, this idea of like, let's not treat the disease when it comes, but rather prevent it. And looking at one's own history and even like the I think it's exciting when we when we go back to utero and you mentioned you kind of alluded to earlier, but female science hasn't received 1 1 100th the amount of study, you know, which is ironic because we're responsible for like the proliferation of the species. But and I think I'm hoping in the next you know what, in my daughter's generation like this starts to become very unearthed and we learn more about it because it's exciting. And I think it's a it's it's a new way to look towards what we're doing and the next generation coming up. I'm wondering, given that and given my love for prediction and things like that, if I can take you there really quickly and ask you, what do you see for the future of kind of everything we've been talking about in consideration of epigenetics and as well as as vegan diets and things like that, do you have you surmise like a different platform or people becoming more aware? I know even in the reception of this early podcast. People have been very, very open to I call them unlikely vegans. There's been a lot of people who are looking at things because they're coming to it from, you know, having survived heart disease and all these different things. And I'm wondering if you have some kind of a prediction as to what that might mean for the future of like this whole plant based vegan diet and medicine or anything that you're doing? [00:37:00] Well, there are some very positive signs. Michael Klapper is going around to medical school. Do you know when Michael Klapper used to work at True North is a fantastic doctor. He's fantastic man. Ethical begin and plant a specialist. Michael Klapper, K.L. AP Fantastic. He is going around to all these medical schools to teach medical students about plant based nutrition. And I know some medical schools already that are having classes where students with patients where they're actually cooking. So part of medical school is now in a kitchen, which is fantastic. Yes. And and there are, I believe, the. It was the A.M.A. that actually has said that processed meat should not be in hospitals anymore. I mean, it's it's optional, but it's hard to get meatless Mondays in our hospital. But but I think I think we're moving in that direction because we know from an environmental standpoint that we can not continue to eat meat as we've been doing. We just can't. Now, in terms of being 100 percent vegan, you know that that may not be for everybody. But I think the world will definitely be moving in a more plant based way. Otherwise it will not. We will not exist. I was reading a report and I would recommend everyone read this. It's the it was Walter Willets report. It was a Eat Lancet report. E a t all capital and then Dash Lancet. So Haiti is a Swedish nonprofit that's focused on sustainability. And the Lancet, of course, is the most is the most prestigious medical journal. And they they commissioned they commission many papers over the years. And last year in 2019, they decide to focus on health and the planet and sustainability. And so the Lancet commission report is called Home for the Poor. [00:38:51] It's called just for the planet or. [00:38:58] Eat food in the Anthropocene, which is the time, the geologic time where humans have had the most impact was actually from 1950. Pretty amazing. So. So that report is pretty amazing. And they basically say that or we in the West have to eat like 90 percent less animal products. So they allow they allow for very small amounts. But if we're going to feed the 10 billion people that are gonna be on the planet by 2050, we have to really change how we how we produce food, how we get it to people. So I think the only way to do that is play is being played bass. I mean, just think about the amount of land that it takes. There's this amazing graphic and I know I probably am preaching to the choir here because you guys know. But if you look at something called Good Bath One, a one online food bath one to one. It's from the plantation project. And they show how two football fields worth of land is good. You do know this because they when you tell others that this is a really fun thing, just to look at two football fields worth of land can feed one person for a year on an animal based diet. The two football fields worth of land can feed 14 people on a plant based diet. It's pretty amazing. So you could be one or two feet 14. So if we're going to keep populating the earth with more people, which I know we are, then we have to pay attention to having enough food for all. And that's going to be the only way we can feed everybody is a plant based diet. [00:40:29] Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it's also raising expectations. I think that a lot of people who don't have any issues that I may say have with it the meat industry, the concept is, is that you're actually breeding a, you know, a lifestyle into your children before you depart that they cannot maintain. [00:40:45] They will not be able to. The amount of meat consumed globaly all over the world in China and on all places, the amount of meat in the majority of people's diets is not sustainable for the next two generations. So you're simply, you know, imparting your children with this desirous lifestyle that they won't be able to maintain. And so I think that any parent would agree that we want to kind of impart this this way of living that's sustainable, you know, that they can continue doing. And so and that's a good thing. [00:41:12] It's fantastic. It's so profound. It's so important. That's such a great point. Yeah, because it's not sustainable. I don't know why you would now think about raising your children on on hotdogs and burgers and French fries. Just food also that's going to make them just so unhealthy. It's the stuff I grew up on. I grew up on spam and I, you know, TV dinners and I was raised with horrible food. [00:41:36] Yeah, I read on your Web site, am I a little bit about your background? I really appreciated the candor in which you kind of open up again. [00:41:43] I don't know if it's just my friends or my history with MMD, but they tend to be a little bit more tight lipped about their personal testimony. And so it was really wonderful to kind of read yours on your own, get your background on your Web site. And I want to turn to finally looking at that before I let you go today. Your Web site is really interesting. It's got it. It's got a very honest look at things. And then you also provide this this coaching opportunity for people that I want people to know about before I let you go. And one more time, your website is W WW A New View of food dot com and you provide coaching services and education. I'm just hoping you can kind of tell everybody listening what services you provide and who it who would be applicable to kind of come and speak with you. [00:42:29] Right. Right. Well, first of all, I would talk to anybody. Please download my free e-book. Why you plaints. It's a free e-book that you get onto my my mail list. And I send out newsletters every once in a while. Not too often. You won't. You're too much for me. So do you will be bothered. But I think the I have some videos on their Web site that you can see my eye. Ideally, I love to work with ethical vegans who want to shift to a more healthy whole plant food diet because I have certainly worked with vegans who are eating more. I mean, I've heard the word junk food vegan and so people use that. Some people hate that term. And I'm just saying that people who are eating incidentally be good food like Oreos and chips and French fries and Coke. And I mean, these are big foods, but they're not optimal. And that's true even for the mock meats. I mean, people who are eating a lot of processed organized food, this process, it's still not optimal. So to optimize your diet so that you're really you're doing you're clicking off all those boxes from Dr. Gregor's daily dozen. That's what I really want you to to be able to do so that you will be as healthy as possible, especially before you can see. That would be amazing. So that's why we started this new I started this new program with Gene Schumacher, who's another coach, cleverly scope's and also a chemistry teacher. And that's good. That's the pregnancy advantage. So that's really to help women get prepared for pregnancy, to get rid of the toxic. To to get off of the saturated fat. Did you know that saturated fat, even from things like coconut oil, etc., got especially from animal products, but also oil? It affects the fetal brain and and and it causes damage in the fetus as well. So it's so being being obese from whatever cause is going to cause damage to the fetus. So getting you to an optimal weight, getting you eating optimally and feeling so comfortable with cooking this way that you can cook for your family and cook for your child and raise them just the way you are raising your children. Right. Really loving it. Like what's behind the whole the rainbow, loving, eating the rainbow. That's what you want to do. [00:44:37] Is the pregnancy advantage? Is it all aspects? Is it an education? Is it a cooking? What areas are you kind of. [00:44:44] Right. And we're getting ready to launch later this month. But it's a it's going to be an online coaching program. And we're going to be helping women with with everything, with with that cooking, with cooking. Gene Schumacher has a fantastic YouTube channel and and a Web site as well. It's called the Weight Loss Advantage or Web site. The Weight Loss Advantage. And she's been doing wonderful things for years and has interviewed incredible people on her, on her YouTube channels are really, really proud to be working with her because I think she's been fantastic. I think she's lost over 100 pounds herself. So we both know what what can happen when you when you do this. [00:45:25] Yeah, I had it set so perfect. Again, it's always shocking to me. As someone who, you know, who has had children and that it's it hasn't it wasn't done. [00:45:35] You know, it I'm not I'm not terribly young, but I'm not terribly old. I'm forty three. I have no children. And this was not around. And I had my first child in San Francisco, very metropolitan chic city. And there was, you know, and people were getting dullards and things like that. But nobody was advising as to how to, you know, pick up or clean up one's lifestyle as you became pregnant or prior to it. There was I looked into everything. I'm a nerd. You know, I looked into all sorts of research. If someone had been having this kind of a platform or hosting this kind of rhetoric, I would have eaten it up. And it's just amazing to me that we're just twenty twenty and we're just getting to the point where we are trying to advise people who are looking at conceiving or have already conceived, you know, as to the best path to what to fuel themselves with. You know, your website, you have a quote about, I believe, mushroom, but perhaps it's on your website. You're looking at a bunch today, but isn't. [00:46:29] And food is not necessary. What is it? It's medicine is not necessary when you have good food or is that yours? And I probably lifted it from somebody. I'm dizzy. Yeah. And the concept is the old adage, which is what I really guide my particular journey by, which is let food be thy medicine. [00:46:48] It's the it's the ultimate form. And it seems so rote. It's of course, of course, of course. But it's the one thing we're actually putting into our body, you know, and it's the one thing that we're actually trying to create life force on. And so if not, take it a little bit more seriously or think about whether or not your body's registering yellow number for as food or just as some weird additive is crucial. [00:47:10] It's it's just amazing what I eat growing up and never gave a second thought about. And now and my family suffered. It's it's very, very sad. Sister with cancer all they all had cancer of the generation before all of them had cancer. If they did, they live long enough. They had two cancers. My father had two cancers. His brother had two cancers. [00:47:29] It's something that can be changed. And so I think when you look at the humanity of it, you know, it's it's this kind of desperate cry of everyone to just consider things for a second who is so much suffering and people don't realize is so much suffering. [00:47:41] The earth is suffering. The animals are suffering. When I read recently about the pigs and they just said things like hundreds of thousands of pigs are going to be depopulated. And I mean, I just started crying. I mean, I couldn't I couldn't really handle it. It's a big and it's this is a very, very hard time. And I'm sure your listeners would understand. Right, because your listeners are beginning. I mean, I don't live really in a vegan world. I'm really the only I don't really have any even friends, even though I try very hard. But it's it's a very, very tough time for the planet. It's a very tough time for people. And the human toll on the way we're eating, I mean, yes, French fries taste good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's enough already. Enough French fries. [00:48:28] Yeah. And the emotional attachment to food should doesn't really outweigh the emotional attachment we have to loved ones in life. You know, it's just that I think that people come to that realization after they've gotten contracted the disease, you know. [00:48:41] And so I think that looking at these preventative measures, what you're doing with the pregnancy advantage, I can't wait for that to launch and just have a look at it. And just having some of these people in these conversations with people in these populations, particularly next generation. Things that are like really coming out to be game changers. No pun intended on the movie, but, you know. Yeah, great. [00:49:05] But but I think, Zada, things are changing. And when I go to these conferences, you know, when I went to the interview, the first or the second international clip is Nutritional Care Conference. About seven years ago, there were, I don't know, 50 or 60 people. Now there's over a thousand. I don't know what we're gonna be able to do now. It'll probably have to be online. But because I don't I don't think we're really going to be able to get a thousand twelve hundred people in one hotel anymore for an event where we all sit online and eat. But still even done the piece CRM conference on the International Conference on Nutrition and Medicine. He also had over a thousand people last year. And these are these are doctors and health care professionals. So the word is getting out, but it's slow because, again, as we mentioned the beginning, doctors are not rewarded for keeping their patients healthy. They're rewarding. They're rewarded for managing disease. And I think that would it would be amazing if it could shift. I've worked on committees in hospitals before to see, you know, people are rewarded for testing hemoglobin A1C every month or every three months or whatever they have to do. But they're not necessarily rewarded for getting people off of medications. [00:50:10] Yeah. And I think that once that switch is that's when we'll see the true switchover from how we view food and medicine and health care. Right? Yes. Which should be free. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to say thank you so much for your time today. Deborah, we're out of time. [00:50:28] But I really do appreciate all of the wisdom that you've imparted with us today. And also, just to your candid tone, I really appreciate it. I know it's hard to be alone in a universe like being, you know, someone who is a whole plant based food vegan in Western medicine. But I think you're doing it beautifully. And I really appreciate your time today, Patricia. [00:50:50] Thank you so much for having me. This is so wonderful. I'm so glad that you're doing this podcast. I can't wait to hear them. Thank you. Thank you for having me. [00:50:57] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we've been speaking with Dr. Deborah SHAPIRO. You can locate her online at W W W a new view of food dot com. Thank you for giving us your time today. [00:51:10] And until we speak again next time, remember to eat well, eat clean, stay safe and always bet on yourself.  Sainte.  

