We're here with Greg Guti, Product Manager from MZI Healthcare, and Greg's here to tell us a little bit about some of how you're using some of the HP software to change your business. So, first off, tell us a little bit about the MZI software. Sure. MZI Healthcare has been on the payer side for over 25 years, really delivering software solutions that help manage patients in an insurance industry. Okay. So what we wanted to do is really expand our business more into the hospital and provider market. Okay. And we started to look around for how we could deliver point of care solutions, specifically around analytics. And to do that, we needed a strong infrastructure, and so that's what brought us to HP Greg. So what does that mean, point of care solution? What are the types of capabilities that you're trying to deliver to software? Sure. Well, we do a lot of different things. We're looking for predictive modeling on patients, look at where it risk lies. Okay. So my example is, you know, a personal example was my aunt last year had ended up in the hospital and had produced based on different medications she was taking from a multitude of different specialties for her chronic disease into a coma. And it was, you know, it was a very, you know, situation that really didn't need to happen, I guess is the point. And it was based around data. If the physicians at the point of care would have been able to see that type of information when they actually met with the patient, they could have understood what type of medications might have contraindicated with her and prevented that whole thing. And that's what our software is really about. It's about getting information to the right people at the right time at the point of care. So when the doctors actually see in the patient, they get the critical information they need from multiple different systems that the patient's information is in. Okay. And that's the new application that you built and use Vertica to use it. We do. Or excuse me to build it. Yes. And one of the key things that really led us to Vertica was really the speed. And I think that that makes such a big difference for us when we started looking at a platform that really could bring out that information at the speed that we needed to get it to, to those providers. Now, is speed in terms of speed, if you're developing the application, speed of delivering information to doctors, speed of analytics, when you say speed, what do you mean speed? Exactly. We really looked at, I mean, I guess a little bit of all of those things, but the primary thing when we first started looking for a platform was being able to run some complex queries on data and get that information to return pretty quickly. What we found with proof of concept with Vertica was that we really got a lot more than just that with the platform. One of the competitive advantages I think that we have is a lot of our competition have to build cubes around summarized data. And when things change, it causes, you know, there's a lot of IT effort to do that. Right. And many of our clients have said, you know, hey, we have this solution, it takes us a day to three days to load our data and get it in there so people can start looking at where there might be problems. And with Vertica, we can load that relatively quickly. Some of our claim data is loading it, two million claims a minute. So it's just fast loading. And it's the minute that starts loading it, it's available for analytic work right away. Okay, so talk a little bit about the use cases and sounds like the doctors, right, who would have been able to help grant and not get in this situation. They're obviously not big data scientists, right? They're smart guys, they went to a lot of school, we trust them with our care, but they're not data scientists. So are they the ones that are actually using this tool? Yeah, so our tool is really based for the end user to make it easy for them to get information without having to have a lot of IT. If you look at a provider's office, they may not even have anyone in the office that knows truly IT work. And so we wanted to provide them with a platform that was very quick and point and get information without having to learn any of the IT infrastructure around it. And so is the use case that they do this as part of their pre, someone's coming in for an appointment, is kind of their pre-work to do some analysis or what's kind of the real use case? Because you said some of the competitive stuff takes days to load. Clearly that's not part of this. So things are changing really rapidly in health care and you can see that the transition right now to getting that data all into one area so that a provider can see all aspects of a patient's continuum of care is very critical. And a lot of the information in the past has been coming from the payer market. And that information is based on claims which sometimes take anywhere from 30 days to 60 days, really get into a system where someone can even look at it. Which is way too late for a patient. What we're doing is actually pulling information from chart information, lab information, loading that live into the system. And when a person checks in either to a hospital or into their family care practitioner, that information for maybe gaps in care, things that they might need based on their chronic illnesses or admissions and discharge from the hospital, all that information is available for the provider to make really data driven decisions at that point. Is it a big integration project to pull all that disparate data types? Or is that part of what your other core software product does? Right now, really in healthcare, data acquisition is probably the biggest challenge that's out there and by no means is it an easy task to do. But as healthcare progresses, things are becoming easier. There's more standards out there and