What's up everybody and welcome to a special edition of the Falcons Final Whistle podcast presented by Windows 11 and we are here to talk schedule which was just released by the NFL. We know what we have long known who the Falcons were going to play and where but not the win. The win has now been unveiled for weeks one through 18. We have the preseason slate. We know exactly how things are going to be laid out here. So in the spirit of really good radio and podcasting I'm gonna read from a list.  I don't know. I don't know something. Don't think so. Yeah something. Anyway put it up big and then have a second screen on the schedule for reference after I read this thing off. But basically they have the preseason slate that starts at the Lions at the Jets home against the Jaguars and then they have the regular season they have nine home games. They have eight road games including playing the entire NFC West. So here we go. They start week one at home against the Saints then at the Rams at the Seahawks home against the Browns at the Bucks 49ers home. Bengals away. Panthers home. Chargers home at Carolina Panthers on a Thursday night. That one's gonna be a fun one followed by home against the Bears in week 11 week 12 is at Washington week 13 home against Pittsburgh then the buy took me a long time to say that word and then in week 15 at New Orleans week 16 at Baltimore home against Arizona home against Tampa Bay. If you couldn't remember that again just head on over to the website. Check it out. And basically we're here to kind of break this schedule down right that now we know the exact order of how they're going to play these teams. And I guess instant reaction here guys. Tori what are your first thoughts on this schedule kind of seeing it all play out right here in front of you. Yeah I mean I think it's really interesting to look at I think schedule release in general is a very interesting day and I know that people are really excited about it and as you should be you should be excited about it. But to me schedule release is not really a big as big of a deal as what I think many think it is because when you're looking at schedule release it's exciting to know when and where you're going who you're playing when but it's not the time to count the W's and the L's and to really like get into the nitty gritty of prediction because I have an issue and I feel like I've said this on the podcast for I have a problem with predictions like I think predicting things is so stupid and because it's just like one of those things where it's like you can try and predict all day long but no one knows what the heck's going on. I think we I said that in the draft it's like we can go and make as many mock drafts as what we want to make but no one knows how it's actually going to shake out on draft night. Same thing with season same thing with schedule release. It's like we can look at this all day long and be like oh yeah you're playing this person then you don't have a bye we can till here at the end of the day it's how prepared this team is to actually play their opponents and with the NFL being how it is especially in the last couple of years we have seen where anybody can be anyone on any given Thursday Saturday Sunday Monday any of it like anyone can be anybody at any time and so that's why I'm kind of anti predictions when it comes to schedule release day though I do know it's exciting everyone should be excited. Yeah and I mean when you look at this slate I just think now you can kind of see how the Falcons fall and winter is going to play out right because they have so much roster turnover heading into it that my natural thought is how are they gonna start how are they gonna use that preseason to kind of get going Chris especially because they have a new quarterback Matt Ryan obviously in Indianapolis not a part of this schedule as an opponent or obviously as the home teams quarterback when you look at the at the first section there Saints at Rams at Seahawks home against the Browns obviously you have the preseason how key is that for the for the first all these new contributors to kind of hit the ground running do you think it's possible to start hot even against that section of opposition with so many new guys yeah I think starting hot can also look different ways I don't think starting hot necessarily I mean not saying that if you start 0-1 for obviously that would be disappointing and could you know hinder momentum going into later in the season but I think starting hot can mean this is gonna sound weird but I've heard people say this phrase before but like there's a way to lose a game versus like losing and versus if you lose like 40 to nothing or you lose 25 to 24 or 27 to 23 or you played really hard at the end of the game right so there's a way to to build momentum within the first four games I think there's this team is brand new there's a lot of new faces all over so to be through the first four games you'll see are these guys is bought in as guys last season work because it seemed like last season guys were bought in guys were playing till the end of games and playing hard they believed in what was happening now you bring in a bunch of new faces you lost the staple at quarterback our guys still going to be bought in and you'll learn that through the first four games which I think could arguably be the toughest part of their schedule yeah and and we're gonna get into tough stretches we are going to get into some tough teams that they play outside of the NFC South we're gonna take a look at their bye week and not make bold predictions I promise you that but before we get to all that stuff a big thank you to our sponsor Microsoft Windows 11 I love the logo the official operating system of