Neuroscience experts, practitioners, research and methods for making brain-friendly organizations and healthy individuals. Subscribe to Mind Your Noodles! This is the third episode of the Mind Your Noodles podcast. In this episode our guest Storyteller, Park Howell. Tripp: He discusses the massive disruption in advertising/marketing that got him into storytelling. How stories have been coached out of us and how to craft a great story. Show Notes [00:00:06] Mind Your Noodles Podcast [00:00:53] Par Howell: Storytelling [00:03:00] A Student of Storytelling [00:03:50] Advertising and Branding as Disrupted [00:05:16] What Does Hollywood Know that Park Didn't [00:05:55] Hero's Journey and How It Plays [00:07:17] Park Helps Reveal Our Story [00:08:19] Education Has Beaten the Creativity and Storytelling Out of Us [00:08:57] The Gordon MacKenzie Story [00:09:26] Orbiting the Giant Hairball [00:14:37] How to Build Story - Applied Science and Bewitchery of Story [00:15:39] How Not to Be an MBA Zombie [00:16:24] The Story/Narrative Structure [00:18:54] Dr. Randy Olson and South Park [00:20:33] ABT - And But and Therefore Structure [00:22:22] Example of ABT in Action [00:24:47] Gettysburg Address  is ABT [00:26:47] Modern ABT Orator is Donald Trump [00:27:41] Dr. Olson Saw Trump's Message and Knew He would Win [00:28:42] Dr. Randy Olson Podcast the Day After 2016 Presidential Election [00:32:45] Jonathon Haidt - Stories for Good or Evil [00:37:39] 5 Things Affect People at Work Mentally [00:40:15] Breaking Down Fairness [00:42:18] Belonging and Relatedness [00:45:12] Freedom.Autoonomy [00:47:18] My Deming Takeaways [00:50:59] The 5 Skills that Storytelling Helps Improve [00:57:04] What Park is Reading Today     Transcript Tripp: [00:00:06] Take care of the brains that take care of you. with the Mind Your Noodles podcast will keep you up to date on the latest neuroscience research and practices to keep your brain healthy. And strategies to help your organization be brain friendly. In the third episode of Mind Your Noodles Park Howell. a story teller is our guest. He discusses the massive disruption in advertising/marketing that got him into storytelling. How stories have been coached out of us and how to craft a great story.   Tripp: [00:00:53] Hi I'm Tripp Babbitt and our guest today is Park Howell of Park and company who has a business in storytelling but more importantly has a podcast on storytelling and I found his podcast really captivating because he's so interested and so dedicated to storytelling. He's had many people on that have basically shined a light on how to do storytelling and I just thought well here's a guy with a vast amount of knowledge just not only from interviewing people but but being a practitioner of storytelling that I had to have him on.   Tripp: [00:01:34] It just made sense and from a neuroscience standpoint other people that I've talked to or in class who read a book called pitch anything talks about the narrative versus the analytical if you're pitching somebody if somebody is in the analytical state that they're only using two regions of their brain and if they're in a narrative state that that they're using seven regions so there's many neuroscience things.   Tripp: [00:02:00] Normally I do more of an introduction Park but since storytelling is your thing I thought maybe we'd start with you telling your story about how you got into storytelling your background of Tripp.   Park: [00:02:14] Thank you so much for having me here. I'd always love to talk about storytelling because I am so curious about it myself and every time I'm on one of these programs I learn something new. I was just training the last two days in New Orleans I'm back here in rainy Phoenix Believe it or not and I was working with the supply association out there and 60 of their member companies and I went took them through a day and a half masterclass on how to use storytelling to engage and motivate their people as well as to sell in a very very commoditized left brain business of industrial supply and I pulled three or four nuggets away from them on how their minds work around story and not the neuroscience of it but their actual experience doing it.   Park: [00:03:00] So now I'm just I'm just I'm a student of storytelling as much as anybody. And then I like to share what I find when I find that it works really really well. My back story starts with you introduce me as part how will the founder president of parking company and you're right about that that was my ad agency that I started in nineteen ninety five and I ran for 20 years and I still have a parking company as my overall corporation but what I am really doing now is I pivoted away from that traditional slash digital ad agency world and now I can consult teach coach and speak on the power of story to help leaders of purpose driven brands clarify their stories to amplify their impact and simplify their life.   Park: [00:03:50] So that's my brochure headline what really happened. Tripp is advertising and branding as I knew it as I experienced and as I practiced it stopped working in 2006. It just wasn't nearly as effective as it had been when all we had to worry about was doing advertising and branding on radio TV billboards print your newspaper public relations events direct mail and we didn't have to deal with Yelp what happened of course is the inter webs were really starting to blossom about this time everybody was getting a Web site some of them working someone not so much in social media was starting to come around and we had experienced and saw this paradigm shift happening where brands used to own the influence of mass media those mass media vehicles I just mentioned and now it was all changing technology was changing it to where the masses the people had become the media and even more so now than ever. You know 13 years later they own the brand story they own your brand story and it has impacted how we communicate internally externally and everything about our world. Well when that happened and I didn't realize what was going on at the time I just knew we weren't as effective as we had used.   Park: [00:05:16] Had been before I started studying storytelling primarily you know precisely Hollywood storytelling. What did screenwriters in Hollywood and Hollywood executives know about knitting together a narrative in very high stakes world of Hollywood where they're spending tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars on a story. So you're thinking that total commerce play here. What did they know that I could learn from so that I could help our brands and our customers and clients be more persuasive using. These same types of tools.   Park: [00:05:55] And that's really when I started studying story screenwriting and saw the pattern the universal pattern of the hero's journey and how it played out throughout our lives throughout pop culture throughout politics throughout religion and realize that this framework to story was embedded in our psyche and we didn't even realize it. And that's when I just tapped into it and thought well what if we could be intentional about it. And I could teach business leaders and owners how to use this proven framework that's been around since literally the beginning of time that is embedded like software in the hardware or the webware if you will of our brain to help people do a better job of connecting and moving people to action. And that's how it all began. You know the rest of it is kind of history and it's completely changed the arc in the narrative and the story of my life now that I literally could still teach coach and speak on the power story around the world. I'm leaving on Sunday for New Zealand to work with a bunch of social media gurus down there and some companies and then up to Melbourne and back to Phoenix in two and a half weeks and I got to tell you I am just having a blast because I see how powerful this is and how people can really connect with it and use it in that.   Park: [00:07:17] It's not something that I invented. It's something that lies dormant or latent in all of us. And my job purely is to reveal it to people and give them the frameworks that they can become intentional storytellers to as I say somewhat theoretical theatrically or theoretically to help them nudge the world in any direction they choose.   Tripp: [00:07:43] Fascinating. I mean when I when I listen to you talk and even some of the interviews that you've done obviously reinforce this type of thinking that everybody has a story within them to share and tell kind of the world if you will about what they're about their purpose you know why they're here. How do people then draw on that. What are they missing. Maybe it would be a good place to start. Why. Why isn't everybody just doing this. I mean it sounds simple enough. I mean it's you know it's just stories. You know what you get.   Park: [00:08:19] It's coached out of us. It's coached out of us at a very young age. Think about a Tripp we were all at the tops of our storytelling games in kindergarten and we lived them. We made them up and then we got to the first grade and then the second grade and we get educated and most of us grew up in the old industrial complex of education be quiet sit in your chair draw between the lines and I can't even tell you how many times I was told Park stop telling stories when I was growing up.   Park: [00:08:57] There's a fascinating guy by the name of Gordon McKenzie and he was an illustrator creative for Hallmark cards back in the day when it was just that really family feel good. Hallmark Cards organization. He was brilliant always pushing the envelope and they were afraid and he was afraid that they were kind of holding him back and they didn't want to lose him and his team around him. So they allowed him to begin Shoe Box greetings.   Park: [00:09:26] You know that little bit more irreverent sub brand of Hallmark cards because they knew what a brilliant mind this guy had. Well he did something that he talks about in his book called circling the giant hairball which is a fabulous read about for lunch today. It's about how corporations suck you know the creative daylights out of us if you let them. Well what he does or did is he would go back into grammar schools and try to encourage these kids to hold on to their artistic abilities no matter what they were taught. And he tells the story of going into the first grade walking into the better the classroom looking around and seeing all this wonderful artwork on the wall and he would ask the class who is the artist that did all of this beautiful artwork. And every kid that room's hand would shoot up every single kid he said then he could walk two doors down on the same floor in the same school and walk into the second grade classroom look up see all the artwork on the wall and he would ask the same question who's the artist here. They did all this beautiful artwork and only half the hands of the room would go up by the third grade a third of them would go up you would see where this is going Oh yeah I got to the fifth and sixth grade he was lucky to get one two or three hands to raise to say yeah I'm an artist and here's my expression of what I do. Well I believe the exact same thing has happened to us with our storyteller.   Park: [00:10:52] We are homo sapiens. Stories are unique to us. No other organism as we know it. Tell stories in the way that we can create these fictional imagined realities to get people to live into them. But in school all the way through college heaven forbid MBA world and PHD world our education systems and then our subsequent organizations do not recognize the storyteller in us. They do not teach us how to use those storytelling tools that are innate in our bodies and they don't encourage us to do so. But I'm saying that that is starting to change and more and more organizations are realizing you know we got to bring more creativity and persuasive abilities out of people and these core elements are all based in storytelling so I can tell you from a guy that got two degrees I got a bachelors in music composition and theory where you are actually looking at the storytelling parameters of creating a piece of music. I didn't realize that at the time when I got that degree. But in hindsight I see what that's all about. It's essentially the applied science of music creation and then I also got a degree in journalism and public relations and I can tell you that the closest I got to anybody teaching me about storytelling was in the journalism side was learning the inverted pyramid which is a way to tell a story in a very structured newspaper way but not really how people sit across from each other and share anecdotes and oral stories that connect their two worlds and bring people together to move them for a more powerful future.   Tripp: [00:12:39] You know it's interesting I see a lot of parallels. I do another podcasts I do it's called Driving Eureka! and it's with a gentleman named Doug Hall and now he doesn't focus necessarily on the narrative. He he he. It's very because of my background might my listeners know that I do the Deming Institute podcasts and I'm in to the work of W. Edwards Deming that you have to have an aim you have to have a purpose associated with your business and then Doug brought in kind of the narrative that you have to have this compelling narrative in order to have innovation for people to kind of get excited about participating you know because making more money for shareholders and or for the executives doesn't or isn't always a compelling story for people to to buy into. So He came along first one that I ran into started talking about narrative and and being able to come up with a story but that's not his focus per say uses more the focus on the narrative his is more on coming up with big ideas for innovation. The parallel there is this this creativeness that seems to be how he talks about in essence the same things that it's all been beaten out of us over a period of time because of the schools that we went to and and just the way that business and education are structured in such a way that it doesn't allow for us to be very creative. So in getting to the a better narrative a better way of going about and building a narrative. What are the elements of things that need to be contained within it as you found from your interviews and and your consulting work.   