we're able to get that information in pretty easily. And of course all the regulatory hurdles that you have to cross. So just one last point, you talked about companies 25 years old and you guys have been basically doing the same thing with minor changes for all these years. Talk about how you embrace an opportunity to go a new direction and open up a new market for your company and how these tools enable you to do that. Absolutely. Well, we wanted to really look, maybe not be in the bleeding edge of technology, but really be on the cutting edge of technology. And a lot of our customers, both small and large, really needed a platform that they could analyze this data in. But they really in a lot of cases couldn't afford to purchase that themselves. And so the price point on the Vertica system allowed us to install a big data solution and spread that cost over all of our clients through cloud application and really give those folks the same capability that larger institutions may have had in the past. And so that's really helped us out as a business because it's expanded our business from the payer market now into hospitals and providers. When we first started, we were looking at potentially having a whole team of data folks to manage this data warehouse on the cloud. And with the Vertica system, we really only hired one full FTE for that management of that data. So our costs as a company were greatly reduced with the Vertica system. So you got two of the big three. You got cloud and you have big data. So, terrific. So again, Greg, Goody, product manager, MZI Healthcare, thanks for coming on. It's great. We talk a lot about cloud and we talk a lot about big data, but it's fun to actually talk to somebody that's implementing it in the field with real people solving new problems. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Jeff Frick, signing off from HP Discover 2013, we'll be right back.


We were out here conducting the tune ambush for some of the newer guys who've never done this before This is a great process to come out here into this forest setting to initiate that one for a lot of the rehearsal purposes Another important aspect of this would be everybody Understanding their roles and far as far as the assaulting element the security elements and the actual and the Weapon squad and their placement Many ways So first things first we have a lot of privates who's never done this So we the first thing is we have to make sure that they understand each step of each element of all leadership So that's the very first thing second thing doing it in the open field Again so everybody can see because once we come out here Everybody's not going to see what everybody else is doing. So you just kind of have to know Where all the moving pieces are It also differentiates in the aspect of time mainly. I think we did this in about an hour and a half Whereas a real ambush It could take anywhere up to six hours


So next principle, it's called unrelenting confidence. So you have to have the ability, again, if you've ever achieved any level of success that's above normal and the higher the level of success, the more you'll need this. You have to have the ability to have unrelenting, unwavering confidence. And that means that no matter what happens, you have to be able to project a feeling of confidence, of absolute certainty. One of the best ways of explaining that that I've heard and received from one of my mentors who I paid almost $30,000 to attend one of his seminars, his name is Dan Penham. He says, no matter what, I may be wrong, but I'm never in doubt. So no matter what, I might be wrong, but I'm never gonna doubt myself. And what does that mean, okay?  Of course not. But what that means is while you're on the field, while you're playing the game, the best investment you can do is in your confidence, is making sure that you're acting with full faith that it's gonna work out, okay? It's not something that you can fake. You just have to honestly say, no matter what, I'm going to proceed as if there's a 100% chance that this is gonna be successful.  How did it work? What worked? There is time to assess. There is time to sit down, look at what you've done and actually check it out. But while you're in the field, while you're playing the game, which is most of the time, that's 90% of the time, you have to be fully confident. Again, no matter what, I may be wrong. I may be doing the wrong thing. I'm gonna commit to it 100%. I'm gonna do it as if there's 100% chance that it's gonna work out and again, we're gonna tell you how I'm about to close a six-figure deal, $300,000 deal, okay? And I'm gonna explain all that in a moment. So stay tuned, it's gonna be really, really awesome. So exercise with unrelenting confidence. Make a list of everything that you've done until today that should not have worked out, but still did. Basically, ask yourself, what did I survive in my life? What did I go through in my life and actually survive? And by the way, I'm writing here, primatica.com slash 10x. Okay, if you don't have a list for confidence, if you do not have a list for how to, for things you're confident in, okay, things you went through, things you survived, that make you very confident in yourself, you need to have that list and it's time to start investing in yourself, time to take some risks.  Because you've never been in a situation that really tested your ability to survive on the moment, okay? Just to make it clear, when I do these lectures, I don't prepare ahead of time. I spend maybe 45 minutes preparing. I have no idea what I'm gonna talk about before. I trust my skills. Why is that? Because I've been in situations where I talk to 600 people at once without even preparing the content. So I know I'm able to improvise. I know I'm able to take charge if needed. It's an extremely, extremely important skill.


