Okay, they're going to sell their house through the discount broker, right? But then they're going to buy house, right? So if you do your job and don't make it a big thing and get mad at them for using somebody else, maybe you still get the sale when they buy. So it doesn't matter because you're not trying to do the deal. You're trying to help them. And if they feel like that's what's best for them, I want them to go there.  And there's no competition. When people call me, they've been getting my email for five years. They're not going to call any other agents. They're only going to deal with me. And so it creates loyalty as well as build strong relationships. So I think that that's what you guys should really kind of think about. And it doesn't have to be a weekly email, but you have to stay in front of people on a consistent basis to stay relative. And just make sure that you're not trying to pressure anybody into doing anything, but be there when they when they get ready. Makes sense? Makes sense. Thank you guys. The emails that you're putting together, where are you getting the information or what type of information do you send out? I have a Facebook group, zero to diamond real estate agents. And I post my email on there every Wednesday for all these agents to just see it. But it's new listings, closed sales, a feature property, maybe an article about the area. It always has a big picture of something in my area, different links. You'll just have to look at it. It just has basic market information. Most of the links go to my website. Some of them go to ML last. It just depends on what I came up with that week, you know. And what has been tough for me in the past is how do I come up with content in this weekly email that keeps people interested in opening it up every week. But what I realized over doing this for 11 years is that people just want to see what's sold. They want to see the new listings. They want to see what you think is a feature property. They really, because like I said, closings are happening every day. Stuff's going under contract. And so there's always fresh information. And if they're getting that every week and it's showing that fresh information every week, that's really what they want. That's really what's going to keep them coming back. I have a lot of people that doesn't open the email. But then two years later, now they're kind of interested, now they're open in it. And so, you know, my list is over 10,000 people. 3,000 of those people open it up every week. So I got 7,000 people that get it that don't open it up.  I'm like, I haven't really been reading it. But, you know, I'm calling you now and I want to do this or that. I'm like, okay, I don't care if you open it up or not. Do you use some kind of contact management data? You say you personally sit down and do it yourself. Constant contacts. Constant contacts. Yeah, I've used them since 2010. It's a really funny story because when I first started doing it, when I did the million emails in 2008, I did it all through Yahoo. Right? And so you can only do, I think, 100 per email in Yahoo. So I was using Outlook so I could time them. So it set up like 100 of them to like go out like one every five minutes or so for like 24 hours or something. Yeah, yeah. So that, and I didn't even have a website, that should be a statement to you guys that all that matters is that you're actually talking to people and creating relationships and stuff because I didn't even have a website when I started doing this. People are way too concerned with like what my business card looks like and what my website looks like and doing the details of their postcard and all this stuff. It doesn't matter at all. Just watching your presentation today, you have a great video presence, but when you use the telephone, you lose that video presence. And I was going to ask, have you considered having a video as far as responses to emails and things like that? The NAR convention a couple of years ago, people were saying how much more successful that is and also you can time it. You can do it and send it to them. They can open it and see your response. And it just solidifies one of your best features is your communication. But not doing that, I feel you're probably. So you're saying they send them videos? Are you speaking? You mean about the market? It's not so much or personal emails like bomb bomb and stuff? Well, you could do the podcast, say possibly a short five minute or 10 minute podcast for your weekly thing and then have all the detail associated. But that would make it much more and it would remind them, oh, look, Ricky's gotten gray or Ricky's doing this or whatever. And anyway, it's a great thing to embrace people more. So you're saying in my weekly email that I should do more video? Or have more audio or video? No, I think it's a composite thing. You want to be face to face on it. I'm a licensed mortgage broker, but I'm not practicing. You guys in California, every day they have a show or podcast. I think it's a great idea. And I think you have all the people that you have. A good idea. Go execute. Here's the thing, guys. I get you. Everything works. Everything, like for cell boners, doorknocking, internet leads, all of it works. Video and the email, let's mix that. Let's mix this. Who cares? Just do it. Just go do it and create results, right? Create relationships and do it. Constant contact does not have the ability to embed a video. I can link videos. I can link videos to YouTube and I can do... It's not like bomb, bomb, bomb, and embeds a video in the email. You can watch it right there on the email. I just started doing social media a year ago. I'm one of those... I really like the position I'm in because I've got to build my business the old school way. Completely old school. And now, but I'm young enough to understand technology and now I'm all in. And so I've got the best of both worlds. I'm not just tech. And I'm not just making phone calls. Now I'm a combination of both sides and really killing it from both ends. I can't do everything. Do I want to try doing them? I've been thinking about doing videos on Facebook, linking it through my email and doing all kinds of stuff. I'll get to it. But very good point. Try it, guys. So Mr. Ricky, thank you for everything. I've got a question for you. As a part-time agent now and wanting to transition into full-time, what would be your suggestions to make that happen ASAP? And then once I do that, what would you recommend to really crush it right out the back? Well, I mean, going from part-time to full-time, my general advice is always replace your income with real estate until you, before you make the move. Because I don't know if you have a family that you have to support. Right? Yeah, so you can't just go cold turkey and just risk everything on real estate when you're not making any money in real estate. So you have to replace your income with your day job, with real estate before you make the switch. So what hours do you work your day job? Work pretty much nine to six, sometimes eight to six. So here's the thing. I sell real estate for a living, right? But I'm a part-time speaker, right? So how do I do that? I sell real estate all day and then I work on my speaking stuff all night, right? And so for you, what I would do is you get off at six. This is what I would do. I would have all my phone numbers ready and I would start calling them on my drive home from work. I would literally call people in my car on my way home because you don't want to wait too late. You can't call them at seven once you get home. Six is getting kind of late already. But you need to make like five calls at least, or five or 10 calls on your way home, right? Have them in your phone ready where you don't have to dial the numbers. Go ahead and dial them and hit send and then in. And that way when you get in there, you can just hit send. Okay, do the talk till I'm sent. You know, that way you're not getting in a wreck. But I mean being efficient though, right? Like winners don't, winners make it happen. They just make it happen. Like there's no secret or there's no like equation. Like they just make it happen. A lot of stuff, like the speaking stuff for me has been a lot of work for nothing up to this point, right? Same thing with real estate. You have to risk your time for the fact that you really want this. You really want to help people and that you're going to make it happen. And so you just got to tell yourself that I'm going to make this happen. Period, right? Like that I believe that there's four keys to long-term success. The first key is you got to believe, right? If you don't believe, you're dead right there. And when I say believe 100% fully committed, no other options. And so in your mind, you're already the number one agent. That's the way you should be thinking. I am the number one agent, right? Even though you're not there yet, you are in your mind. Like me, I'm the number one real estate speaker in the world already, right? I know that, right? The second part is work hard. So I don't know you, but believe work hard, adapt and be patient. See the people that believe, they're everywhere. People that believe in work hard, not very many. People that believe work hard and adapt. Very few people that believe work