Park: [00:14:37] Yeah great question. You know I call it at the business of story the applied science and bewitchery of story because you have to have both. You have to understand the magic at the applied science to cast the spell to actually be effective at it.   Park: [00:14:54] Now coming through the school and the higher level degrees we get in the bigger organizations we go into and the more we climb that chain what are we taught. We're taught to look smart sound smart lead with logic make rational arguments about changes and things you want to have to do. And yet that flies in the face of everything that we know about humanity that we are not rational creatures.   Park: [00:15:21] We are first and foremost irrational emotional creatures and I'd say if you don't even need brain science and neuroscience to look at this just ask yourself when was the last time you were bored into buying anything.   Tripp: [00:15:36] Never.   Park: [00:15:39] So I didn't need a test tube for that just test your experiences. So we are taught though from again this industrial complex approach to education is to be cogs in the industrial wheel. Wherever they plug us in I've got a program called How Not to become an MBA zombie where they can turn that data and their logical left brain that they've been working so hard with into right brain emotion because we all buy with our hearts and we justify that purchases with those purchases with our heads with the logic but where we make the mistake in business as we always lead with logic when we should lead with emotion and back up the context of that with logic and here's how you do it.   Park: [00:16:24] Here's how you hook the primal brain of any and every homo sapiens and that is think in narrative structure narrative intuition of setup problem resolution.   Park: [00:16:38] Now we're already taught this as MBA is stand up comics call about setup complication punch line Hegel the famously famous theorist said in every argument the dialectic is based on thesis someone states a claim makes a thesis the debater has antithesis. They they state the exact opposite of that. And then you have synthesis through the arguments through the debate. You come to a common ground somehow somewhere.   Park: [00:17:08] Where does this stand from you outcomes. Aristotle talked about every story has to have a beginning a middle and an end. I mentioned earlier my background in music composition and theory. I was told when I was studying this in the early 80s that Mozart's a lot of sonnet Sonata Allegro form is totally based on three act story structure of exposition development and resolution setup problem resolution. It didn't mean anything to me at the time but when I started studying story that all came back in my mind and so you even look at the power of thirds and photography our brain for whatever reason is set up in these thirds give me a setup to something then make it a complication to intrigue me and to give me a problem that I have to solve or a conflict I have to overcome and then show me what the resolution is and what we've learned by looking at anthropology and looking at some of this brain science that you talked about and believe me I'm no neuroscientist but I know enough that I read and I can kind of connect the dots in some of the stuff just totally makes sense to me is that we use this setup problem resolution mode as simply problem solving monkeys because that's what we are is problem solving monkeys. I want to know what you're going through Tripp and what hole you tripped into. Pardon my pun and how you got out of it simply so that I can live vicariously through you to learn what I would do in case it ever happens to me and I get to do it from the safety of my recliner if I'm reading your story or watching you on TV or the safety of Skype if you're sharing that with me.   Park: [00:18:54] So the basic function I want your listeners to think about the applied science to begin with the literal DNA of story is setup problem resolution and a Dr. Randy Olson Harvard trained evolutionary biologist is the one that introduced this to me. this idea of and but and therefore. And he got it from the most surprising place especially from a Harvard trained evolutionary biologist. Randy also went on to become a filmmaker. Graduating from USC film school in his mid to late thirties he produced three documentaries on climate change global warming but more importantly he wrote three books to teach scientists how to do a better job of using narrative and story to communicate their big thinking ideas to get more money in their grant proposals. And it just makes sense to the rest of us. And he's the one that taught me the end but therefore and he got it. But the most surprising place of all for this guy and it was from Southpark the TV show. The animated TV series and there's a video online on YouTube called Six Days to Air where Trey Parker and Matt Stone talk about what they do when they produce each show within six days starting with concepts and scripting and they say they do this thing called Rule replacement. They take out ads in the script and replace them with butts in their fours to keep the momentum to keep the story going forward.   Park: [00:20:33] Well when Dr. Olsen saw this he realized this whole constructive set of problem resolution has been called lots of different things but it was really plainly laid out to him when he watched this particular video. And now I teach it everywhere. It's the first step to understanding how to start. Using the structure of narrative in everything you do and the greatest place to use it is in your emails. And it's this make a statement of agreement then use an "and" to increase its importance. Then throw in a "but" to introduce conflict or contradiction that flies in the face of what you said or is out to thwart its progress and then "therefore" to resolve the situation. And you can use this in anything it is it gets you singularly focused on the theme of your narrative and the theme of your story that you can then expand on. So it's clarifying your own story. It amplifies the impact with your audiences because you're not making them work for this theme. They see it front and center and they thank you for that. And then it totally simplifies your life because it makes your communication easier. You move people faster and it like it is like the single most powerful tool in my complete story business of story tool box that I have found that anybody can apply because it's basically how our brains are wired to make sense out of the madness of being human beings.   Tripp: [00:22:01] Well let me ask you this. I mean and it seems simple. I mean we as you as you articulate it. I in my brain it's saying okay. I could do that could get. Can you give me a just a real simple example of how that plays out other than maybe watching South Park. That's you ask.   Park: [00:22:22] Sure. All right. I used it on you at the beginning of the show when you asked me about my backstory. So let me unpack it for you and how I use it. So you had asked me what is your backstory. I can tell you I've been the advertising marketing branding world for 35 years and I've helped a lot of purpose driven brands grow through the power of mass media. But in 2006 we saw a paradigm shift as a tech now technology completely leveled the playing field and now the masses are the media and they own your story. Therefore we have to communicate completely differently than we were taught. And now I consult teach coach and speak on the power of stories to help people clarify their stories amplify their impact and simplify their life. There is my total narrative moving forward caught in an and but and therefore and it can be told in a one floor elevator pitch. I don't need to go any further than the second floor to be able to explain that and everybody in the room knows exactly what I'm talking about. I have at least set the context. So again what you want to do is a statement of agreement. You don't want to come off as the experts on my case.   Park: [00:23:38] I just said I've been around for thirty five years nobody can argue with that. It's just what it is. And you want to raise the stakes to that and it helped a lot. I've been successful at it. I've helped a lot of businesses achieve using the influence of mass media so that's act 1. I don't got to tell anything anymore but in business what we then do is typically is and and and and and are our people to death. And that's when they just get this guy out of here is a bore. So you do a rule of replacement take out your next stand and get to your problem that you're solving for. But technology has changed how we communicate and therefore I teach the primal power of story to help you rise above the cacophony of communication that we all compete in today so you can see how that and but and therefore it gets you thinking in a very focused way. For example when I first saw it and I've been accused as Randy has that it's reductive and insulting it can't possibly be that easy but I can tell you it is the most powerful form and it's not easy it's something that you have to practice.   Park: [00:24:47] When I first heard about it I did some research and I I looked at the Gettysburg Address the Gettysburg Address is a perfect and but therefore "ABT" as we call it. Three I struck it absolutely is when you look at it. You know fourscore and seven years ago which is another way of saying you know once upon a time because President Lincoln was such a fantastic narrator or orator storyteller and he you know he says this this great continent this great country was formed and then he moves into the next part of however which is another way of saying but here we gather on this great battlefield with all this mass destruction that is tearing this country apart. Therefore we can't consecrate this ground we know because we ourselves have not died here. But we need to pull together as a as a country to make sure that we keep all of our rights and the Constitution together. Now I'm totally paraphrasing here but look at the. And button therefore the Gettysburg Address and you'll see that it is perfect and button therefore perfect three act structure. Now here's the question. Tripp. Who spoke before Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address. Because Lincoln believed that.   Tripp: [00:25:58] He was the second speaker Yeah. And he spoke I all I remember as he spoke for like two hours or something hours. Yeah I don't know who it was.   Park: [00:26:07] The President wasn't even the keynote. It was Edward Everett. He was the former secretary of state self-proclaimed order. He spoke for two hours and yet nobody knows who that is. Lincoln spoke for just two minutes. Two hundred and seventy words is all he. All he needed to use and think about it is probably one of the most if not the most iconic speech ever given by a leader or a president for that matter. And there is great perfect story structure and he didn't know about the ABT because he didn't watch South Park back then. But he was a natural storyteller.   Park: [00:26:47] Now who else among us of our presidents use the ABT unwittingly but had tremendous narrative intuition to get elected to the highest post in the free world.   Tripp: [00:27:02] 0h I would guess Reagan.   Park: [00:27:04] Reagan was pretty good at it but someone even more unsuspecting. And yet when you think about it very obvious is Donald Trump. OK. Well what was Donald Trump's narrative platform.   Tripp: [00:27:18] I mean immigration. Yeah. None of his support. I wonder why when one day he talked about for a long time was a  I remember even being on Oprah was about trade. Was it was it was a very bad thing. Yeah. Those are two that stick out in my mind. Anyway.   Park: [00:27:37] I'm going to build a wall in Mexico.   Tripp: [00:27:40] OK yeah.   Park: [00:27:41] No that's that's all we're going to give a big tax cut to the rich. We're gonna have Reagan trickle down theory and all that but those are just support points. What he got elected on the ABT. He got elected on you go back to all of his speeches was America was once a great and mighty nation. But America is no longer great. Therefore I'm going to make America great again setup problem resolution he hammered it home over and over and over again and I can tell you I had Dr. Randy Olson on my podcast The day after the election and the reason being is he had worked with the Democrats and the Hillary group and he had worked along with you know James Carville and he told them he said You guys are going to lose to Trump if you don't get a more refined defined and compelling narrative and tried to teach them this ABT and they sort of pooh poohed him and sort of laughed him out of the room.   Park: [00:28:42] So when I called him up the day after the election we were both rather stunned. He was actually down I believe he was at NASA working with some of their scientists down there through the ABT and I said Randy I got to put you on my podcast and he said I'm just good god damn upset I am too mad to be on your show I said exactly. That's why I need to have you on air. I want that emotion to come through.   Park: [00:29:02] So I had him on the show that afternoon and we talked about it and you can sell your listeners I don't have the show number in front of me. They can go and look back the day after the allows put it in. I put on my shirt. And he talked about Trump's narrative intuition of where you know where he gets this and of course his reality TV show he's a brander that doesn't look good for the rest of us brands. He's a bit of a charlatan a bit of a P.T. Barnum but he has tremendous narrative intuition of knowing how to do a setup then you're putting the dagger into the problem and always placing himself as the resolution the narcissist he is. Here's here's why this works. But there is a great example of how narrative works on the population even though he didn't win the popular vote. He won a lot of Americans over and still has them today because of that. Now we did that show and I can tell you of all the shows I've done almost four years worth of them now. That is the only show that I got hate mail on. Oh I got hate mail from friends. They were calling me out saying why are you glorifying this guy. I'm not all Dr. Olsen I did. We're just want to reveal what's going on. And the thought to me at that time and one of my answers to them was you have to understand the magic if you're going to combat the spell. You gotta know what he's doing to you and how he does it through the stories he tells you. If you're going to combat it over you can have arguments again it gets it.   