Hey traders, this is T Bradley 90 from the my investing club chat I'm one of the top mentors and moderators in chat as a special gift to our viewers on YouTube We have created a free two-hour course to help teach you how to start a consistently profitable trading business and Identify high-paying setups in just 30 days. There will be limited seating every week So register for the course and reserve your spot now Using the link in the description as a special bonus for everyone that watches the entire video We will give you the link to a free 10-hour additional mini course that has never been released to the public Register now before all slots completely fill up All right traders today We have a very special video for you guys is bow talks about after one week away from the markets and not trading How do you get back into the groove of things again? How do you come back from a layoff away and get back to profitability? He talks about tickers in question j a g x n i o with the v-wap reclaim ob l n p d s b s e s and v i v e And while today is just a preview of the full link video if you want to watch the full length or any of our exclusive content Then become an m i c member All right guys, welcome to another daily recap October 3rd 2019. So it's been a little while since we did the last day recap and The way I do daily recaps is this Whenever I find that there's something to teach I will teach it.  It's going to take you a while to to kind of figure it out to learn that concept Right is but so that's why I don't want to like bombard you guys with too much concepts at once So we want to stagger it we want to stagger it So this is this is a good opportunity. The reason I wanted to do the recap today was this I took a week off of trading I took a week off to do the selze meetup. I made a lot of great people there It was freaking fantastic.   And so dude, I'm like stuck in this not really a party mode, but a non-work mode Uh, I wake up around 408 every day for trading. I wake up. I go through my routine So let me talk about that real quick You have to have a process you have to have a routine and the routine goes outside of trading Okay, like a golfer. Okay a golfer before he hits. He has his routine. He's doing the same thing over and over so becomes Like a reflex, you know, like he doesn't think about the routine. It just happens So you need to develop good routine and the good routine is basically is it starts before you even get into your office Okay, it's did you sleep well? Did you did you fight with your girlfriend? Did you have you know, I'm saying good breakfast Things like that. Are you tired? Did you are you hung over? and so if any of those External personal issues come up Dude, you maybe should not trade that day And and that's what I do. It's like I either I come to work fully or I don't trade But but I've been doing this so long that that I do trade hung over Which is not advisable, but now I mean now that it's a reflex to me. It's okay, but Um, so I haven't been trading for the week. I've been waking up really late I've been staying out really. Um, I've been staying up really late and waking up really late Right and I've been like hung over and partying with Alex and stuff, you know, because I haven't seen them well And so I forced myself today to get back into the daily routine, man I woke up at four o'clock and I'm like, dude Four o'clock. I'm I'm just so tired. Like I don't want to work today every so this is what happens, man I wake up.  I don't want to go work.  So you have to do it So the guys left and I woke up at four o'clock.  I slept early But but you guys get the idea you have to get back to the routine. So now I'm back in the routine, man It feels freaking great, man When I got back in the routine everything clicked. So when I sat down today, I was scared like Alex said Oh, we didn't train the wall. Let's size down all this stuff. So for me Honestly, I didn't even think about that I didn't even think about that because the reason I didn't think about that because Dude, I've been doing this so long is a process. What am I scared of?  Uh, I don't want to get into that one if stuff. So there's two types of people Which is cool. It's completely fine to do that But I don't want to get into this. Oh, shoot.  