hard and adapt and or patient. The patient's part was my biggest straw because I always believed work hard and adapted. But the patient's part was the part that I had trouble with. I, in 2014, I did 600k. I wanted to do a million the next year. I did this huge plan. I'm going to do this, this, this and this. And I'm going to get there. The next year, January rolls around. I'm trying to put the pieces in place February, March. And I'm looking at my income and I'm saying, I'm going to make the same amount of money this year as I made last year. And I start really getting down on myself. Really down on myself. And that's really a bad place to be. So I started searching again. I want to know what I'm doing wrong. You know, what's wrong with me? Why can't I do this? And so I got a coach, long story short. I realized that I'm doing great. Yeah, 600k is awesome. But the thing from 600 to a million is, is patience. Like I'm doing all I can do. Guys, to reach your full potential is I refer to it like a cup, right? Everybody has a different size cup. Your cup represents how much you can handle. How much business can you handle? Because some agents have a couple things under contract and blows their whole day. And I don't get that. I've never understood how two listings and one pending takes up 40 hours in a week. So to me, like I keep 20, 50 to 20 properties under contract, 50 to 60 listings at all times. That's, that's kind of my cup. I can handle maybe a little more, but, but what you have to do is overwhelm yourself with business, make 2000 calls or, you know, whatever you do to get business. See, people are scared to overwhelm because they don't want to reduce their customer service, right? They're scared they're going to, they're going to give up some of their customer service, but things that scare you, you probably need to do, right? So overwhelm yourself, find out where your breaking point is. How much can you handle, right? And then once you know that until you overwhelm yourself, you don't know how much you can handle. So you have to take that leap, overwhelm yourself, figure out how much you can handle and then stay there. That's how you reach your full potential, keeping as much as you can handle at all times. So, and it's author, right? Yes, it is, sir. Um, I just think that making it happen with no excuses is the big punchline for you, but making calls in your way home could be really big. And, um, put everything you got into it from that six o'clock to eight o'clock work, you spend time with your family, you make calls, you get home, you spend that time with your family, you put on the bed, now you have an hour to develop the email, write some letters, do some postcards, strategize, study the market, see what the new listings were that came up to these, see what's under contract, target the neighborhood that you want to go after, right? Plot, right?  So, it's not the market, right? They're happening. It's you. You haven't figured out how to make it happen, right? And it's all about relationships. What was your, you say four keys as it says, I got believe in yourself, work hard, adapt to patience. Is it two more or is that the four? No, that's four. Okay. Work hard, adapt to patience. Two, three or more. Yes, yes, yes. Believe, work hard, adapt. Most of you guys, I can talk to anyone in here for five minutes that is not successful or not as successful as they want to be. I can have a five-minute conversation with you and tell you which of these four things you're lacking in because it boils down to these four things, period. And most of you, it's the adapting part. It's the patience, of course, but you don't get to patience until you learn how to adapt. That's after adapt. Most of you get here, here, but the adapting part is the part that most people stumble. I've always wanted for you to adapt. I've always been an adapter. I adapt immediately to everything. I could come in this market right here and crush all of you guys. See how it goes. Here's the thing, too. Here's the thing. The agents, I have 1,000 or 2,000 agents who follow me and all this stuff and ask me questions. The most question I get is about voicemails, which is silly because it's just like telling who you are and what you're calling about and calling you back. Use voicemails as a branding tool. Don't think of it as, I gotta figure out how to say something special to make them call me back. Don't worry about calling back. Just use it as a branding tool where they heard your name and number and everything. But another big one is open houses. Open houses aren't big in my market at all for whatever reason, but they're like, oh, you don't do open houses. They're thinking, you're not even a realtor. If I were in a market where I'm losing listings because I'm not doing open houses, I'll now be the open house king. If I'm in a market where horse farms take two years to sell and you gotta spend $3,000 to market it, I'm gonna be the horse marketing pricing king. I'm gonna price it just right. I'm gonna spend $3,000 to market that property. I would, adapting is just in my blood to answer your question. Your background, you didn't really share everything, but as far as, have you ever been like a, you're a broker associate, but you've not had any agents working with you or for you? I try to do a team one time. If they've gone out of the rest of the story. Your remax experience, obviously you have the big franchise and the tools and so forth, but before that you operated without the big franchise. Yeah. Could you sort of tell your thoughts about the pros and the cons and what advantages? Nothing. Nothing? Nothing. Nothing. It doesn't matter where you work, it just matters how hard you work, right?  Like I gotta go somewhere else to learn something new or to have more exposure or so forth and that's when you move to the big brand. But until then it doesn't matter. If you're building your business, who cares where you're at? It doesn't matter. You have to learn, you have to learn how to make people feel comfortable with you. That's it. That's it. Tone, body language, what you're about, who you really are as a person, that's what matters. Not the company. They're gonna like you for you, not because of where you work.  But if you come to them kind of nervous, how much have you sold? That's when you get that question, when they're trying to evaluate who you are because it sounds like you just want to do a deal, right? So people think, oh, how can I break into the market and have it sold or anything? Well, if you're doing your job of making people feel comfortable with you, you don't have to worry about that. It's not an issue. They tone up each of visiting. Thank you for being here. Thank you all for having me here. But on your telephone calls, in that pre-qualification stage, when you said, you know, I ask them if they have a relationship with another realtor. If they say yes, my mother's in it, or yes, you know, the girl that sold me the house, you did a pretty good job. Do you end the conversation right there, or do you probe them a little further to see if it's a crime? Just depends on the conversation, but I'm normally ending it right there because they've already said they're not interested in doing anything right now. Now they're saying that they got an agent, whether they're lying or not, it's like, well, they're telling you there's two negatives there. They don't want to do anything and they got an agent. Sounds like they just want to get off the phone. So what can you do there? You can't really do much. So what I normally say is when they say they have an agent, I'll say, hey, well, who is it? Oh, I know that agent. You're in really good hands. Look, if there's ever anything I can do before you let me know, have a good day and I'll move on. And maybe some people change agents all the time. So maybe they see your sign and they see this and they see that. And then their agent didn't call them back that one time. It really made them mad. And they say, I'm gonna call Ricky. So yes. You have a brand new agent.  What's the first thing you tell them to do and what goal settings do you have them make? I'm telling them to make calls, call property owners, create relationships, start sending weekly emails. Are you talking about force out by owners or just property owners? No, property owners. Yeah. For self by owners that expires, look, I'm not against them at all. Right? I am. I'm not. I don't call them. I don't think it's the most efficient way. Yes. Right? But, you know, it's a high pressure situation. For self by owners that expires, it's a high pressure. Two other agents are calling them. It's high pressure. If you're calling random owners, very low pressure. They're open. They want to talk. They want to know what's up with the market. They want to get to know you.  