Park: [00:30:33] And now I've turned that to a more positive outlook. And I say folks if you're a leader of a purpose driven brand you have to understand the magic to cast the spell in the first place. And that's what I find. That's why I call it the applied science knowing these frameworks and The Bewitchery of story because you can literally hook the subconscious the limbic system of your audiences get them to lean into you to tell them more share an anecdote. And I can give you the next framework that I use in sharing an anecdote and then asking them to do something having a call to action or if you've hooked them so much at that point their hearts are totally into it their emotions totally into it and then finally they go whoa whoa wait a minute this just sounds too good to be true. Proof it out for me. Then you roll out your stats and your facts and your numbers and to demonstrate that now you can actually measure this stuff it works. And that's why I have found and moved away purely from being a branding guy and helping people in all walks of life how to do a better job of understanding narrative in their lives building them because my whole goal now is to bring this completely divided world that we all live in together to try to bring it together through the understanding and the empathy of being really good and just reigniting that one true superpower that we all have in our minds and our brains and our bodies. And that's the power of storytelling.   Tripp: [00:31:58] Well that's you know it's interesting that you use the analogy I usually try to stay out of the politics of things but. It's such a fascinating thing that you're talking about here because a lot of people will say that Obama was the great orator or Reagan was the great orator know know much.   Tripp: [00:32:17] But what you're saying is the messaging and the storytelling format in essence that that Trump used was more effective than than what the other two or. Or do they use the same format. In other words did Reagan and Obama use the same format but they didn't run against each other obviously. But but you know it's used in a different way. How would you assess that.   Park: [00:32:45] Yeah that is a great question. And the person the brilliant mind I would point you to to this who I just literally had on my show two weeks ago I was so honored to have him was Jonathan Haidt OK. He's one of America's foremost moral psychologists. He's written three terrific books. The Happiness Hypothesis where they looked at the ancient wisdom of everything from Buddhism to stoicism and they all related into what we know about the brain in this day and age and so this kind of intersection of today's science over what did the ancients know about this and how it comes together so that an interesting person for you if you haven't had him on the show or followed to look into. That's a great first book but a book that I'm referring to now that came out a few years ago is called that he wrote The Righteous Mind Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion and in it he talks about these six moral foundations like safety care sanctity loyalty that we all as human beings tend to lean towards to make sense out of being human and not running around killing each other.   Park: [00:33:57] But in the book he talks about how we approach these same morals from completely different perspectives where the far right will approach say for instance what's the term I'm thinking oh I don't have them right in front of me equality they will approach equality from a completely different standpoint than the left liberal leaning will approach Equality Now the left will say look at we're all human beings and we're all equal so we should all have an equal stab at everything but the right mind says there are equalities based around proportionality. It's gosh is that equality. I'm not sure I've got that exactly right. Jonathan will kill me for it but it will trigger this is it going to.   Tripp: [00:34:47] Be good reason for people listen to that podcast episode and again I put that in the show notes it's about put it link to it.   Park: [00:34:52] Proportionality you know where they look at I've done my fair share fairness that's what it's not equality it's fairness My my apologies fairness the left comes from an equality standpoint look at we're all equal to be fair everybody should have a free shot at everything no matter what the Republicans the far right come at it as fairness as proportionality you earn what you work for. So to be fair why should I give someone a handout when this other person is working their tail off so you can see the tax cut for the upper income earners doesn't fit doesn't sit well on the left because they're like look at everybody should have that tax cut on the far right they're like why should you you know penalize these people just simply because they worked hard and got ahead so they're both coming at fairness for their own reasons they're just coming at them from a completely different polar opposite way it's the stories they tell themselves the stories they grown up in nurtured in a little bit of nature is involved in this but the true expert on this is Jonathan Haidt and I have learned so much. His most recent book he came out with last. Last year I think that last spring is called the Coddling of the American Mind - Why Good ideas and bad intent or bad ideas and good intentions are setting up a generation for failure. And again it comes back to this concept of what we know about the brain and how we tell ourselves stories and in some cases we're telling ourselves the wrong stories and we're setting up people for some really potentially poor outcomes.   Tripp: [00:36:27] You know this is an issue and actually it's actually a good segue here and kind of into my next conversation conversations can be a little more forward looking but as I've studied some of the neuroscience stuff that's out there and we look at organizations and you brought up fairness and that's what kind of triggered in my head. This might be a good time to enter it in. There are five things that if you're an employee of a company that really affect kind of your mental state if you will. And this is one of the things that. I'm trying to get out in this kind of building. How do I build up brain friendly organization. But the five things are basically good faith or fairness as you would say a sense of belonging. You know you have your best friends at work that you work with on a daily basis. Those things get threatened. Layoffs have a tendency to that you have freedom the autonomy associated with the work that you do do it. Do I have a say or is everything kind of dictated to me on a daily basis here.   Tripp: [00:37:39] Here. Here's your process. Just follow the process and then if you get out of order we got a manager is going to come beat you over the head. The other is predictability. You know that there's a certain certainty about what's going on in other words no layoffs are coming. You know don't hide it. You know we're we're in a financial dire straits here associated with it. And actually that kind of feeds back into the fear fairness component because leaders these days don't do well I should. In the US especially where in Japan. If they were gonna have to take cut the first things you cut would be executive salaries you know manager salaries and then they would go to the dividend and then they would go to the employee. We don't quite follow that that that prescription. And then the fifth thing beyond the predictability is is the standing within the organization if you're standing gets compromised in an organization these are all things that can affect your daily output. And so when I'm the question I'm going to ask you Park is how can we utilize you know communication obviously is a big issue with an organization. And I see the storytelling as you know potential fix or certainly part of a fix associated with trying take to keep people and a brain friendly type of an environment.   Tripp: [00:39:12] How might we be able to communicate to employees using storytelling to keep that kind of brain friendly atmosphere with some of the things not only that I just told you which probably are going to be new to you. I expect a you know a detailed answer but but associate with the things that you've learned so far from your interviews and your own consulting work and and so forth. How might we utilize storytelling to help you know in that environment.   Park: [00:39:43] Sure. Great great question. Just think of me right now as that war torn veteran. Just come back from the front of corporate America of teaching and battling and trying to get everybody on the same page moving forward through the use of story. And I'll just share with you what I've experienced so let's just take a quickly in order. What was your very first one belonging.   Tripp: [00:40:10] Well I think though the first when we I started kind of at the bottom of my list doesn't really matter the orders.   Park: [00:40:15] OK.   Tripp: [00:40:15] Is not significant but you mentioned fairness as as part of our conversation. And so fairness is certainly one of them or good faith.   Park: [00:40:24] OK.   Tripp: [00:40:24] And that gets compromised and that's that's you know people they think that they're being underpaid or that you did something unfair to them within an organization. Boom you know that's not that's got to come back.   Park: [00:40:36] Yeah well let's start right there with fairness. OK all right. So what do stories ultimately deliver well told truthful stories deliver trust they've got to be truthful they have been well told. So even if it's bad news if you are hiding behind a fictitious story because you don't want to share the bad news your audience your employees your customers know it. They just sense it innately. So the thing that worked with a story a story delivers the trust truth that creates the trust. So all fairness is going to come out of trusting you and whether it's a positive story or a negative story as long as it's a truthful story. You've got to lead with that. So what do a lot of managers you know hide behind as my good friend Kathy Clossguess says jargon monoxide. They will come in and they'll try to buy a funeral row you know dodging questions and not answering and throwing out numbers and trying to confuse the mind versus sitting down and saying honestly folks this is what's happening. Here's the setup here's where we were. But then this does happen. Therefore we now have to have to do this. And the outcome looks like this and here's how you can be a part of that. So it goes back to basic basic narrative structure and the function of a story a story. Delivers the truth that creates the trust you are not going to develop trust any other way than to develop as a leader using your narrative instincts. All right. The one thing that I've seen out there.   Tripp: [00:42:16] Okay.   Park: [00:42:17] So what's a what was another one.   Tripp: [00:42:18] I'll give you the other ones and you just pick even don't go through it all of them. But OK you bet. There's a there's related ness or belonging within the organization. There is freedom you know autonomy associated with making your own decisions about your work. Predictability about knowing kind of what's up and coming and then they're standing your social standing associated with it.   Park: [00:42:41] Let's just take belonging for a second OK an organization and I hear this a lot from companies that I work with that are mid-market companies that have grown. They've got a terrific business model but they don't have their business or brand story pulled together. One of the angst I get from them is like geez Park we are growing so fast we're adding five or 10 or 15 new people do bodies every month and we don't have a consistent story for them to buy into to align with and to pull in all the same direction. So if a company is missing that narrative and that narrative is basically based off of their origin story why did we start this in the first place. Here's what we make. But more importantly here's what we make happen in the people and the communities we serve. If they don't have that narrative in place how is an employee going to attach their own personal story and their own narrative to the brand's narrative to create that belonging. So what happens quite often is when companies do this and they get their narrative straight and say this is truly and honestly what we're all about and we now evolve from a origin story into a quest journey story here's where we're moving into the future.   Park: [00:43:58] And here's how you can help. Sometimes they get their own employees to vote themselves off the island because they go Wow I guess I guess I'd never thought of it that way. You know what. I'm not really sure I'm the right person to be here. Nor does it really serve my narrative. I think I'm gonna go and do something else which is totally fine because you're doing them and yourself a favor. But more often not you know what happens and not are the people that go Oh my God. This is why I came here in the first place I intuitively knew this was the right place. Now you showed it to me and my own personal story my own personal narrative does meld and weave into the narrative of the greater organization and therefore I feel like I belong stories create that belonging but without a story you just have people out kind of like you know sailing in the night not in a cloudy night at that. Not really sure where they're going they know they're heading in some direction but they have not a clear picture as to where they're going. That's not the case.   