Don't want to think about that Have trust in your process. So I woke up today. I had trust in my process Everything was fine. No, I didn't deviate from my process. I went to the bathroom on time I had a regular bowel movement. I ate my cup of noodle. I got my water I was scanning the markets in the morning, you know, I got back into my routine. So why am I scared? Why am I scared? I had really no FOMO Uh, because I the the rest of the week every I look back and every every stock was dead There's nothing moving and I was content with not trading day and I was like, cool I don't want to trade. I'm tired. I'm going back to bed. So actually I didn't want to trade I was like hoping that nothing moved but then a lot of things moved But that's why I was able to do I'm going to show you what I traded But that's why I was not scared, dude. I was not scared because I didn't think about being scared So try that technique try not even think about anything negative. I try to be very positive. So instead of saying, oh, I'm scared Do the the reverse and say Think about only the positive things. Okay. I'm going to go stick to my process. I'm not going to have FOMO So you're saying so there's two ways to do it, right? You can say, oh, I'm scared. I'm scared What if I enter too early? So do the reverse do the positive. Okay. I am going to wait for my lines. I'm going to have patience I'm gonna have I'm gonna have to set my stops. I'm gonna stick to my process. Those are the positive reinforcements versus thinking negative Okay, and so when I woke up my daily routine is always look at the low hanging fruit to see what Is moving what's not from the previous day, right? So the low hanging fruit was viva, you know, they're all dead, dude Nothing moved They're all dead. There's really no low hanging fruit scs perhaps um I didn't go until later So but the great thing was when I woke up, there was a bunch of stuff on the scanner, man Let's take a look at that. So what was the big one we played today? OBLN, right guys? Let's take a look at that. Let's take a look at that.  Ah Okay So I woke up OBLN read out. So the first thing I always do I do the same thing over and over and over and over It's the same routine the same process So the first thing I do is I pull fin this And I look up OBLN The reason I'm looking at sinvis is so I'm looking at the float The flow is five million cool. I love five million Because it's not too small and it's not too big If it's too big, it's not going to move much if it's too small Dude, it may move too much Right and so five in my opinion for myself is a huge sweet spot I love it because it it moves percentage-wide enough for me to make money But it's not too small for me to get squeezed And so I'm looking at this 21% whatever it's fine. Then I always check this BAM SEC Look at the flanks. I'm not a finalist expert. You can't be the best of everything Um, and so I just know enough. I'm gonna. Whoa. There's an effective this is sort of uh Possible dilution But by knowing that that there's just because they have possible dilution or they they can dilute doesn't mean they will dilute But what I'm looking for is this guys I'm looking for the fact that they are possibly diluting.  That's how you blow up your account a lot of these guys Who are filings expert fundamentals gurus? They go, oh my god, this this company is it's going to dilute all this because they register to dilute They have an effective on this and then I'm gonna load up and that's where they get killed Okay For me price action dictates everything knowing the fundamentals behind the scenes helps you with your conviction With your you know your your thesis, but does not mean you should You should go all in okay price action dictates So when I'm looking at this, I don't think of oh, they will dilute I'm thinking they can dilute if they want to perhaps It just means that this company sucks. It needs money. Okay. That's that's basically what I'm looking for guys Uh, the only way you know if they really will sell into this is the hindsight So now I'm looking at the start. Oh, it's obvious.   So that's I'm painting the big picture So I always start with the one year. I'm okay. Just dude.     I go by t bradley 90 in the my investing club chat Just wanted to reach out and say if you have any questions about m i c joining m i c Maybe you're a member already you have three ways to contact myself personally and through m i c you can hit our social media You can hit me through pms in chat or you can contact us through my email at tosh at my investing club.com That's tosh at my investing club.com I will get back to you in a timely manner And i'm saying this because i'm here to help and I don't want anybody to be afraid to reach out and ask any question That they have we are here for you guys. All right. See you guys


For example, I put the ball there, you need to speak with this one to go there, okay? Because if he's here, and you are coming here for example, the full back is there, he's completely alone, and the other full back has to leave his position. So the ball is there, or is there? If he's there, he's coming alone, you can't go. He can't go because if he goes, the space is there. If you are coming, the space is behind you, who should we go? That one, okay? So you go in there, go, then you here, the other one more or less here, and then the other winger there. So have you seen? Two fourths, but always one, then it's the opposite. The ball is going there, and this one is coming here, that one should go there, you here, the other one here, and then the other winger there, okay? Stay here, don't worry, stay here. The line, well done, well done, well done, well done, well done, well done. Well done, Greens, well done, Greens, well done, well done.