You know? So it's two different ballgames. A lot of people really succeed with for self owners and expires. I know a lot about them. Not my game. I feel like I crush those guys because I'm long game and I want width. I want quantity of clients who love me. Right? Because I didn't try to pressure them. So they love me now. Right? And now when they decide they're going to come to me. So I think the biggest thing for new agents is learning a couple things. One is that losing deals is the greatest thing that can ever happen to you. Right? Too many agents take a loss and get down on their cell because they were looking at what the closing was going to do to the bank account and then they lose the deal and they think they lost the money but really they never had the money. So what a loss actually does, a seller decides to use a different agent. A buyer backed out of a contract cold feet. No reason. Whatever the case may be, what happens is is very incredible.  That's the cliche part of losing deals but let me tell you the biggest part of it. People don't even realize what's more valuable than money. Time. You can replace your money if you lose it all tomorrow but you can't get yesterday back. You can't replace time. It's more valuable, it's your most valuable asset. When you lose a deal, now you get future time back that you don't have to spend on that deal anymore. This is where people really, they lose them a little bit. The future time that you get back that you don't have to deal with signing that listing, meeting them, taking the pictures, putting the sign up, putting the lock box, dealing with the agents want to show it, negotiating the deal, going on the closing inspection, financing. You don't have to do all that anymore on that situation. You get all those hours, hours back and now you can take that new knowledge you got from whatever you learned why you lost a deal. Now you're a better agent because you learned something but you got hours of your life back where you can take that new knowledge and go get five more deals in the same amount of time, right? If you realize that everything everything in real estate is a win-win like there's no way to lose that's when you really start to understand if I can get that inside new agent's head then I think I could really have a shot at helping them succeed because they can just power through okay I'm doing deals, I lost that one cool okay I got that one okay I lost that one you know and just keep moving forward and you get and you understand and you take advantage of the future time you got back instead of moping you can always notice a losing agent always talking about the deal that got away the inspection that went back the financing that fell through that's what they're talking about in the office when I hear that I'm like oh lordy they're not going to make it right so concentrate on the deals that are working forget about the ones that fell fell apart and use that future time it's the most valuable thing in the world and you just got some of it back for newer agents or people who are trying to implement their goals and everything is there a sort of self-health type thing where you're taking care of yourself in those moments of weakness those overwhelming moments in those sort of moments where you like just go to my YouTube and do this every time you feel bad seriously though I see what you're saying and yeah it's all about being around people that are minded like me like if you can find someone to be around like me like follow me on instagram and youtube whenever you feel bad literally I go there because all the stuff that I'm saying is right there and like you look and be like oh oh oh you know yeah I'm good I'm good you see what I'm saying all right so for agents that are like new to an area or just new agents period where do you think the majority of time should be spent phone calls as far as phone calls yeah she said as a new agent where where should your time be most spent or even just like near to the area study your market okay if you're great if you're new to the area all right if you're new to the area you don't know what's going on what you need to do is study MLS for about a half a day figure out what's going on in the market like pull up all the sales from the last year figure out which price rangers are selling the best and all this stuff right and then target a subdivision say that's going to sound pretty good it's three four hundred range it's sound pretty good there's a hundred houses there I want to I want to start here then you're going to go to all the listings call all the listing agents and go look at all the houses drive through there talk to as many people as you see really become familiar with the layout and the geography and everything of that subdivision then we're going to go to red x we're going to get all the numbers we're going to start calling the owners we're going to have all the comps in front of us and we're going to go to town start developing the relationships get the emails send weekly emails for any of the emails so you can talk a lot about building new relationships and do as much as possible in the volume of building a new relationship yes so when you have ten thousand relationships yes how do you still have hair on your head if they get a weekly email from me so I don't have to do anything they call me when they get ready to do something so when you have a lot of those interpersonal relationships working when they all start hitting you how do you have any advice I should say for agents that find themselves with a large volume of good quality I think it's a good problem to have yeah I mean please please give me you know a hundred people call me at once I'll be glad to to sit down and make a list of all those people and start calling them one by one it may take me three days to call them all back but I welcome that scenario you know and like I told author winners just make it happen doesn't matter right just do it like whenever I had my coach I was trying to get to a million because I hired the coach because I wanted him to show me how to make a million dollars because I was I was going to make 600 again and so he set up this plan for me you need it's kind of similar to the one I had before I called it you need to make this many calls you need to do this much you need to do that much right I'm like okay cool cool cool so I set it up I'm going to go Monday I'm going to make this many calls too I'm going to make this many calls the stuff got the way right because I am making 600,000 I do have a lot of deals going on so I'm working on my deals I can't get to the calls so when I have my coaching call I said I couldn't make all the I couldn't do the calls and I'm too busy I'm like what do I do how do I how do I do this how do I manage the stuff that just comes up with deals that I have to do versus time blocking to make the calls I need to make to hit my goals what how tell me magical coach and he said he said what all that other stuff oh I said yeah I said yeah what he said just do it as in just do the stuff that you have to do because you have to do that stuff right so when a hundred people call you at once you sit down you make a list of all the people that called you start calling back and say how can I help you you know it does get hectic at times like you will find yourself in some very you know tight situations like last Wednesday my report goes out every Wednesday last Wednesday was a little while because I had all kinds of appointments pop up and so you know I was like it was really getting down it was like four o'clock and I still had like a lot of people had a call back and deals I'm negotiating and I'm like ah but I made it happen and it went out like five fifteen or something right so that's your question you just make it happen all right it's that simple I mean this stuff is really more simple than you say yep how many admin people do you have one one she's an absolute animal she's a beast so yes or no when you say how can I help you today and what can I do for you yes it comes across is really being genuine and authentic yes out the box so how do you really handle if someone's like okay well I need my garage clean something off the wall or something not related to real estate you know because I think I would have a problem with people pretty nice fella you know taking advantage of my time I know you say time is the most important thing so how do we as professionals draw the lines of his feet yeah with that I think establish yourself as the real estate agent not the contractor right I think that that's a big like part of it is people know you're a real estate agent and not a contractor and so they draw a line a little bit of sand theirself about that but I do get people to ask to ask them a stuff kind of off the wall I have contractors that you know I'll say I'll call so-and-so and I'll just refer to somebody you know it's a garage guy or they want their house clean they need something painted they need floor redone or whatever I have people in place I've got contractors that will do that kind of stuff and I'll just pass their number along now I'm out of it the problem with it is is if you're a firm with somebody who does a really bad job and now it's kind of like it's back on you so if I don't have anybody I'll literally tell them hey I don't have anybody for that I'm sorry I can't help you with that so there have been moments like there's been plenty of windows of time where I didn't have a contractor that I felt good about and so if there was somebody that needed flooring or something done I couldn't refer them to anybody and I would just tell them hey I don't have anybody and here's the thing when you're honest they appreciate that like the fact that you didn't give