the NFL and the Atlanta Falcons the all-new Windows 11 is here to bring you closer to what you love like this Falcons final whistle podcast learn all about the awesome new features of Windows 11 at windows.com so my first reaction and I said it as I was reading over the schedule is bye week week 14 so long that seems so far away that seems like now last year they they kind of had to have it early because they played London the New York Jets in London they had a bye week so that would have been week six right yeah that seems too early week 14 seems too late like a long time away now I'm sure right before we get there everybody will say that it's a great time to have the buy because that's what they always say but it seems too late right it just seems I mean there's only four games left after that one yeah I mean I think I'm all about the bye week being right in the middle of the season you know right if it's just I think that we should collectively as the league just say that everyone's off in one weekend just everybody's done everybody's just gonna take the weekend off and that be it I'm all about work-life balance and chill action when you can I kind of dig that right fair I think I just think it makes sense because I do think that according to where your bye week falls dictates how the games before and the games after kind of work out because these are guys who are literally putting their bodies on the lawn every single week it's I feel like people are like oh well they're paid to do this well yeah they are paid to do this but they're also still humans they're really big strong fast humans but they're still humans and they're gonna get tired and they're gonna have some they're gonna get tired they're gonna have some bumps and bruises so I'm very like I don't know if I would rather have a bye week early like how it was last year or bye week late how it is this coming here because both suck in my opinion like you know like both both bye weeks being so far on one side is tough and I think about like the first few like the first two months of the season those are like what Chris is saying those are some tough games to have to play right off the bat and so you think you have that chunk of games in the first two months and then you got to go until December until you can just get a break that's tough yeah I think though I think our early bye week would probably I'd probably prefer because I think in terms of like rookies and simply for rookies it gives you a chance to take a breath yeah and you know recalibrate and like okay it's like you're ripping and running but they're running for 13 weeks so yeah I think the universal bye week we should send that to the commissioner yeah I'm gonna call him up yeah just type that up cuz there is I think there is some advantage of I mean you could also say on the back end like you could have momentum from a win but I think there's some advantage if you have some lingering injuries which everyone does in the league you can get taped up you can get stuff right get your body right if you're rejuvenated and you could be coming off you could be playing a team who's coming off having all those entries so there is some advantage so maybe Tory needs to maybe I'll send in my application to be commissioner in 2029 let's do it you heard it here first another thing think of the amount of rookies that are gonna be playing for the Falcons was just thinking that yeah how many games they play in college and how many weeks they have until the bye week and then to tack on four more games after that that that's really a shock to the system for some of these rookies who are going to be playing a lot we know that that's just how this roster is constructed at the current time that's that's a really interesting part and it's something that I know Arthur Smith talked about last year too when he was talking about the reps that Kyle Pitts was taking Jalen Mayfield was taking I think I remember talking at one point Jalen Mayfield and him towards the end of the season and there was still like another two months left of the season and he was like yeah I've already played more this year than I did in the last like two years of college like and that's kind of the that's kind of how it was especially with the COVID year too and some guys didn't play I mean that's I feel like that's a really interesting part of this too that maybe not as many people are talking about yeah and not only that but all these first year guys that they've been doing the pre-deaf process for the whole time so there hasn't been any break and you talk about the big break between years one and two these guys don't get that and the I know that we're only talking about one week for the buy but when it's also a whole you know four-day stretch off and they have a quote-unquote mini buy they play Carolina on a Thursday night on Amazon Prime that's the Falcons only prime time game that's not a shock right that normally prime time games you can have a max of five those games generally go to the more marquee teams the teams that have been in the playoffs especially recently that's not the Falcons at this point if they want though if they want more prime time games and I'm sure fans want more prime time games at home those games are fun those games are live but you need to do a little bit better and then you get that that's that privilege kind of in that following year when you're looking at this and I was going to say rough stretches but just stretches where you think maybe they can make hay or maybe or maybe they're really gonna have to be ready for a two or three or four game stretch here there are some kind of different options based upon where you look does anything stand out and just as you guys are looking at it