Tripp: [00:44:59] That's that was such a fantastic response. Now I'm going to make you go through the other three.   Park: [00:45:04] Alright.   Tripp: [00:45:05] I'm going to put the pressure on you.   Park: [00:45:06] I don't know if you think least least relates to story.   Tripp: [00:45:12] Least that relates the story is I would say probably freedom the personal autonomy associated with your work. I mean nobody really cares about that right.   Park: [00:45:26] Right. OK. And so why. Let's look at that why don't people really care bosses really care about personal autonomy generally because they're operating from fear fear that they've got to make the numbers fear that they don't look like their leader if you're not kowtowing to them fear that they're inept if they don't have a system that you are playing in and they can absolutely measure. So that fear is is simply a story they're telling themselves.   Park: [00:45:54] Autonomy then comes from having a crystal clear vision of what the overall again the brand narrative is is where this organization is going and creating that shared imagined reality. Literally a fiction that you can get your people to buy into through the stories you tell them. But then as the leader having the courage to allow your people to be on that journey on their terms and not your terms and what has been proven out more and more is when you give them that autonomy and then you reward them for their successes through not necessarily even money recognition. It's basically a way of justifying who they are. The journey that they're on and the contribution that their journey and their story is making to the greater whole and being the social animals we are as these storytelling monkeys there is nothing more powerful than commanding and recognizing somebody who's living into their true story but that takes tremendous courage from a leadership standpoint. And that's the kind of thinking that they just simply aren't trained to do. There's been no MBA program that teaches them how to do this. Even a lot of the leadership training is all based on numbers facts stats charts and graphs. When reality more of it should be based on emotion and how do you get people emotionally connected to your story.   Tripp: [00:47:18] That's that's that's interesting. I mean there's there's so much of a parallel I know we we exchange a few e-mails before we got on for this this particular call and this episode and I told you about you know I probably ask you about Deming but there's there's so many things that you have said today and and you admittedly said you know you know you know the name Deming and but not deeply and you know involved in what his philosophy is. But the more I read about neuroscience the more even in psychology and more than even I. You've you've taught me today about storytelling feeds back into this philosophy associated a lot of things you said were very Deming you know as associated with how rewards are looked at even performance appraisals. That was one of the things that Deming railed against was because if it gets rid of the sense of fairness everybody already has a pretty high opinion of themselves and the performance appraisal appraisals have a tendency to lower their opinion and the and the associated neuroscience with that. I think a lot of the neuroscience that are trying to practice with in business are missing the point they're all trying to improve the performance appraisal as opposed to get rid of it.   Tripp: [00:48:41] And I think that that's that's associated too. I find it very fascinating. It's really a deep thinker like yourself has kind of shown me a new light associated with not only Dr. Deming work but your own you know associated with it and I you know I always like to think that things are moving towards some some truths you know that there are certain things that that certainly organizations are not doing that they should be doing and psychology said it to storytelling and emotion has said it.   Tripp: [00:49:16] The neuroscience is now saying it and they still don't do it. And you know it's fascinating to me especially when you're brought up as we were talking about you know the freedom and autonomy that went when a thing obviously Dr. Deming railed against to was was the was the fixture on the dividend you know the quarterly dividend and achieving that target and you know and then everybody has their own targets and it's all about hitting that target and nobody asks about you know how do we get it done and you know it's not about method and Deming was more about you know by what method or you can accomplish that goal but you go out there goal without a method as a wish.   Tripp: [00:49:56] So so it is all associated with this and somehow all of this fits together and getting now bigger stronger pieces especially with the story telling component which I find completely fascinating. Shines a light on how we might be able to get organizations to move where we have people that want to come to work every day you know and enjoy it. And we've all seen the Gallup polls and things about you know people are checked out you know and working within organizations because we're not tapping into them. And I certainly see storytelling as a way of doing that. Well one final question for you Park and I always ask this question Is there anything that you've talked about that maybe you want to give a clarification of. Or is there anything I didn't ask that you wish I would have.   Park: [00:50:46] Oh gosh it's such it's such a big expansive topic and I want to thank you for saying I'm a deep thinker because nobody ever has really suggested that of me I'm a I'm a dot connector to a lot of reading and stuff.   Park: [00:50:59] The one other thing I would look at. Have you or your audiences think about this just as it was a poll that came out that linked Dan promoted about three weeks ago something like that the top five soft skills companies need most in 2019 and this was from a worldwide survey they did. I was really amazed at this was done based on research from LinkedIn learning it said here are the top five things are looking for usually it was the hard skills the engineering skills and the very measurable hard skills but surprisingly enough that's changed to the quote unquote soft skills of creativity persuasion collaboration adaptability and time management.   Park: [00:51:43] And the reason why that is is with A.I. and algorithms and big data and that sort of thing is the hard skills of pulling that together they got like a lot of those folks already. But what they're finding now is this disconnect with connecting with people and getting people back in on this human approach to running businesses. So if you just break down these five very quickly creativity how many times do executives and maybe your listeners are saying well I'm not a very creative person and I would never bring creativity to the office because it's not really wanted there. I'm not a good designer or whatever. Well storytelling is the greatest creativity hack because everybody's a storyteller. You can learn to become a compelling storyteller in your own way. You might not win a moth contest but you could own a room doing it by getting people to lean in. And when you tell a well told truthful story people will automatically see you as being creative. So number one number two persuasion there is no more persuasive tool in the power of a story. Again when was the last time you were bored into buying anything. As Jonathan Haidt said our brain is a story process. It's a story processor not a logic processor. So regardless you will not find any interpersonal skill more powerful at persuasion than being able to tell a story that connects two worlds together.   Park: [00:53:14] Collaboration All stories start with empathy. You first have to have understanding and empathy for your audience that you are trying to connect with. Why are you trying to connect with you want to collaborate with them to do something better something big or metaphorically you bring your two worlds together to make a greater third world well story is the only thing that does that. Understanding and thinking and narrative and story and bringing two stories together for a stronger more powerful third narrative is what storytelling is all about adaptability. From that same understanding and empathy of knowing and appreciating your audience even if they are diametrically opposed to your position creates a more adaptable mind a more nuanced mind.   Park: [00:54:02] I say data proffers knowledge but stories convey wisdom and that's what you're looking for an adaptability knowledge just helps you kind of understand the context but it's wisdom that you can use and exercise that creates that demonstrates your adaptability makes you more adaptable and you only get wisdom through those stories you've experienced and the journeys you're on.   Park: [00:54:26] Finally time management starting with the end button therefore start using this applied science of the And But and Therefore in your emails you cut your email writing by two thirds you will have readers that will actually hug you in the hallway saying thanks. I actually understand what you're talking about now and it took me one fourth of the time to get there and everybody's happy. That's just one little example of how you become better with time management by becoming a better storytelling Teller and using these frameworks. That's why I say with the business of story I'm all about helping you clarify your stories to amplify your impact and ultimately simplify your life.   Tripp: [00:55:08] Very good. And I will put a link in the show notes to. Your Web site and some of the things that that you offer through not only workshops that you do speaking so that's great. What I really.   Park: [00:55:23] So much for having me man I'm glad you reached out this has been a really really fascinating conversation.   Tripp: [00:55:29] Yeah I know. And you know one other thing I have to say is I do the first. Excuse me podcaster that I've interviewed before everybody else has written a book or done something like that and I actually found it a little bit easier to talk to you one I think you're empathetic to doing the podcast since you have to do it on your own. But the second thing I found very useful as as you mentioned things I'm able to then linked back to your podcast to be able to say here listen to this episode and you can tell you'll get more you know volume and I'm all about you know making a bigger pie as opposed to fighting over the one that exists.   Park: [00:56:11] So I appreciate that you know Tripp from doing your own shows that are our shows are really self-indulgent because we get to talk to such amazing people like yourself like the Jonathan Haidt of the world the Dr. Randy Olsen's or the absolute. I have learned so much in the process that now that's all I do is try to share what I've learned and what I've seen work in action in the real world now.   Tripp: [00:56:37] But I bet you're right. I mean and I think that we have a similar personality or whatever. As far as being dot connectors I mean because I read a lot too. I like to to kind of put things together. But it's this person saying how did they get there what's the research on it. You know those types of things that build it so that. Well one last question. I know I said that my last question but what do you what are you reading right now.   Park: [00:57:04] I am literally reading a book my son our son sent me called, The Algorithms to Live By the computer science of human decisions by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. Now our son Parker is in Hollywood. He's graduated from Chapman University. A lot of the study that I did at my own story work when I said I went to Hollywood yes he was at it. Chapman from 2006 graduated in 2010 and has been in Hollywood ever since as a motion designer and doing a lot more directing now in the virtual reality world. So I asked him I said when you're done with your textbooks at Chapman send them to me since I'm paying for them because I'd like to learn what are they teaching you to be a competitive storyteller and all that can you know the most competitive storytelling land in the world and being L.A. so that's where I started learning this well. He also has this mathematical mind always has been very very good at numbers and algorithms and so he sent me this book for my birthday said here Dad read this book I'm reading it then we can compare notes. So I have had to slowly read through it. But it's really fascinating and I find it's another interesting look at how our mind really represents or reflective of a computer apparatus or maybe I should just flip that the computer apparatuses that we have developed are simply a reflection of the mind that we have been blessed with. And this is a book that explores how those two worlds work very similarly.   Tripp: [00:58:33] Funny thing I read it over Christmas.   Park: [00:58:36] Oh you did.   Tripp: [00:58:37] Yeah I know. I was if my wife got it out of the blue and I thought it was you know it was fascinate but you will get a lot out of it. It is it is a slow read especially as you get into some of the later chapters know how far you're into it but there's a lot to digest there.   Park: [00:58:55] The Copernican Principle just coming up on the OK so that makes me very good.   Tripp: [00:59:01] All right well we thank you for being part of the mind your noodles podcast.   Park: [00:59:08] Well thanks for having me Tripp. The one last thing I leave with all of you to remember is that the most important story you will ever tell is the story you tell yourself so make it a great one. And thanks for having me.   Tripp: [00:59:23] Thank you for being a listener of the mine your noodles podcast. If you'd like to learn more or sign up for our newsletter or upcoming podcasts go to. MindYournoodles.com.  