them somebody right doesn't really matter if you're not giving them somebody because hey I don't feel good about anybody I wouldn't feel good about giving you anybody so and they're like okay yeah please don't give me anybody if you don't feel good about them see what I'm saying but on the flip side when I do feel good about somebody I say listen I don't refer people unless I feel super good that they're going to take care of you the way that I would take care of you if I were in that business so I'm going to refer this person to you so you just say no when you got to say no and you never put your reputation on the line as much as you can even if you refer somebody you feel good about and they do a bad job you felt good about but they did a bad job that's not a good situation to be in so you got to be careful right yes ma'am why do you get the numbers and what is the best time of the day to make the call redxvredx.com if you call them it'll tell them I sent you they'll weigh the $150 startup fee and get geo leads and geo leads you put an address in the bar and then it'll find up to 300 addresses I mean phone numbers of the owners around that address it'll find 25, 50, 100, 200, 300 the different tiers but it's $50 a month and it finds them in a split second you put a address in and it finds 300 owners numbers around that address you just click a button and boom they're right there vredx.com who said that yeah vredx.com and if you call them and tell them I sent you they'll weigh the $150 startup fee and then you can just start paying 50 a month and all you need is geo leads they have a dialer you can use their dialer if you want or you can use mojo's dialer or you can call them from your cell phone jamel you're saying geo, geo geo yeah yeah yeah geo, geographical geo leads it's geo leads yeah it is awesome because a lot of the numbers not a lot some of them are cell phone numbers the quality of the numbers that it finds is the best and I've used everything the only thing it had to really use is coal resources if anybody's ever tried that but uh I don't know how good their quality is but I've tried a lot of them and this one is really really good they've already screwed up against the do not call list they they they make a note next to it mm-hmm dnc so some of them say dnc next to it that's do not call so if you're against doing that I don't really care is it for so there as far as the do not call list do you already scrub it for yeah they scrub it they have it labeled there next to it so it's um for the they don't they don't scrub it like it's still there you can still call it but it's just labeled dnc be your rebuttal for uh a seller on the phone that says they already have an agent that they might work with that is willing to do it for one percent one percent yes I would tell them good luck these are agents that um are about the quantity not the quality is this uh is this uh like a red fin or uh one of those tech technology based no actually it's not yeah just some agents I know in the market here because the market here's the thing on discount brokers let them go use them and find out how horrible the service is so is that what you would say to them yeah go use them find out how horrible the service is and then i'll see you in a month right here's the thing too like like the discount brokers like like okay they're going to sell their house through the discount broker right but then they're going to buy a house right so if you do your job and don't make it a big thing and get mad at them for using somebody else maybe you still get the sell when they buy so it doesn't matter because you're not trying to do the deal you're trying to help them and if they feel like that's what's best for them I want them to go there and you go do that now I have extra time on my hands because you went there I'm going to go spend my time with these people that pay me three percent right and I'm going to help you when you buy something because you love me because I didn't get mad at you because you went to a discount broker right that's how you handle it but at the bottom the bottom line they're going to come back to you most of them that use discount brokers find out the service is not where it needs to be and it's definitely not what I'm going to give them and so they find out I'm worth my money some of them don't care about the service they'd rather sacrifice money for service and for those guys that's fine too there's unlimited deals for everybody like it's unlimited as much as you can handle your cup like there's your cup's always full who cares if something spills over how do you handle overpriced listings overpriced listings I try to set the expectation with the seller hey it's not going to be shown at all probably it's not going to sell you need to be here I try to get them down or at least get them down as low as I can and just make them understand that this is going to be tough probably not going to happen and then but I did I do list it if they want to even though they if they understand that and they're good with it and they still want to list it I want to list it because I again don't care about the deal I want to do what's best for them and so what happens is is a very cool thing listings I think will never sell sell in a day and listings I think will that will sell in a day never sell right so like I listed one for 550 a month or two ago last sales 485 when I tell the seller I'm like never going to happen it's just you're just crazy right but I sold her the condo for like 462 years ago and she's like this is just what I'm like okay cool let's do it or whatever sold her for 530 closing on it in a couple weeks something I thought would never sell so here's the thing you're not the real estate god of pricing right buyers are you know what I'm saying like you don't set the prices just because you you know what makes you the god of pricing like what you look at the comps and now oh that's what it is because Ricky said so no actually the person that's going to buy it will set that price and you don't know what that price is and so what happens is a really cool thing you overprice it then the market catches up a little and the seller reduces a little now we're now we're close in three months or a year or two years I have listings for two years that sell because I over because I overpriced it but I stayed in touch with the seller because I was I didn't care about it not not being shown I cared about maintaining that relationship so they just let me keep the listing it sells in two years all right so concentrate on the relationship not the deal you speak a lot to listings and prospecting on listings and motions yeah listings do you work with a lot of buyers times the buyers 50-50 this year so far buyers my buyers come from property owners that's my source of buyers zero buyer leads zero whatever buyer lead they I don't do any of that I concentrate on the property owners for my buyers and my sellers it's the most efficient way to work right they're dual they can buy or sell or both and they're unlimited you can't call them all in your area I mean this is this is like the biggest county in this side of the equator like you'll never call every single one of them so it's unlimited so you have an unlimited amount of prospects to buy and sell why would you even talk to a buyer lead right unless they're a seller too right but there's people that crush with buyer leads and I love them for it right but I feel like the most efficient way to do is to build long-term relationships with property owners who buy and sell so like I say my ratio this year is 50-50 is there a reason why you send your emails out on Wednesdays no you can send them out any day of the week you want Saturday Sunday Monday too it doesn't matter what matters is that whatever day you pick you stay with that forever that's all that matters they want to see consistency how are you going to stand out in the market because they got that email from you for five years every single Tuesday every single Thursday that's how you're going to stand out that's why they're going to pick you because of that yes do you anything different to break into the higher priced market yeah just start calling higher priced property owners no ma'am I wouldn't say anything different to them I wouldn't say anything different to an expired I'm for sell my owner a buyer lead or any of them I say hey this is Ricky Chris we're answering how you doing today yeah I'm enjoying the weather there's a gorgeous outside hey yeah well look I'm taking too much time today but I saw you look at something online I saw your house expired I see you have this property is there anything I can do to help you it's the same exact script that's why I love my script because it's interchangeable with really not only all the different avenues of real estate but really business in general you really use it for anything it's building relationships and it's not going for the kill you know it's loosening them up reading them what's going on with them today and then respecting their time giving them a market info and find out what you can do to help them same thing yes sir two questions one how do I get that five minute conversation with you what's that get that five minute conversation with you and how do we