I'll just go first maybe take the easiest one because are you going the first week then on because that's I literally think the first week all the way to like week six is a tough stretch and I know that's what Chris was talking about earlier right yeah I mean I was gonna start it when they played at Tampa and then at home against San Francisco and I and then at the Bengals but it's funny because when we talk about tough stretches we're talking about like what a team did last year so I'm looking at the AFC champion right right maybe not what they are this year that's why don't hold this against us as we move through but that one seems difficult you know although I'm gonna argue against myself here San Francisco has probably a first-year starter in them and you don't know how the how the Bengals are gonna come back but to me that looks tough yeah you guys think the start of the year could be a little difficult yeah I think kind of to go away from your question because I'll yeah like I got it answers before I think that but to answer I think like the first stretch of games are tough like right until you get like Tori was and when you get to Carolina I think it's up but I think to kind of turn it around I think the easiest stretch or I guess relatively easy is when you look at 10 to 13 right before the bye week the if you look at that and we're talking about last year's teams obviously and on paper what what teams look like those are the teams that you think like the Falcons could get some wins there and you know you look at the Steelers you think you know they might be the lowest team that division or you know the Bears Washington who knows they have Carson Wentz so I think that's the stretch we look at and they and you say they can get some wins there but also I just think in general when you draw the AFC North and NFC West right now like it's it's just pretty hard it's just tough like you when you have the Ravens the Cardinals the Chargers Steelers the Browns Rams on your schedule there's not a lot of games where you can look at and no game is it give me like Tori said especially last season where teams were beating each other weird things were happening last year so things can happen this year but when you draw those teams on paper you don't look at that and say there are a lot of give me so I think the entire schedule is really tough and that week right before the bye week I think they have some games there though that look winnable on paper not that others don't look winnable but more winnable and I was looking at it and I was gonna mention the fact that that they had to play the entire NFC West because they have to travel all the way to the West Coast twice and they do that in weeks two and three and they play back to back on the West Coast that would seem likely if we were to follow a pattern back from 2019 that they played Houston and then they played the the Cardinals and they just kept going West that could be in theory an opportunity for them to stay on the West Coast yeah I mean I think that works works for me in my schedule yeah I mean if you want us to just hang out in Los Angeles and Seattle for right yeah I've never been to Seattle so I'm cool with that no I think that makes sense it'll be interesting to see kind of how that does shake out I think that it makes I said that it makes sense to just stay out there that way because you think about it play on Sunday come back on let's say Sunday night Monday morning whenever it is that you come back and then immediately turn around and have to go back and lose four hours and I mean or gain four hours or whatever it is yeah just just stay out there to make it just easier that way but having to I was gonna focus so much on playing the NFC West because they have the Super Bowl champs in the Rams they have the the NFC runners up in the 49ers but playing the AFC North what Chris just said kind of sparked something that yeah that's a pretty tough four-team division from top to bottom but the way that they play football you know I mean not every team is the same as they were five years ago but that's known as a very physically taxing demanding hit you under the chin strap type of division that that could play an impact too it's gonna be some physical football there and I think that division is better than the NFC West from top to bottom yes definitely better I think the worst team and that if you I who's the worst team at the vision the Steelers yeah maybe and Steelers and the Seahawks so I think I'd probably take the Steelers over the Seahawks so I think you that you have to there's some great quarterbacks in that division they have Kenny Pickett they also have Mr. Mr. risky over there but most importantly like you said it's physical and they got some physical guys this year so you know and they're and it's not like the focus aren't a physical team but in terms of the wear and tear on your body that we talked about in a week 14 by week yeah the AFC North is trouble I think too like it's I go back to kind of this is a little bit off the wall and this analogy may not even work but when Terry font knows that you know we're gonna take it on the chin this year when he was talking about the salary cap and having the dead money of Matt Ryan Julio and kind of just tacking all that dead money on he's like we're gonna take it on the chin this year to a certain degree I feel this way about the first the rookies in the second year guys kind of looking at the schedule it's like you're gonna take it on the chin with some of these guys like with some of these teams because that's how they play and that's kind of the pedigree of which they play with I don't know I don't know exactly what I'm saying but like you're gonna take it on the chin and