What's going on you guys rave to Rossi here? So today is Monday the 20 is it the 23rd? It's the 23rd Monday the 23rd of September and so I'm just under three weeks out from my competition And I wanted to really push myself that these last three weeks because I hear you because Never in the years that I've done competing, which is I think 1670-18 I think three or four years now I have never been this close to quitting. I've never wanted to quit this Competition prep this time around has been the most difficult and I'm not talking about the prep itself The prep itself is very very hard with the dieting and the training and all that and abstaining from like Drinking and eating all this stuff that I want to eat But what has really made it difficult is just life's curve balls and all the stuff that's been happening that completely out of my control and for the most part and Have just made it very very very heart psychologically and just realistically financially all of it at this point I haven't even paid for my registration yet. I haven't paid for the tannin package that I need to get I haven't paid for a lot of stuff I haven't gotten posing shorts or any of that yet and that's gonna that's gonna be like half a grand That's a lot of money a lot of you guys know I went to DC for five days to the you United States conference on AIDS to be there as a social media fellow And I gave a little speech and it was amazing and wonderful But the entire time I had to be off diet because I couldn't meal prep and I didn't have anything available I was literally just in the hotel constantly. I was working the entire day Excuse the noise because we've got people here renovating the hallways of my apartment building Yeah, I was in this in this little bubble that I couldn't get out of for five days So my diet was thrown for a loop and on my way home from the airport in LA as I was coming back after the conference I got a call from my co-worker letting me know that our restaurant had been shut down My main source of income was gone. No one even reached out to me from the restaurant I didn't find out until the next morning at the mandatory meeting. We were all being terminated They are slated to reopen in six eight twelve weeks. Who knows they want to reopen as a new concept But in the meantime, I don't know what I'm doing. I have no source of like primary source of income Unemployment told me I wouldn't qualify. I've just been going through the ringer I've been having that major like ups and downs and just feeling stuck and like I don't know what to do And I've just been like spinning my wheels. I really wanted that restaurant to be my last place of employment I really really as far as the service industry goes I wanted that to be my springboard into doing social media and influencer stuff and everything that I've been doing for you guys Reconciling with my ego and all that and just figuring out what I want to do And then all of a sudden the competition was like does it doesn't even make sense financially to throw all that money Into this competition when I don't even know if I'm gonna have money to pay my bills in a month And I don't have a job yet and all that but I've gotten so much support And I've gotten so much encouragement from people saying you gotta do it. You gotta do it You gotta do it But I didn't want to get stuck in the trap of doing it because everybody's saying do it do it do it And I don't want to let people down and I don't want to be judged You know I want to do it from a pure place of actually wanting to follow through and do it even though I'm so far behind on my diet I'm so far behind on posing and all this stuff and the finances and all that at the core of it at the Route I want to make sure I'm doing it for me I spoke with my coach and the decision that I made is that basically I'm going to act as if I'm going through with the competition and I'm gonna do it Everything is gonna go as it's as it's supposed to and I can always make the choice later to back out So the point of this video being with all that said and with my mindset and all everything that I've been going through And wanting to share that with you guys. I decided as a challenge to myself, especially now that I'm not working I don't have any excuses.  What do I do in the morning? What do I do during the day if people want to see it? Perfect opportunity I'm gonna do a daily vlog up through the competition So that's basically three weeks of daily vlogs that you guys will be able to see it's an experiment for me Because I've never done it before it's honestly really scary and terrifying. I don't know why it's it's like I'm so vulnerable and so much a part of who I am and what I do is I want things to be planned out And I want them to be really good and I like things to be polished But part of daily vlogging is I kind of just have to roll with it. So this is just about doing just do it Nike this is day one. It's Monday, September 23rd day one of my vlog I'll probably capture some stuff for the rest of the day this morning. I had my workout I went to the grocery store and got all the stuff I need for meal prepping so I can get back into the grind And I just took Duke out for a walk. So here we go I'm currently filming on my good old Canon G7X Mark II that I've had for a while. I haven't used this in months Maybe like a year. Anyway, I gotta