get into your coaching zero to diamond.com you just go there it's free you just sign up 100% five minute conversation you can call me anytime my business cards are on the table back there you guys can grab one and call me to Tom email me text me whatever me anything else guys yes sir your farm area is it just the county that you're in or yeah he's asking my farm area if it's just the county I am or what my county is like you guys it's pretty big so there's a whole other world on the north side of our county the south side of our county is the beach and Gulf Shores Arms Beach and all that I grew up in Arms Beach Gulf Shores with the Gulf Shores Elementary and Fully High School so Fully Gulf Shores Arms Beach is kind of like the same area to us locals and then when you get into Florida it's pretty do-key I've got my Florida license so I could actually I could actually just move down here start crushing you guys right but anyway I there's so many condos on the beach you know and houses right across so and that's where my office is and that's where I grew up right there so I just kind of focus on the beach in terms of my farming now I'll sell commercial lots apartment complexes houses I sell it all just from being in the business and people seeing me and coming to me and stuff but as far as my farming prospecting efforts I really want to be you know mid to high-end Gulf front right across the street you know that kind of thing I really enjoyed this guys


I'm Shannon and I recently finished the second semester of my junior year in college. One of the classes I took this past semester was comic books in American culture, taught by a very talented comic book artist who's done work for both Marvel and DC and even has a new horror movie coming out soon starring Malcolm McDowell. I won't say his name here, but I will say that I recently spoke with him about getting a tour of his studio for the channel and talking to him about his life in comics. That video will hopefully be coming very soon. As part of the class each week, we had to do presentations over different eras in comics beginning with the platinum age and eventually making our way through the current age of comics and what we thought the future held for the medium. This all ended with a final term paper going into the deep dive for a specific topic. The one I chose was how Ghostbusters changed the world, which you can find right here on the channel. The more of these we did, the more I was tempted to make my presentations from class on the channel. So that's what we'll be doing today. This is the culture of comics. The Platinum Age of comics has no official start point as it's considered pretty superhero comics and can encompass pulps, penny dreadfuls and novels as well as early myths and legends which helped to inspire comics. The Platinum Age did however last until 1938 when Action Comics Number One was first published and introduced the world to Superman. While there is debate over who the first official superhero was, there is no doubt that the first official comic book was The Yellow Kid, which was first published on February 17th, 1895 by the newspaper New York World. The use of the character to sell newspapers is where the term yellow journalism originated, better known today as clickbait. Before that, however, it can be argued that the Georgian and Victorian eras of culture is where the Platinum Age can be said to have officially began. In 1837, the people of London began reporting sightings of a creature that would jump through the London skyline at night and attack women. The urban legend later became the huge influence on popular culture in London and eventually made it into fictional publication in the penny dreadfuls, which were precursors to pulps and comics in 1886. In 1844, the Count of Monte Cristo was brought into publication. The Count was a precursor to Batman, Zorro, and the Punisher. An elements of each can be found within the story of a man who was framed and wrongfully convicted, imprisoned, learned to fight, escaped, amassed a fortune, then developed a secret identity to get revenge. In 1905, the Scarlet Pempernel established the idea of a hero with a secret identity trope in popular culture. The character was a wealthy man who wore a mask and rescued people from the guillotine. In 1912, John Carter of Mars made his first appearance in A Princess of Mars. The character was the precursor to and became one of the inspirations for Superman the same year. Tarzan of the Eighths was first published in magazine form and set the stage for heroes of the underserved. In 1928, Buck Rogers became the first science fiction hero during his first published story in the novella Armageddon 2419AD which set the stage for other sci-fi heroes such as Flash Gordon, Adam Strange, Green Lantern, and Luke Skywalker. Shortly after in 1930, the Shadow made his debut in the detective story hour via radio and then made his physical appearance in the pulps in 1931. Then later made his first comic book appearance in 1949. The Shadow went on to become one of the inspirations for Batman. His impact on the character was made canonical during Steve Orlando's Batman the Shadow crossover in 2017 where the writer made the Shadow one of Bruce Wayne's mentors during his time training to become the Dark Knight. In 1931, Dick Tracy hit the scene via newspaper comic strip. The impact the character had on pop culture not only paved the way for James Bond but also every other crime drama and spy thriller out there. It also inspired the eye watch when the title character first spoke into his radio watch. The character made his first comic book appearance in 1936. In 1933, The Lone Ranger first appeared on radio in comic strip form in 1938 and in comic books in 1948 and was inspired by the real life Texas Ranger by the name of Bass Raves who was one of the first African American lawmen in America and was notorious for being incorruptible to the point that he even arrested his own son and took him to the noose for hanging. The Lone Ranger went on to inspire the Green Hornet who was revealed in comic book continuity as the great nephew of the Lone Ranger. In 1933, Doc Savage the man of bronze came on the scene and was regarded by many as the first superhero. He was one of the inspirations for Batman as well as Superman and even introduced the concept and name the fortress of solitude in pop culture. That same year the prototype for Superman came to print with the reign of the Superman. In this pulp the Superman was a bald telepath who used his powers to take over the world. In 1934 Lee Falk published Mandrake the magician who was the precursor and inspiration for future characters such as Dr. Strange, Dr. Fate, Zatanna and the Scarlet Witch. Also that year Alex Raymond published Flash Gordon who was inspired by Buck Rogers. Gordon went on to become a pop culture phenomenon especially in the 80s with his movie and theme song performed by Queen. In 1936 Lee Falk published The Phantom who was the first hero with wide eyes and circus strongman style tights. The character was inspired by Zoro and Mowgli from the Jungle Book and went on to inspire other comic book heroes like Batman. And then once we get past the intro it just flows. I have here no priced fairly cheap some really cool comics year three parts one through four. What's the significance of Batman year three storyline? The first appearance of Tim Drake who'd go on to be the second Robin in the Batman comic books. So yeah I know all right I'll start over. So here we go we've got an awesome contest for you don't lean forward. What are you eating?  If you dislike the show that's fine we're okay with that you're watching the show at least. If you like it you're liking it give it a thumbs up even better but if you're disliking the show by all means please let us know why you dislike it why you're not a fan of the show although you keep watching every week to dislike. Even better we will welcome you onto the show and discuss why you don't like the show. We just want to know what we need to do to get better what you like on the show.  I think they want to see you naked. Here comes the bat and how long? So all right let's go on screen. Tatyana and I have finished working on this game. I was just working on it. Stand over here. Let's squeeze it. So violence. We can scoot over that way just a little bit. There we go. All right if you like this episode of Come Again feel free to give us like, share, and subscribe. Hit that sexy subscribe button down below. Not this sexy subscribe. Just look at the bottom of the screen. Not that one either. He's off limits. No screen resolution. And don't forget to head on over to our Facebook page and give us a like there as well. The link will be in the description. The link to the It's cold in here.  What? What? What? What? You want me to say it?  I'll say it right now.   I don't think that's good. They love me to give them apples sauce. If you enjoyed that video make sure you hit the subscribe button right there so you stay up to date on all things geek culture. Also go ahead and check out one of these two playlists on the side for more videos just like the one you just watched. I'm Shane and for Come Again TV the only place on YouTube where all geek culture collides. Take care geeks.