I would like to think that because the Falcons are taking it on the chin with the salary cap this year taking on the chin with the schedule I do think it sets you up for more prosperity down the road I think it's good for these rookies I think it's good for even these second year guys to get this level of physicality and so that it's like welcome to the NFL it's a moment you're welcome to the NFL moment almost turns into an entire season and it's like get ready because these two draft classes specifically are the direction of which this organization is going in so the quicker that they can get live reps good live reps under their belt the better the Falcons are gonna be in 2024 and 2025 yeah I also like to say to I think well not I think but the Falcons first-round pick you he'll be rested so he hasn't played since October Drake hasn't played since October so in terms of the the long bye week the Falcons lucked up with the first-round pick cuz he he's fresh he did ready to go yeah he did a pro day did a private workout his family says the rest he needed so he'll be ready to go any physical any lowers the shoulders so yeah if you turn on his highlights he's lowering the shoulder so he'll be ready for all of that I think they got a guy there who will feed into that cow too yeah yeah and and if you want to get to where the Falcons are trying to go you got to measure up physically and Arthur Smith talks so much about building that building that physical culture being able to yeah like maybe take it on the chin but also give it back and I think that we're gonna learn through this schedule a lot about who the Falcons have and then who they need to go get right yes who is a true foundational player of these last two drafts I don't think they're necessarily committed to anything that except for continuing to add good players and to keep trying to add good players knowing sometimes you're gonna swing sometimes you're gonna miss and I think that when you look at this slate it's gonna be a great test for them moving forward no matter what their record ends up being just because they're gonna be tested by all these different things while they aren't traveling as much as you think by by dealing with the NFC West especially if they end up staying on the West Coast they're traveling 15,648 miles that would be cut down if they stayed on the West Coast that's not a lot but by by relative standards I think the Seattle Seahawks travel the most because they're on the far stretch of the country but I just think I think it I think it's a good test overall for the Falcons to see where they are and where they need to go and who is the type of player that they want to have around I think you look at a Drake London type you know Kyle Pitts is one of those he's gonna go hard on every play that they're trying to build an offensive and defensive lines that way let's find these things out to your point during this season and then you can say all right here's where we are here's where we need to go it's not that far it's a great distance and who can we keep from all these proven deals Arthur Smith was on 92 nine earlier this week and he's saying once this salary cap opens up then we can reward those guys who committed to us in 2022 he was talking about Lorenzo Carter right is that if he goes out and balls out the Falcons will be more excited to reward a guy like that and I think that that's what you're trying to figure out now we know the order of which they're going to go the fact they have to play a full college season before they can take a chill pill in a bowl in a bowl game in a bowl game and a bowl game you know as they kind of move through this thing but look it's hard but I don't think the Falcons signed up to do easy right yeah I was gonna say also I don't think I don't know I don't think we should just write off this season like right because it's like it looks difficult on paper I think we've been around them as I say them I mean Arthur and Terry and enough to know that you know they really believe they don't believe in throwing in the towel like they're not looking they're not looking to 2023 I think you know in saying that they've talked about wanting guys to come in because they know they have that money and to reward guys and all that but that doesn't mean that they're not trying to win games like they're trying to win these games are trying to make the playoffs they're not like Arthur has said many times and and I think he said it enough and we've seen it enough we saw it last year enough to know that it's not just coach speak or lip service like they're trying to win. And they won seven last year yeah they weren't expected to win seven last year. Well you think about it this way too I mean if you don't want to be competitive now you don't keep Jake Matthews you don't keep Grady Jarrett like those guys want to win like you don't want to waste Grady Jarrett's years a player of that caliber the Falcons re-signed him they re-signed him and he stayed here because he wants to win games here. And I think that goes like to your point it's like they're not going to throw in the towel like even in games that they lost last year I do think they were they showed signs of the physicality of which Arthur Smith wants them to play with the toughness that he wants them to play with. And so I think like going back to I think what you said right off the top of the podcast like taking no matter the outcome but taking building blocks from every single game and being like okay this is who we are this is who we want to be like continue being that. So yeah but to your point like yeah Grady Jarrett didn't want to lose games like he they wouldn't have re-signed him they could have traded him they could have packaged him