put my groceries away because I got raw beef here Just chillin. Gonna go back. I don't take care of that ASAP So if you want to see my here, I'll show you my meal prep that I did a few days ago I've got a bunch of potato that's like ready to go the beef I tend to cook as I need it per day just because I like it to be fresh But sometimes I don't have the time and I just realize, you know, it's okay to cook to maybe even three days Worth of beef ahead of time and not risk not being ready for it when I need it I think there's a small adjustment that I have to make. I literally bought all the frozen broccoli that was there Usually I go and they only have like two or three bags of this. So they had the entire row filled so I'm like I'm gonna capitalize a lot again It's so hard to come by and I understand why it's so easy And last but not least, chelula I was getting the normal size of chelula, but I realized like how quickly I'm burning through this stuff So I'm like just just get the big bottle. It's okay. Just get it. It's okay Plastic bag. I'll reuse it. I would love to get a filtration system on my The tap for my sink, but I don't see myself doing it anytime soon and like for circumstances So some bottled water will have to do in the meantime I don't know if I'm gonna like how not wide this camera is You're not gonna be able to see so much of what I'm doing unless I'm constantly Maneuvering the camera around just a pain in the butt This lens is dirty. I'll give you a little wipe real quick What's going on over here?  Let's see it is noon It's noon. I got off at like 7 15 this morning and now it's time to eat breakfast Yasss eggs eggs for breakfast. Oh I forgot to get paper towels. That's what happens if I don't put it on their list guys I live by lists My mom used to drive me nuts growing up because she always had lists She always had lists written on every single like you know when real realtors used to give you those free pads of paper and pens She used to have like I remember on the bar She would have that path there and she just had lists for all day long And then she tried to like impose that idea on me She would like leave little post-its on my desk in my room with things I need to do and can you do this can you do that? I hated it so much and now here I am I've become my mother literally all I do is make lists I function off list my notepad. I'm so like I have one for my groceries that I need I have one for like Target for all my vlogs I've showed you guys this before but like I literally just endless lists and sub categories and subcategories and all My life is a list. All right, so gonna be four eggs and a frying Zero calorie spray the chulula of course and Himalayan sea salt While that's going I like to get my shake going as well. So I'm gonna do that right here Little refeed on some healthy carbs Greens formula. Look at that nice heaping scoop scoop of that in there some good old-fashioned organic cinnamon About one tablespoon or was it a teaspoon? Cinnamon's good for you. It's like my eggs are ready to flip Do a daily vlog. I'm not gonna like go through all the exact same things every day That would be boring and useless. So I'm showing you guys my breakfast today tomorrow I'll skip over the breakfast portion and then just getting down to things and I think that's good Yeah, right. So this yeah, this is another gym product. It's just a post workout formula It's got some aminos in it. It's got other stuff to help from muscle recovery and muscle repair So usually at this point, I've realized I got to get my my supplement I have pill form supplements ready for the day. I have a little container that I fill and refill every day So while those eggs are finishing, I'm gonna do that right now I have almost everything that I'm gonna use in this cabinet right here. I'm gonna start with Creatine ZMA, which is zinc and magnesium natural testosterone booster estrogen reducer fat burner fish oil Vitamin D3 5000 I use glucose amine B complex my multivitamin which is for dinner I said most of the stuff that I put in here is in the cabinet, but I have a couple other things like my my HIV medication my Allergy medicine and my finasteride which is for my hair soy so it doesn't like thin or anything I'm out of my allergies and I'm allergic to my dog. So I'm gonna need to get some more of that So for now, I'm just gonna put in my Victoria V, which is my HIV medicine I'm probably gonna I'm gonna sit down at my computer today and have breakfast and stuff So I can also look at emails and go over social media while I'm partaking in breakfast Never have enough children. It's the best. Happy Monday, and there you have it Breakfast tada, so I wanted to take a moment to talk about my experience with stigma in light of Jonathan Van Ness coming out as HIV positive and this discussion about visibility and the need for people to come out With their HIV positive status Not if they don't want to but if they feel compelled to and if they don't like having to live in fear or in hiding Or in secrecy, then it's super important that we have role models and people who are public figures who are by way of living openly and confidently and transparently are Communicating to everyone else that it's okay to have HIV and to have a happy healthy full life Just as deserving of happiness and health and love as anybody else And I also did