Good morning. It's great to see all of you here. And as Jim mentioned, I did spend 15 years at Red Hat before in their very early days. And so when Jim was going through a lot of those S1 filings and a lot of the concerns, I remember those days very, very well. I'm actually also going to start with a little bit of history from back in those days. The CEO of Red Hat at the time was a guy named Bob Young. He was one of the two co-founders of the company. And back then, he used to have this very, very famous quote and analogy to introduce the concept of open source into enterprises and to different customers to explain why in the world should you start to care about this thing called open source? And the way that he would describe it is, would you be willing to buy a car with a hood welded shut? And this was an analogy that really stuck with a lot of people and really helped them understand, why is it important to be able to look inside your software, be able to make changes? Because just as you would not buy an automobile without the ability to service your engine or to be able to make changes or to understand what was going on, similarly, you wouldn't want to have the same effect when you went ahead and acquired software. But there's one thing that the sort of assumed, which is that when you go ahead and use software or open source for that matter, you would be acquiring software in order to own it and in order to possess it. And that's dynamic has changed a little bit over the last few years. So we've had the rise of cloud computing over the last 10 plus years or so. And I think the question starts to change regarding, what is the value of open source in the cloud world? Because when you take a look at the question now, it really becomes something like, would you order an Uber or a DD car with a hood welded shut? And we've moved from an ownership model into a renting as a service model. And now as we start to shift into this kind of dynamic, a lot of people start to care still. But a lot of people don't really care what's going on in the car anymore, because they don't own it. They don't buy it. They just use it as a service. So we still have a lot of projects like Kubernetes and OpenStack, where people can look inside the cloud, but they're starting to care less and less from an enterprise and from a customer standpoint in terms of what's actually happening inside the cloud itself. And then now, more recently, with the rise of clouds and all the different services that you have around artificial intelligence and gaming and databases and so on, this is really like asking, would you order a self-driving, personalized entertainment providing turbo boosting automobile with the hood welded shut? And I think at this point in time, very, very few people care at all in terms of what is going on inside your cloud, because you're just consuming all these very, very rich services. And whether it's built on top of open source or whether it's built on something else, it doesn't matter so much to the end user. They just want to consume these rich services from a cloud standpoint. And so I think we start to need to take a look at, what is the value of open source in a cloud world and what are the new kinds of questions that become important to ask in this new industry?  But we have to start asking, no, do you want to live in a world where only Uber and DD can offer you transportation services? And that's the new open-closed question that we need to start thinking about from an overall industry standpoint together. And just to make that very explicit, do we want to live in a world where there are only fewer than 10 clouds around the world that can offer all the digital services that we want to consume? And it's a big challenge for our industry. There's obviously been a lot of conversations in the press and social media and others around this. But I think this is the key question that we need to start engaging with from a cloud services world and what do we do from an open-source standpoint and what do we do from an industry standpoint? Now, let me dive into this a little bit just to talk a little bit. What are the actual challenges that we face from an industry in terms of coming together to be able to build a lot of these cloud capabilities? And there's really two kinds of challenges that I think we need to address. Now, the first kind of challenge that we need to start to address is something that you can think of as lockout. People often think about lock in when they talk about cloud as a problem. But I think lockout is an actually bigger problem. And the ecosystem, hardware providers and software providers are fundamentally locked out of being able to create native managed services inside of public clouds. So just as an example, if you go into any public cloud around the world today, they'll typically offer you a software image marketplace. This is where you go ahead and you buy all the third-party software that you want. So I've just got a few examples up here from some of the people in this room, like MongoDB or Red Hat OpenShift or SAP and so on. But basically, if you want to go ahead and use their software in the cloud, you run it on top of a virtual machine service, you buy the machine image, you deploy it. So you can click to deploy, view the deployment guide, launch the machine image. Basically, your IT operations team has to go ahead, download it, configure it, manage it, operate it, and take overall responsibility for the lifecycle of that software. On the other hand, you can also go into all the different public clouds around the world, and you can consume that exact same capability as a managed service from the providers themselves. And so the big challenge for a lot of the software vendors is that they don't have the capability to create these managed native services inside the public cloud because they're locked out and restricted into these various kinds of offerings. So an IT enterprise, a customer taking a look at, well, how do I want to go ahead and consume capabilities from a cloud? I can choose between taking ownership, but there's a huge operational cost and expense and hassle, or I just consume the same capability as a service. And so the cloud providers have an incumbent advantage in terms of how do we go ahead and start to give these capabilities to our customers in a much better and a much simpler way? And so the ecosystem is fundamentally locked out from being able to do the same things and offer the same technical capabilities that the cloud providers themselves are able to offer. Now, what a lot of software providers are then doing is saying that, OK, we know that our customers don't want to be in the business of operating and managing the software ourselves, so we'll go ahead and build a software as a service on top of these public clouds. And a lot of these same companies are building out these SaaS applications that run on top of the public clouds. And so again, here are just four different examples across the open source spectrum with SAP and Red Hat and MongoDB and Confluent and so on. Now, the challenge with the SaaS application is it still doesn't fundamentally solve this lockout problem. Every single one of these four sasses runs across the same public cloud. But if I'm an enterprise building an application across these four sasses, I'm going to have a lot of challenges in terms of how do I incorporate all these four sasses into the same enterprise application, even though they share the same infrastructure, because these four sasses are going to have different billing systems, different identity systems, different networking spaces, different storage systems, and so on. And so if I want to compose an enterprise architecture across all these four sasses, it's a lot more complicated than if I use the direct native services that offer the same capabilities on the public cloud because they share the same service engines and they don't have any of these same limitations that SaaS applications have. And so the ecosystem is fundamentally locked out. I can either build an image in a marketplace, or I can build a SaaS application. Both approaches are severely limited compared to what the native services and the public clouds themselves can offer. The other half of the problem that we have to take a look at is lock in. So a lot of enterprises are going after a multi-cloud strategy today, and so that means that they want to be able to run workloads across multiple different public clouds. And one of the challenges for going multi-cloud today is that enterprises, as they go multi-cloud, they fear lock in, and a lot of them start adopting this least common denominator approach. So what I've shown here are just some of the compute services across three different public clouds, in this case AWS, Azure, and Huawei Cloud. And you can see that even though they all have a lot of different rich compute services, they only have two sets in common, virtual machines and Kubernetes. So that means that if I want to start to take advantage of a lot of these richer capabilities in the public cloud, I fundamentally tie myself into that