Gina Harris is the CEO of Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (NILMDTS), a nonprofit that provides professional remembrance photography worldwide for families who have suffered a stillbirth or infant loss. She understands firsthand the difference NILMDTS can make by positively impacting others lives during extremely difficult times. Listen to this episode to learn more about the importance of capturing a memory as part of the grieving process. Listen and Learn: Gina’s personal story that led to her Rainbow Babies The importance of creating tangible memories Tips on how medical providers can educate and inform families about the NILMDTS services Social media’s role in creating acceptance of such photographs How the NILMDTS process works Advice on how providers can take photos for the family if needed and other ways to support families Resources from Gina that You Can Use in Your Practice: Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Website Related Products: A Guide to Grief & Healing After the Loss of Your Baby (Book+Web App) A Guide to Grief & Healing After the Loss of Your (Web

Gina Harris is the CEO of Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (NILMDTS), a nonprofit that provides professional remembrance photography worldwide for families who have suffered a stillbirth or infant loss. She understands firsthand the difference NILMDTS can make by positively impacting others lives during extremely difficult times. Listen to this episode to learn more about the importance of capturing a memory as part of the grieving process. Listen and Learn: Gina’s personal story that led to her Rainbow Babies The importance of creating tangible memories Tips on how medical providers can educate and inform families about the NILMDTS services Social media’s role in creating acceptance of such photographs How the NILMDTS process works Advice on how providers can take photos for the family if needed and other ways to support families Resources from Gina that You Can Use in Your Practice: Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Website Related Products: A Guide to Grief & Healing After the Loss of Your Baby (Book+Web App) A Guide to Grief & Healing After the Loss of Your (Web

The Art of Asking for Google Reviews with Jonah Canter. Owner of Canter construction in Charleston, South Carolina. They are premier company that does remodeling, it's a fun talk we had together we talked about how he grew his business basically with zero dollars. He's shares   how he get’ s so many google reviews and what his results have been with us today going to share that with us today.” Hey welcome to contractors secret weapon. Today, we've got a great day, we got a great guest. And you know, I it's just fun when I have an opportunity to talk with other contractors about their successes and the things that make them grow. And today I have Jonah Canter. He owns Canter construction company in Charleston, South Carolina. They are premier company that does remodeling. So, it's a fun talk we had together with talked about how he grew his business basically with zero dollars. And so, he's going to share that with us today. And so, that you can help your business grow and maybe the same way that Jonah did his. And so, let's get into and Welcome Jonah Canter from Canter construction in Charleston South Carolina. Jonah, I am so glad that you're with us today. It's a really special treat for me because I don't get to talk to many contractors and it's really exciting. So, thanks for being with us today. Dave, I appreciate it as well and thanks for having me on the show. For those of people who don't know me out there my name is Jonah Canter. I'm the owner of Canter construction and also a co-owner of Oceanside construction and design located here in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. And, I've been in the construction industry for probably over 20 years but actively with my companies for the past 10 years and deeper capacities from being the guy that you know the hammer on the nail all the way up to you know being the owner now and having to make a lot of the hard decisions and business decisions that come with it. So, all that fun work. Now, before is be mindlessly just go to work do this to this to this. And now it's like, I got to think about stuff. Yeah, it's a-- I am the organizer of chaos. That's what I tell my wife and whenever anybody ever questions, I have an employee, a long time ago, say to me "Well, you know what do you get paid to do". And I looked at him dead in the face and I didn't embed it I said "I get to do the hundred dollar an hour stuff. You get to do the 14 dollar an hour stuff". So, we'll just keep it at that. But, no. Seriously it's-- I've had kind of a very interesting background. As a kid I grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. Went on a soccer scholarship to all male private school and Sidney in Virginia went for a year. Hated it. Dropped out. Didn't know what I was going to do. I moved down to Florida. To Fort Lauderdale area and ended up working on boats. That was when you're young and you can kind of be stupid not know what you really wanted to do. And, I slowly made my way back up. And my family is from the Charleston area and ended up getting a job with my brother in law. Believe it or not as a shipping manager for a startup company. And, if you don't know me one thing that I'm very proud of is that if you hand me a shovel and tell me to dig you a trench, I'm going to dig you the best trench you've ever seen. I've just always had a really strong work ethic so, when they put me in that role as a shipping manager I was trying to find ways of making things better faster cheaper for the company and that kind of I guess guest caught the eye of some of the business owners and they kept promoting me within that startup company. To the point where I ended up moving overseas to the Netherlands. And what's their point man for opening up a print facility. So, that was a whole fun time of my life and by this time I was only about 22 years old. Had hair down to my shoulders. You know, still a dumb kid just trying to figure it all out. But when I moved overseas to the Netherlands, I gained that whole business since that operation since like hey they're counting on me and there's people under me who were counting on me. I have take the serious. So, that was a fun part of my life where it kind of, I tell people I grew up very fast at 22 or the rest of my friends were waiting tables drinking and doing whatever they wanted. I was negotiating print contracts with Dutchman and Belgian people at the time. So, anyways the whole point of that is that Amazon ended up buying that company and I ended up working for Amazon and for a while in the same capacity. Opening up these print facilities in various locations other fulfillment centers. I got my business background from working at Amazon. And Amazon's a place if you've never worked for them. It is a really tough environment. They expect the world, they expect, blood, sweat, tears and almost your first-born child will work. And I lasted about three years and my wife said I'll I'll divorce you if you don't quit because I wasn't sleeping and all that. But what it did teach me is it taught me a lot of things that I apply to my business now and in a couple of those things is the customer experience has to be the most amazing thing on earth right. It has to be something that they're not getting because if they can just get it anywhere, well, you're one of a million. But if you supply something they don't have or they are not seeing, that makes you you know, the one-eyed man is king of the land of the blind kind of situation. So I really when I when I came back from all that I started my company and at first it was a cabinet company and House of round 2007. I was old. Now it's feeling good to have not. And then this year of 2008 hit and all hell broke loose as everybody knows now that's going into 2007 was a millionaire and 2008 they lost it all. And in the words of Richard Branson they asked them they said "How do you become a millionaire?" And he said "Well, you start as a billionaire. And then you buy air and company of which is true". But, anyway bottom tanked that I had to shut that company down. Lucky for me the same guys who had started that other startup. I literally was walking down the street and saw them and they were like we are pros and they were like "What are you doing" and I was like struggling and they're like we're getting the band back together. And so, I just as soon as I stepped in my construction light I step right back out of it and I ended up working for those guys for a long time and another software startup until this past year they allowed me to own my construction company and be their point guy at the software company. Yeah, it was amazing situation for me that's why I took it on. Great guys. I have great respect for them and I slowly but surely left that business altogether and focused on my business. But, I guess I'm giving you a little breadcrumbs to show you. You know sometimes you don't know where your life is going to take you but you need to take pieces your life and apply them to the next part of your life. Well yeah. And a lot of the interesting things that I think that nobody really thinks about is that you are here today because of what you went through in the past. Yeah. And the person you're going to be because of what you've learned in the past. Yeah. So, it's important. It really is that when you when you take it into that perspective. Yeah and it's one of the things when I when I got serious about my construction company the one thing that I wanted to do was I wanted I look at things at work. Let me take you back. I was at a conference one time giving a speech and this kid stood up and he said "Hey Jonah you've been an entrepreneur. What--What are you. How do you look for the next new technology or next new thing to land a business in?". And I looked at him and I said you don't. I said you take something that exists now and you make immensely better. So, Uber did that to the taxi industry and Amazon is doing that to almost everything right and right now. So you don't have to be some super smart guy. And the next technology but you have to do is look at businesses that are not being run well as a whole or as a general philosophy and make them better. So, when I came into construction, that's the first thought and I started to look at it. I know you're laughing because you know and everybody is probably listening knows that the construction industry is rife with just idiots. Be honest with you. I mean Darrell is bad business people you name it. And one of my fond jokes that I tell my customers today, just get a laugh but it's true, as I said who knew the minimum bar to success was having all my teeth and showing up on time. I'm going to be rich. And anybody that doesn't have teeth I'm not making fun of you about that but there is a little bit of a stigma there was that I was I was in the paint store when Nana and I was tied to the representative and even talking about my stuff like this. And he goes you know because of that bench and more they have to have training seminars that are painters in different parts of the country. And he said the trainer come in and there's like 100 guys in a room and say Frank's in his book he says probably six eight 10 inches. And he holds it up and then he puts it down and he goes OK well we're going to make this simple today. How many people want to become wealthy in the contract painting contracting business like a bunch of guys raise their hands. It goes OK. He says it's not in this book he said. Answer your phone and return phone calls. So true. So even today I get calls and that's another thing of mine. I pick it up. I try to be responsive and people will pick up and go oh my gosh. I didn't expect you to pick up and I'm like well I'm not like everybody else. I'm going to talk to you because I mean I have the ability in my current role to make sure that every car-- it calls me is answered. And so, there's little things like that that people miss. But the idea I had was focusing on things like that that are I look back now are very small details and very simple and don't cost you money and are simple but mean the difference of the world it changes you completely different from the other guy. I don't care what kind of car you roll up in or truck. I don't care what you look like. I'm bearded with tattoos right. I care how you respond to me. I care about your personality how you react things and so you can be mentally better than everybody else. In that case you're going to be successful so that's what I did with this company. Canter construction and it's really helped me keep myself grounded, keep a good head on where I want my business. It's been very successful for my business as well. But one of the stories I think I came here today to kind of talk about is trying to help contractors who are typically good at being contractors. Their skill sets. They're good carpenters or whatever but they fall short when it comes to the business side. They didn't get the training they don't have the know how whatever. And in that sense a lot of what is left out I think is you know trying to figure out how to keep your phone ringing without paying money. Right. That's the biggest thing for your phone ringing. So, a while ago, I was getting my domain name which is www .Canterconstruction.com . I was trying to get that domain name because it's my last name. And low and behold this other company popped up and they they're like they happen to be related to me 14 cousins or something. Right. And I looked out No. No problem I'll do Canter construction SC for SouthCarolina.com and roll on. And as I started to become successful I started to get these comments from people saying hey I looked up your company and your Web site and there's some old man not a Wilkesboro North Carolina or wherever it was. And I said Really. And I started to look at this and I realized wow these people were looking for me in Charleston and this other companies popping up. Are they going to get my business now or that business.?