a video recently on Gareth Thomas coming out with HIV I was just so like struck by the amount of hateful spiteful negative comments that I received on that video It was the most visceral Reaction that I had gotten to video in quite a while There were a lot of people that just had really had something extreme to say about it And there was so much stigma laden in those comments The ones that were really disappointing to me personally were the ones that were coming from the gay community from people Who were gay who were embarrassed or ashamed that he was someone who was coming out with HIV And that he was giving the gay community a bad name These people don't realize that they are the ones who are catering to stigma like the stigma is there that negative Perception of what it means to be living with HIV and to be diagnosed with HIV and then they're trying to do everything in their power to Create a perception of our community by distancing themselves from people who have HIV because that comes with a negative connotation and it's like no bro Like one person said that we're sheep for supporting Gareth Thomas and I was like you're calling us sheep But like think about who you're trying to cater to and trying to impress and trying to be liked by in distancing yourself from the HIV community That's stigma right there in action in your subconscious Causing you to like hate on people who have HIV like it doesn't make any sense So I think there's so much stigma still even in places that you would consider Western world Developed in cities that people are supposed to be really educated on it like here in Los Angeles So I wanted to talk about my own Recent experience with stigma here in Los Angeles a place where you would think there is a lot of access to Education and resources last December I had been going to a barbershop in the Valley and I've been going to this barbershop Maybe like several times. I don't know if it was like five six seven times I had a developed a report with the barber and we were cool We would text and he would respond right away or if I called him he would get back to me Like it was just obvious that we were good Like the last time that I was there getting my haircut with him I you know each time I'm opening up more and more and sharing more of my personal life So the last time I was there I told him that I was diagnosed with HIV AIDS and that I was doing a lot of like social media work Talking about it advocacy work and his response was like, whoa, man, like that's crazy. That's really intense I don't think I could be able to handle it if that was me in that case I don't know what I would do but like so much rep mad respect for you for doing that That's like incredible He was just like wow like baffled by it, but at the same time like really encouraging and what I was doing So I didn't think anything of it until I wanted to make a follow-up appointment And at that point he didn't respond to my text. I thought okay, that's weird whatever So I tried again and again no response. I thought maybe this guy is on vacation He's out of he's not working for a couple weeks or whatever So I called the barbershop eventually and the person who picks up the phone is like, yeah Oh, yeah, he's here right now. He's actually with a client and I go. Oh, okay. That's okay So um just tell him that rave called and give him my message Let him know that you don't want to set up an appointment and tell him to get back to me Here's my number didn't hear anything and so this went on for the course of maybe a month or so to the point Where I was like, yo, okay, I don't know why you're not responding to me anymore I don't know why if you don't want to do business with me for whatever reason Just please let me know and he just never got back to me It was hard for me to grapple with and come to terms with the fact that this guy who was really really cool with me was Stonewalling me because he knew that I had HIV and I finally just had to like accept that and be like, okay This guy's not gonna see me again. I have to go find somebody else. Luckily. I found a barbershop here on Melrose called asa fades I got my new barber. His name is Eugene. He's awesome. He's the best and so I go see him every week You know, I'm one of his best guys cuz I'm always there consistently other guy missed out. Sorry. Not sorry I told him about the story like the first I think the first time I sat down with him and he was just like that's so f'd up I can't believe that that's not an issue here You don't have to worry about that and it hasn't been an issue So so grateful and thankful for that But I'm humbled in realizing that there is still a lot of stigma and there is and people do have to deal with That crap even here in LA and then recently I was sitting down with him I was in his chair one day and he told me because he and I are friends on Instagram And sometimes we'll post each other on each other's feed or story or whatever that one of his other clients that he was cutting his hair One day actually mentioned he goes. Hey, you know, I saw one of your other clients on Instagram He has HIV, huh?  