one public cloud and make it more difficult to adopt other public clouds. Conversely, if I want to go multi-cloud and adopt least common denominator, I have to worry about, am I getting the full utilization of my public cloud capabilities, and is my competitor going to start using a lot of these capabilities that I'm withholding from myself because I've decided to go multi-cloud. And so there's no service portability across these different public cloud architectures. And so customers are forced to choose between two different bad options that they don't really like. And when we take a look at Lock-In, we're all here to talk about open source. And open source is a wonderful thing. And I'm a big, big believer in open source. But service lock-in is not a problem that open source by itself can fundamentally address, just to illustrate this. On the left-hand side, you can see from a traditional software development model, how we go from code creation all the way to commercial products. And so if we take Linux, we're here at the Linux Foundation conference, we've got these developers who write in the upstream community, then we get these community distributions, like Ubuntu, and Fedora, and Debian, and so on. And these are the places where everyone in the community has access to the software capabilities to do with whatever they want and wherever they want. And then downstream from that, we have a lot of these commercial products where people can go ahead and buy it when they need different capabilities, like support or certification, and so on. When we move to the cloud services world, we don't have that same dynamic. We go straight from a really popular open source project like Kubernetes. And the first time that you can consume it as a service in a cloud is when one of the commercial providers decides to enable it and sell you access to that. And they only deliver it to you the way that they have built it out. So this whole community access capability around services is absent. No matter what you do in open source, it doesn't address the distribution and availability of services from a public cloud standpoint. So these are the two sides of the challenges that we need to start to think about. If we want to address a lot of these challenges, people have been thinking about in terms of how do we deal with open and how do we deal with open source in a public cloud world? On the one hand, you're dealing with lockout because enterprises and customers are not able to bring in and build the same kinds of capabilities that the service providers themselves can. On the other side, you have to deal with lock-in because you don't have service portability. And open source is not enough to give you what you need. So this is why I think that we need a new approach around how do we do open in public cloud. And I'm calling this open services cloud. And this is in contrast to open source software because I think what we need to do is to fundamentally open up the service layer inside public clouds so that we can start to build out this services ecosystem in an open and in a community way. So there's three things that I want to highlight across what we're hoping to do from an open services cloud standpoint. The first thing, if you look at the left-hand side, is we need to address this lockout problem. Now over here, I've shown just a high-level diagram inside the Huawei public cloud for how do we actually build managed services in our cloud. So in the yellow, this could be any public cloud service. So for example, our artificial intelligence services, or a database services, or a container services, and so on. And in the blue are all the enabling services that are internal to Huawei cloud for how do we take software and turn it into a native managed service inside the public cloud. So these are things like, how do I do billing? How do I do identity management? How do I do console access? How do I do deployment? How do I put it into the service catalog, and so on. And these are all private in our own cloud at Huawei. These are private across every single public cloud in the world right now. But one of the things that we are now working on is we are going to open up third-party, equal, multi-tenant access to these APIs so that anyone will be able to come into the public cloud and have the ability to create a native managed service in the public cloud, no different from what the cloud provider themselves can create. So this is solving the lockout problem. We will open up access into all the capabilities inside a public cloud so that if you want to build a software as a service model that is truly native and no different from any other public cloud service, you will, for the first time, have access to these kinds of capabilities in the public cloud. That's dealing with the lockout challenge. The other challenge we have to deal with is lock-in. Because we don't want this to be just a single public cloud solution. And we also know that for all the software vendors that are out there, you don't want to be in the business of writing to a whole bunch of different public cloud native service engines. So we are also working to create an open source framework. What this framework will do is that it will sit on top of all the different service engines so that as different public clouds make available access to their internal service engine APIs, we can broker across that and provide a single open source framework that enterprises can write across. So now, if I'm a software vendor, I write my software application to that framework once. And I can deploy that as a native service across different public clouds. So we achieve true multi-cloud service portability for the first time in the industry. And this is where we solve a lot of that lock-in problem. I'm not afraid of going into different public clouds because the services are actually portable at the service level across different public clouds. So that's how we address the lock-in challenge. And finally, how do we make sure that this is an industry initiative and something that we can build together in the community? This is where we're working very closely with the Linux Foundation to be able to create a new foundation around the open services cloud and also a lot of this open source work to drive everyone coming together to build this from an overall industry standpoint. So this is what we're looking to do as part of Open Services Cloud. We need a new model in terms of how do we start to address these challenges of open source, software access, and adoption in the public cloud, and also for open source itself? How do we start to make that much more valuable and usable in a public cloud? And this is the way that we can start to put the open source community in control of how do you actually deliver end-to-end services versus just being the building blocks that somebody else takes to be able to power their commercial clouds? Now, as part of this dynamic, what we're looking to do is to evolve the public cloud from a model today where it's really a closed platform into being a truly open market. So if you look at public clouds today, they're really split between the marketplaces that they offer as well as their own native service catalog. If you go into the marketplaces, you can consume a software image or a SaaS application, as I highlighted before. But if you look at the service catalogs for the providers themselves, this is where they offer all their good native managed services. In our open services cloud model, what we can do is we can unify so that everything becomes a cloud service from third party or from first party, and everything becomes a unified catalog of cloud services across the provider. We also changed the dynamic in terms of how we work with the ecosystem and with our customers. So today, software vendors, hardware vendors were largely locked out from public clouds. But in the future, we can all become partners in terms of how do we build services together from a public cloud? So it's no longer just the provider themselves that are able to build services together, but everyone can do it in the community. And customers are not locked in because the services are only proprietary to that one cloud provider, but we can achieve true multi-cloud service portability. And so that opens up the ability for customers to be able to deploy multi-cloud and hybrid cloud wherever they want. And this is also fundamentally shifting the value summary of what we do from a public cloud standpoint. So today, public cloud is really the place that I go to in order to get that cloud provider's own services. In open services cloud, we can flip that to say, cloud should be where I get everything as a service. It doesn't matter who the provider is. The value of cloud is that I've shifted over to this service model, and I want to consume everything as a service. I don't care so much about who is the vendor behind that service. I just want to build my business in the best way possible. So another analogy, just to sort of explain this, if you remember back in 2007 when the iPhone first launched, there was no App Store at the time. And