-- No because they're not in the Charleston area. But it led me to go you know what they are. The Web site didn't look fresh. It looked like it was old PHP. And I said you know they may not care about this. I'm going to call them and we're related so I'm going to ask him to tell us that they'll let me buy the domain. So, I called in a nice lady answered and I just I went in and said hey I'd like to potentially talk to you guys about buying your domain. And she literally went nope and hung up the phone. Oh right. And I was like gosh you didn't even know I'm going to offer like 2 million dollars. I mean I wasn't but you just she cut me off and to this day I even tell people I do not hold anything against those guys. They did nothing wrong. I wouldn't I wouldn't sell my domain right now. Somebody asked me but what if it was it. All of a sudden lit this fire. And I always used the term you know hell hath no fury like me scorned when she scorned me on that. I decided enough is enough. I want to figure out how I would my people search for my name and trolls and how I can be the topless and Google them and so one of the things that I did and going through that is I learned all this on the fly and people listening that know a little bit about that are already thinking he's learning Seo or search engine optimization. That is the goal at the end of this and it's a bit of alchemy and smoke and mirrors. We'll talk more about that. But what I tried to do was how do I get myself in front of people when they do a search for my name? That's how I started. Now, I look at ways of when you look at contractor Charleston how am I the first one. So that's a little bit about what I'm going to talk about. First thing that they may not do well you are. I mean that's one of the things like you know I come up if you're looking for my name or my business but you know you like you're saying if they're looking for your name under your or your business find that to look for contact on an animal and you want to come up there you want to be trained from their face as best you do and that's the harder of the two things that nobody knows you as your or they get your name from somebody else. But people serendipitously finding you that's what you want. Right. Because I'm searching for this. And your result for that. So, one of the first things that I teach people to do is there's a lot of free web sites out there.  that allow you to have free listings where you can put your company logo your Web site pictures it's free to do. You can go out there spend some sweat equity in a six pack of beer watching TV and put yourself out and on as many sites as possible. Now will these sites try to back sell you like oh by subscription of course. But the point being there is ignore them. Put them in junk whatever. But you just-- you're starting to build relevance in multiple listings because instead of your name being just on a Google business listing now it's on mana, now it's on porch, now it's on house. So, your kind of like throwing seven eight fishing lines out there. And what you'll probably find when you do that is not much is going to happen with your business and it shouldn't. Really, it's just getting you out in the world. Now the thing that I learned was that after I keep in mind I was doing this hoping for big expectations I didn't see. And I was like huh. So, I went to phase two. And what I initially did was porch was a company that I had listed on and they had to deal with Lowe's where they had a kiosk in a Lowe's and you could buy any of the windows installed or a fan installed. And here's preferred contractors. Gorgeous Web site. So, I went on porch and just had a bunch of people review me and I had maybe 21 reviews and all of a sudden, I went back to that search for Canter construction and lo and behold those people-- nice people-- that they are in North Carolina were third or fourth on google in my area. I was like OK I see what's going on here. And so, the third phase of this chapter having a little bit of success there was I started to look at my Web site and pictures a little more closely. Now keep in mind I have Google Analytics on the backside of my web site. I look at those all the time to see where people coming from when they get to my website what do they do. The thing that I realized from looking at those business analytics was on my first web I went Wow they're popping in and popping out right. I didn't have my number friends center. It wasn't a you know a beautiful like a spider web of capturing them and to them digging in deeper. So, I cannibalize my first web site came up with a brand new clean slick web site. Same one I had today and started to watch the business analytics again and I started to realize that people were then popping in and searching around. They're spending more time when they do get to my Web site. So little bit of just to backtrack as you get yourself out there and as many places as possible prime you then try to focus on reviews which initially I did poor reviews and we're going to get into the google reviews in a second and then you look at your Web site and you're listing even those listings that I mentioned. You always want to have fresh pictures fresh updates to it you may not cannibalize the whole Web site but Google does backtrack and look at things and it notices when things are updated and says oh well you've updated pictures so it gets back into relevance when somebody's searching for contractor and it can help you down the road saying oh we think you're looking for Canter construction. So, I did that for a little bit and then was still not seeing. I wanted to honestly have those people off the first and think page stuff. My wife always jokes she says Jonah if you had a boat I'm pretty sure you would name it. Never satisfied. And that's so true. And I wasn't. So, what I did next was I shamed myself today for not focusing on this but I had a Google business listing and I started to do what I call the art of asking and not asking for Google reviews is very simple and it had the most immediate and profound effect on my business and the business elite that I ended up getting. You have to keep in mind Google is something that not a hundred percent of people have but almost everybody on earth has a G.M. account right. So, the things that you're looking when you're asking for a favor which is what you're doing when you ask for a review you don't want it to be convoluted and step through hoops or to sign up for something that's junk. Nobody's going to do it. It's going to stop the process. But if you make it one click an easy you're going to get reviews. So, what I started doing was I would do work for clients make sure they were totally happy. Jonah you’re the best thing since sliced bread. Awesome it. And then I would send him a follow up e-mail and say hey for people like you who found me on line or found me through a review of through a referral. Google Reviews are a good way of saying I do top quality work. I'm a good guy I'm honest. All of these things. Do you mind providing me with a five-star review and then I would send them a hyper link for the Canter 5-star review right there in the e-mail. What that would do is boom they clicked that hyperlink they go right to the review and they're typing away 5star sin and done. And it's you have to as a contractor you have to understand that you are asking for a favor so keep it simple but Google who runs one of the biggest if not the biggest search sites. Why was I not kidding reviews from Google to begin with? I look back and I want to hit myself from heaven. But what that did was as a couple of things it kept me in check to make sure that my business was running correctly. I was offering good services good customer service good skilled services to clients because I was I wasn't just done when the job was done and the check was in my bank. I wanted something more. Right. So, it's a good check and balance for contractors to keep them. If you want to grow your business you've got to be good at it. You've got to be the best at it and you do that by being able to ask for as many reviews as possible. So, I asked for these reviews over time. And the next thing I realized was it was quiet. And then the phone started bringing. And then the phone kept ringing and I would pick it up and they'd go yes just Kaner construction. I'm like yes. And they're like "oh yeah, I found you online" and I was just ear to ear smiling because up to that point my life-- 75 percent of my business was referral from realtors, friends, whomever and made a good living on that. And, you know, the 25 percent was, somebody just randomly found you and I don't even know if I got the work from home at that point. Fast forward to the day, 90 percent of my work comes from online and 10 percent is referrals. So, that's an amazing flip. And what happens there is, I talked about the alchemy of it.  Nobody truly understands as SEO and if they do tell you that they're a snake oil salesman in the fold because Google is always changing their spaghetti algorithm of search relevance and results in everything. So you're always chasing a ghost. But if you know where that ghost is going to appear you can try to target yourself to figure out how to be there at that time and so that's where I'd like to recap and say fundamentals here. Get yourself out in as many places as possible cannibalize. Update your Web site. Make sure that you're asking for reviews. Get it. I don't want to say that you ended up like kind of whoring yourself out there but you really have to promote yourself as much as possible on the Internet. And if you know if you have five google reviews don't even act like that's enough. Right. I have. I thought I heard you got fifty-five. Google reviews Yeah and I'm constantly asking every day for people when we close our jobs. Will you give me a review? Give me review because that's free marketing that I don't pay for I don't use Google Ad Words. I don't pay for any of that and never seen any results. Blood sweat equity which is what we all need in Kontra. I found out ways to keep promoting myself to the point where if you are in the geography of Charleston and you look up contractor Charleston now I'm one of the top guys in fact I come up there against commercial giants in the area. I'll be the 4th guy and the biggest thing is up to 5 to refuse you get your revelations irrelevant and you Cito up your pictures so there's constant upgrading of your gear. Your Web site which is really not a big deal. It's not really done take you all the time but these are the little things you know that Google looks for and there are little things that most your kids can do. It's correct. Now it's funny as people who may start say they're in Florida or somewhere else you might get different results because it does look at your area a likelihood that you want so it doesn't mean you'll look up contractor by me but I don't really care about people necessarily Charleson as much as I do about the greater Charleston area right. But the thing that it's a star that shines the brightest about the reviews and I've had plenty of people telling me this is we saw some other contractors and they had four reviews a new head 50 by 5 star reviews. We called you because we're like oh my gosh you can't have any brothers or cousins that are out there. And so that's a that's a testament to a person who does not know you right somebody who finds you organically doesn't know you from Adam right already knows that they don't trust contractors by very nature. You build that trust before they even pick up the phone and call because they look and go wow. People like this guy and seems to do good work. So, there's tons of benefits not only to getting your own leads and whatnot but also in securing deals and in adding a layer of comfort for particular clients that they're trusting you right off the bat because they like what you say you make it easy for them. Yes. And it's you know it's like you're selling yours. You're doing everything for him like I had and I just did that with one of mine because I said you know she was just rain and rain. She says your mom you don't understand how my mom usually throws contractors off the job the first day like she goes. She thinks again pay by the hour or taking too long. Yeah. Now it's true. So, I should never have a contract to you pay by the hour. That's terrible. I know that so I said so. So, she was you know at my house were thinking about selling and I go. So, we got through. You know as I said my mom loves you guys she goes You must love your job or your work. And I go Why did she say that. Because you're doing all the little stuff the meticulous stuff and she said I said you write a review on that which is good. Absolutely. So, you know I did and I provided was the link and a lot of times that will do. I don't have anywhere near 55. But I'll give him the link and I will get