Or aren't you worried that like something you know could happen with the scissors or like with your equipment your tools and stuff And then it's like realizing that this other guy is concerned for his health and his safety Because his barber is cutting someone else's hair who has HIV. That's very ignorant There's so much work to be done. If that's people if people are still afraid of that It reminds me of you know, Greg Luganis swimming in a pool and other people not wanting to Swim the same pool as him because he had HIV and they might bleed in the pool and then somehow That might infect other people or people made that argument with Gareth Thomas that like Oh if he had HIV for a while and he's like playing on the field with other rugby players And he's bleeding and he's gonna get his blood on other people and then everybody else is just gonna get infected And it's like it's not quite that it doesn't really happen like that at all There's just a lot of education that needs to happen not only education, but visibility We need to see people normal people living going about their lives Just having examples in society is important enough to give other people permission to To be okay with their diagnosis and to live happily and it isn't to say that we're glorifying saying yes Yes, HIV like everyone needs to have HIV. Whoo. Yeah, you got HIV high five. That's not what it's about It's about saying we are giving props and respect to people who are willing to talk about it openly And that's a distinction that a lot of people have a hard time grappling with I've noticed people are like Why are we commending people for getting HIV? That's not what we're doing. We're not saying.  No, we're saying if you have it like so many people who are too afraid and too self-hating and too Worried to come out with it for fear of repercussions from friends family job Society for those people who are willing to step forward and be open about it as a source of Inspiration as a source of strength for others that is applaudable and right In light of the campaign that's going on today hashtag a day with HIV I wanted to get a picture of myself that was good quality high quality to post on instagram And um, so I used this as a backdrop with that in the background and I was like How am I going to focus my camera on manual focus if I don't have a subject to to work off of so I end up I put this guy right here. See space height Right where I was going to be standing. I put it right here. And then I went back over there focused my Camera manually then I removed that thing and I have a marker on the ground right here So I knew exactly where I had to stand so that I would be in focus for that camera And then I put my camera on um self timer 10 seconds I was just like running back and forth for the past hour Trying to get a good shot trying to make it look good different poses for those of you wondering how like that stuff Get how you can do that on your own when you don't have anybody else helping you That's just something that I came up with that I do and yeah, it's a little time consuming It takes a little work a lot of running back and forth. I do have a remote control too I just haven't set it up yet So that would be helpful to just be able to like try different things and stay in one spot and and use the remote But um, there are ways to do it was took took me a cool hour And I got my instagram post and by the time you're watching this it'll be on instagram You'll see it tv in the background in the potted plant check it out Okay, so I took a little nap earlier then I was going through emails and stuff on my macbook When I came across a little email from one of the producers over at love line Love line was a radio show that used to be on um krock now. It's on channel q. It's an lgbt qi plus focused Radio station and I had met dr. Chris donahue a while back just serendipitously and we had talked about possibly bringing me on And so the producer decided to invite me to be on to interview tomorrow night for love line And in light of jonathan van ness coming out as hfv positive So that's um, you know perfect in-road to Talk about coming out as hfv positive and dating and all that stuff that applies to love line Hey, so yeah, this is what they sent me Um where it's at I gotta send them a photo bio stuff like that. So yeah Super excited about it looking forward to it. And yes, I'm still wearing my chemo shorts from earlier I took a nap even though I hadn't showered yet.  I'm a filthy animal Um, so I'm gonna I'm gonna do that I'm gonna get the headshot bio and then I'm gonna try to squeeze in another 40 minute 45 minute Cardio session and then I want to get some blocks. I've done for tomorrow before my meeting with a telecare foundation So it's 10 p.m. I've been answering emails talking a little bit with my agent I was on call for another possible gig coming up this week That's a cool opportunity if it if it pans out if it works well And now I'm gonna go I want to go to the gym in the apartment building to do a quick 45 Cardio session. I know the words quick and 45 minutes together. Don't make sense for me. It's not that bad All right, so I'm here in the apartment gym It's actually supposed to be closed at 10 p.m. And I'm getting here after 10 So I'm being quiet just so that I don't bother anybody and get kicked out See you guys on the other side of 45 minutes Okay, just finished my 45 minute cardio and now I'm gonna take dookie out since he's been waiting patiently for me. There he is My good boy, baby Ready to go outside wait outside. Oh, yeah, let's go buddy. Let's go. Come on, baby