this is an actual Apple advertisement from back in 2007, where they said if you want to be able to build applications and run third-party workloads on your smartphone, the way to do that is through web apps and multi-touch. So remember, third-party applications, you could only build a web application and access it in mobile Safari. But if you wanted to get the true native experience on the iPhone, you either had to be Apple or a partner like Google who could deliver something like YouTube or Google Maps onto the original iPhone. And that's sort of the world that we have in public cloud today. It's a closed device where only the cloud service providers, ourselves, are able to deliver these native workloads across the cloud, and everyone else is restricted to these second-class experiences. In the case of cloud, software images, or SaaS applications. But if you fast-forward to today's public cloud, we can involve that to become much more like today's smartphone market, where today, Apple has their own app store. If you go into the Android world, you can even install multiple application market places onto the same smartphone. And third-party applications, first-party applications run no differently on the device itself. And so we've switched the smartphone from a closed device into an open market for all these different applications, from the providers themselves, the device manufacturers, as well as from all these thriving app developers. And we can achieve that same dynamic from a public cloud standpoint by opening up access to say, how can we all work together to be able to build native managed services in the public cloud versus just restricting that to a very small handful of cloud providers in the world today? So this is something that we've been working with in the Linux Foundation for a little bit now. So we had a kickoff workshop in Hong Kong with a number of companies. Some of the people who attended that workshop are here in this room today. And we talked a lot about, what are the challenges that we see in common and what are the challenges that we would like to solve together in terms of how do we create cloud services and help work with our customers today? So this was just one slide, Accenture was there, and so I took a picture of one of the presentations that they gave around why do they see open services cloud as beneficial. But I've only had 20 minutes to discuss with you, and this has been a long-running conversation we've been having in the industry, as well as with Linux Foundation. So tomorrow afternoon, we're gonna have a whole hour session. This is not on the website yet, so I invite you, if you're interested, take a picture of this slide. But tomorrow from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Moss Beach, we're gonna have a much longer time together where we'll be able to go into a lot more detail in terms of what are we trying to do around open services cloud? Where are we already in the process and where are we going from a roadmap standpoint? So this is something that I would welcome all of you to come and work with us and to discuss. We think that this is something that is really, really beneficial for every single person that's here in this room today, because this is a way to amplify the power and the value of open source as we bring it into public cloud. And so we're looking to build this project and this community in the open, working with Linux Foundation, and we invite all of you to come and work with us as part of this process. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.


Those tools I'm speaking of, background. Background is part prior knowledge. It's what does the child bring into my class, but if I've given you a rich task, what will I need to know before I can solve that task? What of that do I already know? What additional learning do I need? And how can I help you learn that? So there's a couple of pieces there. Right away I have to differentiate the learning. If a child comes in with a lot of background, how do I make sure I don't make them go back through a lot of that content again? There's less background. How do I shore that up? You're committed as an ESL learner. Will I use more visuals? How will I differentiate that learning so all children can access the content? And one of the things we need to be thoughtful of is I want to engage all my children in building that background, but I have to think about how they learn that background. How will I support them in doing that? How do I do that in a way that's not merely transmission? This is one of the interesting challenges. How do I not simply say, here's the content you need? So for example, can I present them with no examples so that they have to build the definition? Instead of me saying, here's the definition for nationalism. What if I said, well, here are yes examples and here are no examples? What's different? Can you build the definition for nationalism? So note, there are ways I can tweak how I deliver content to students that engages them in being actively involved in constructing their background knowledge. So that's one of the distinctions we want to make is the construction of background knowledge with children as opposed to the transmission of background knowledge.


Hey Psych2Goers, welcome back to another Psych2Go video. Have you ever wondered how friendships develop? Do you want to know how someone goes from being a stranger to being your best friend? While there's no widely accepted dairy on the formation of friendships in social psychology yet, there is still a natural progression that is easy to observe. So, here are the five levels of friendship. Level 1. Strangers. Before you become friends with anyone, you start out as strangers. While you certainly know of each other, like their name or what they look like, your relationship is still very superficial. Maybe you see them pass by in the hallways, or you run into them on your way home. You're still yet to introduce yourself. What matters most at this stage is the impressions you make. A good enough impression may pique their interest and make them want to get to know you more, and with continued interaction, it won't take long for you to go from being strangers to acquaintances. Level 2. Acquaintances. An acquaintance is someone you know to a slight degree. You might exchange names and contact information with them, but you only ever reach for important, usually work-related reasons. You may have become acquaintances with someone because you enjoy making small talking class or at work. Your interactions are occasional, friendly, and polite. Some people may even stay acquaintances for years without ever developing a friendship, but when you start to spend more time with them outside of work or school and get closer to them, your relationship may turn into a friendship. Level 3. Casual friends. Casual friends are all about shared interests, fun activities, and enjoying each other's company. You see them every once in a while to have fun with them that you'd never call them after a breakup or go out of your way just to see them. Casual friends are defined by exploration. At this point, you're willing to share more about yourself, but you're only presenting them with the best version of who you are. Your connection with them is still uncertain, and so you often keep them at an emotional distance. You're happy to spend time with them, but don't yet feel comfortable letting them see you lose control or break down and cry. Level 4. Close friends. When you're close friends with someone, it means you've accepted them into your inner circle. It may take a long time to reach this stage, since a strong bond of mutual trust, commitment, and a comfortable sense of familiarity is usually needed. Most of us may be careful about who we let into our lives and who we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to. You can always count on a close friend to be there for you when you need them. They cheer you on and listen to your rants. They're part of your weekend and summer plans. When not all close friends end up becoming lifelong best friends, your friendship is still very much worth cherishing. Level 5. Intimate friends. Casual friends may come and go, and close friends may drift apart, but a best friend stays with you forever. They're the ones you trust most, the ones who have stood by your side since the very beginning, and the ones whose happiness is just as important as your own. Intimate friends share a deeper level of connection than close friends. They keep all your deepest darkest secrets and know things about you no one else does.  You're comfortable letting them see you at your rawest and most vulnerable. Do you have a casual friend you're hoping to become best friends with, or someone in your life you never expected would be such a good friend? Let us know in the comments below. If you found this video helpful, be sure to like, subscribe, and share this video with those who might benefit from it. The references and studies used in this video are added in the description below. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you in our next video.