this is what I heard you say change it if you are you know just so they can cut and paste it. Yeah, I thought about doing that but I kind of like that kind of off the cuff because sometimes I get reviews that are comical to me but they're a testament to my crew. So, I have a guy named Pete who is a phenomenal phenomenal guy. I pay him a lot of money but he's an OCD neat freak. You'll never find another man like Pete. And somebody wrote this company is awesome and Pete is the cleanest person I've ever met on a job site. But you think about that. You were both laughing and it was funny. But to a client who that's important to that's going to be a selling point to them. Right. Yeah because that's what I hate is when I got to clean up after someone come into work and my house absolutely. So, there's you know when it gets back to the review part of it I think you know people just need to understand how reviews are actually hidden money in it and a great example is and I've done this several times as contractors will get into situations where there's a wall and you're doing some work and you don't know what's behind it. You can't rip it up before your a contract with them. You get into it and you're like hey I'm going to charge 2000 dollars for whatever it is. And you open up the wall and you go oh man this isn't as bad as we thought. Yeah, we can do that two. Whatever. It's only about 15. Hunter Well you know what I do. I'm not greedy. I go back to that client. I go Hey Guy Lady whatever we were going to charge you to I'm going to reduce this to 15 because it's less work. And I think I think you'll be happy with that. And it's a fair price at that one. I don't want to overcharge you. And the look on their face is like oh my god Jonah I would have honestly, I would have never known that. And you could have just taken my money. That's amazing. I appreciate it. What does that build absolute trust that this guy now forming. Oh yeah because the next thing I'd say is hey you know what. Since I saved you five hundred dollars. I'd rather be a five-star review that's worth tons of money to me. So, it's got to be you know in that sense you've got to be a guy that you know you're shifting and understanding that I may be taking 500 dollars out of my pocket but what am I gaining I'm gaining a five-star review or referral and somebody who 100 percent trust me. And if anybody goes Man I need a contract or I'm going to be the first person in their mind. So, there's important. You know having values in this industry and not being shady can get you positive results and not being shady of simply charging people for what they should be charged. And when you see something like that you know help them out. So, you know don't be afraid to charge them. But given the value that they're expecting. Absolutely So that's really awesome. You know all that free stuff that you can do it takes time and it doesn't happen overnight but it does take time but everything works that takes time anyways. It does I mean if you think you're going to get into a business and make a million dollars tomorrow you'll be sadly mistaken. The truth of this business is you need to be able to weather anything that comes out you. I'm building my business so that when the next bottom drops I keep on rolling through it with a smile on my face while everybody else is selling their 80000-dollar trucks and houses on the water and they're screwed. I'll be buying up those properties from them and that's what you're really trying to do is you're trying to futureproof your business and you do that by getting in the trenches and doing this kind of small nuanced work and doing it right so that when it does come time when everybody starts to fold you'll have plenty of guys trying to do work for pennies on the dollar because they're struggling. And I just have work coming in you know. So that's I think that's a you know important value to have. That's really been very very interesting especially with the reviews you've got 55. So that's just that's just being consistent all the time always asking because here's what I read an article not too long ago. And it just blew me away that when you ask somebody for review or testimony that was really astronomically low I'm going to say 50 percent of people actually do it but 90 percent of the people check it. Yes. Yes. And that's why you have to be diligent but not too pushy. I've sent I sin no more than two reviewer a review requests. I'll ask them. Do you mind right. Yeah, no problem. I'll send him an email with a link. Nothing happens I'll send them a follow up e-mail and say hey just want to make sure you got this. Do you mind giving us a review. If I don't hear anything I move on because I'm not going to be pushy about it because it feels forced at that point. But you are right. And for that very fact. Keep in mind what people typically write a review about negatives. They 100 percent write you a negative review but they very rarely will write you a positive review. So back to the 55 google reviews I take that as a testament when people see that some people know that and go wow. I mean it's like when you're on Amazon you buy a product you can see people who are complaining about the shipping of the product and you're like That's not a product review. You can't do that. I don't care. You screwed it up but Binda two and three stars. Those are the ones you're paying attention to because people were looking and they'll write about hey it broke down after two weeks or didn't work out to ship it back it was damaged. Those kinds of things are a valid product reviews. And so, when you have a product that's got a five star review I don't even read all of them like done. So, you are going to buy it whatever. I trust that through the social media aspect of this that that the group hive mentality works and it's a good thing. Any last thoughts on the google reviews and I know the end here just I just want to tell people you know just take what I've told you and put your own kind of spin on it. You may find results in your area depending on your geography north south east west wherever it is may vary. Just keep in mind if you're the best person at doing this and you're doing it without paying a company to do it for you you're going to win. You've got the tenacity. Ruiz is the hundred percent of keeping. And also, just expect that results may vary but they may take some time but they will start to see the fruits of your labor if you will. So, and I also Dave I also like to tell people feel free to reach out to me with questions or comments any kind of feedback I'm a very open book. I like people to respond. I like helping people and I have a couple of different ways you can do that. First you can email me directly. This is my direct e-mail is Jonah jJonahcanter@gmail.com  That's my direct e-mail. Feel free to send me any comments there or if you want to have a more fun aspect of our company and you're on Instagram. I'm a huge Instagram or I love it. I think it's the best thing on earth. You can find me at Chuck town which is my personal account or Cantor construction which is the business account and you can see pictures of us goofing off on the job sites. In general, having some fun. Feel free to reach out and either way you can be a voyeur and just look at the pictures. Or you could feel free to ask me any questions. I am an open book and I want to be able to help people so please do reach out. Cool. That's awesome. Thanks so much for spilling your guts and sharing this. It's really been fun we're going to have you back again. Talk about something else.  That sounds good you know always do it Dave. I appreciate it. Everybody listening.   To connect with Jonah Canter Gmail: jonahcanter@gmail.com www.canterconstructionsc.com www.oceansidesc.com Instagram: @canterconstruction @chucktown (personal account...me being goofy)   There are so many ways to do almost free marketing you just have to think about it or you could just go to the web site and pick up the free download.  4 Hot Marketing Strategies That Can Flood Your Business with Customers If you have a story to tell and would like to be a guest on this podcast email my assistant Shell at Shell@contractorssecretweapon.com   and she will send you our guest sheet.     Our sponsors  Would you like your phone to ring more with qualified buyers people looking to buy now? Then let’s make that happen. Best Home Services Leads is dedicated to making your phone ring with qualified buyers wanting to buy now. Go to and fill out the form to get more information.       http://contractorssecretweapon.com/money  How about 100 free postcards sent out to your best prospective customers. Radius Bomb sends out hyper targeted, laser focused postcards using a map while sitting in your under ware at your kitchen table then go to http://contractorssecretweapon.com/radiusbomb  Painting Contractors, get up to a 24% better response rate just for having the right memorable telephone number 1-800-PRO-PAINTER.Check out your area before someone beats you to it and it’s not available. https://www.1800propainter.com/ 

About  Natorious Design Studios  Branding ? Graphics ? Web Natorious Design Studios is a full-service design studio offering creative, professional graphic design, web design, package design and logo design services in Montgomery, AL. I know that your image is a vital part of your business. Your Web site, advertising, brochures and other collateral must offer more than just a pretty picture. Your image has to work hard for you, with words and graphics tailored to tell your story to potential customers, and it has to have the desired effect on your bottom line. My experienced design team works with you to ensure that you get the right image and a higher return on your investment. We focus on understanding your business, your marketing environment, and what makes your company unique. We help you find the design solution that best meets your needs, from a simple ad to a corporate identity program, and then we complete it efficiently and economically. Mission Statement Natorious Design Studios handles each project as if it were the only project. The care and consideration that goes into every aspect of the creative process all the way to the end result are geared towards one thing and one thing only for my clients: Return on Investment. Natorious Design Studios brings a visual life to your brand or organization unlike any other. I am proud of my work and I settle for nothing less than my clients to have the best graphic design the market has to offer. Contact Info nhoward@natoriousdesign.com  

AutoPilot Your Business with Heather Porter and Andrew McCauley Are you living in a cave? Are you still scratching your head about Twitter and other social media sites? Then, as a business owner and/or entrepreneur, you need to learn how to use social media to drive marketing and sales. First, you need a web site for your business. AutoPilot and automate your site to convert visitors into customers and generate sales. Your Web site should sculpt your customer’s journey! * Press play above to listen to this weeks Podcast * How do you autopilot your business and Web site? Get help! Andrew McCauley and Heather Porter, founders of AutoPilot Your Business, help business owners utilize online and social media marketing. AutoPilot teaches and educates people on how to use these platforms for their business. Also, it helps businesses concentrate on getting online and developing a strong Web presence. Here are some key tips to follow: ** Your Web site needs to be viewable on both computers and mobile devices. ** Make sure to feature fresh, unique, and relevant content. ** Simplify your site - less clicks and scrolling the better! In this episode of Business Brain Food you will learn: ** How to utilize the online world and social media ** About tools and plug-ins to use for your Web site ** What devices are used to view Web sites ** How to set-up a Web site (hosting, domain, themes, design, etc.) ** What to include on your site (forms, blogs, about) ** About opt-in giveaway items (checklists, downloads, etc.) ** About email autoresponders (Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, etc.) ** How to drive traffic to your Web site Resources mentioned in this episode: ** AutoPilot Your Business: www.autopilotyourbusiness.com ** AutoPilot Your Business – Connect With Us Socially: aybsocial.com ** AutoPilot Your Business Podcasts: autopilotyourbusiness.com/podcasts/ ** Snapchat: snapchat.com ** WordPress.com: wordpress.com ** WordPress.org: wordpress.org ** Envato Market: themeforest.net ** LeadPages: leadpages.net ** MailChimp: mailchimp.com/ ** Constant Contact: www.constantcontact.com ** Campaign Monitor: www.campaignmonitor.com ** AWeber: www.aweber.com ** Outbrain: www.outbrain.com ** Kalin's PDF Creation Station: wordpress.org/plugins/kalins-pdf-creation-station ** Dropbox: dropbox.com ** 6 Steps to Fast Track Your Business: businessfasttrack.com.au Is your Web site everything it can be? Does it bring in customers and generate sales? If not, make sure to use the tips and advice provided in this podcast to improve your site! Also, if you are enjoying these Business Brain Food podcasts, then make sure to share them via social media sites or email the links to family and friends. A lot of time and effort goes into producing each of these podcasts with the goal in mind of the more people we can inspire about business the better. You can help us do just that! Until next time, have a profitable day. Cheers, Ben Fewtrell (02) 9111 5000