and sent him on his way for a draft fix they didn't do that they wanted to keep him here that to me is telling that they want to be as competitive as they can be while building this thing. Yeah and if if they can get in more situations like where they thrived in terms of one-square games and then they can find that fire now that fire is not I mean it has to be found and earned and then manipulated and you know done over and over and over again those type of one-score wins but there are a lot of guys who know that they can win this way and if you get into a tough fourth quarter fight you might end up on the right side of it you might start hot you might look at yourself because nobody expected the Falcons last year to be on December 1st even saying the word postseason right but somehow they found their way to be in it so can they find their way to be in it that's going to be a fascinating thing and who's going to contribute to this effort in a significant way that's what we're going to be looking for as we head towards the rookie minicamp which is at the end of this week and on towards training camp in the offseason program and that's going to be fun to watch. The difficult part about that is not being able to watch it with our good pal Chris Rimm. Dang it I'm gonna cry. But nonetheless we I'm sure he hates me even bringing this up but nonetheless we you know at least wanted to remind everyone that Chris Rimm is moving on to a little paper called the called the New York Times. A little paper. Did I get that right? Yeah. Yeah and he's moving on to a great opportunity and I know he was only here for about 12 months but I mean just go spend like a couple days and read the profiles on Kyle Pitts and Cordero Patterson and Drake London there's a fantastic one out there. How else can I embarrass him? I'm gonna miss all the fruity drinks we consume. If anyone some everybody should know that Chris Chris and I became friends initially because we bonded over neither of us liking any like hard like drink that didn't taste good. You know if there wasn't a little fruit or a little sweetness in it we were like nah. A little bit of lemonade. Yeah or lemonade. Yeah. Yeah.  I'm not gonna cry on the podcast but yeah we've had a great a great year I think. Yeah for sure. I just think about like this collective group and I love how much we bounce off of each other and how I think we compliment each other and Chris is a third of that. And I think it was cool how quickly the the Falcons fans really seem to engage with your stories and some of the things and it seems like that you've gotten a chance to interact with a lot of good fans over the course of it. I think you got recognized too when you were out with your life friends. Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah I got that. Yeah that was good that was good. I mean it was yeah one time I was allowed to eat somewhere if the waiter's watching if you're out there. Thank you. I mean it was it was cool but I mean I wish you were I've been my girlfriend for a while now like four years so it was kind of like she was kind of like oh I got to deal with this ego but basically I was out to eat and the waiter recognized me I was with my girlfriend he was like man you do great stuff for the Falcons you know and I was kind of like yeah it's like okay then my girlfriend was like oh my god.  Exactly yeah so it was cool but yeah it's been fun everyone's cool this is a cool market my first time in the south in Atlanta it's been it's a great city I love not having to shovel and do all that and meet in y'all and Sam is our producer back there in the cut you know all those people the the men and women who don't get to be on camera they're all great and talented and make us look good so just a great team and hopefully I built a lot of friends here hopefully I did build a lot of friends here and hopefully we stay connected so yeah and also yeah we with the pre-season everything like yeah the week two of the pre-season yeah everybody's sleeping on Chris's floor. I already called the couch yeah everybody else on the floor.  All right well we could talk about this forever and embarrass the heck out of them but we're gonna go ahead and sign off right now guys thank you so much for joining us and definitely hit us up on our social channels in the youtube comments about your thoughts on this schedule your thoughts on our thoughts on this schedule it's gonna be a very interesting year for the Falcons as we move forward to see how this whole thing plays out plenty more to discuss on this podcast and you know on the website and everywhere else that you can find Atlanta Falcons content most notably on Atlanta Falcons.com so you know what to do right now five star rating five star review oh and subscribe to Falcons Audible please those guys rip make sure you check out all the schedule release content Falcons are putting out. Heck yeah yeah lots of it to do and there's going to be some awesome home opponents stealers bears yeah tons of good stuff go check out the game it's super fun so anyway thank you guys so much for joining us and we'll talk to you soon


Hello, everybody. I'm so excited to be here today with Ron, who is one of the youngest dropshippers in Autodesk, only 16 years old dropshipper. I want to make this interview after I talked with Ron a lot of time and then one day somehow I saw his picture and I asked him how old are you?  So it's very reminded me myself as I also started a lot of time ago. And I thought that this interview can inspire a lot of people and can give a lot of motivation and a lot of ideas for your businesses to many, many, many different people. So today we are here with Ron. We will do this interview about technical part of Ron's business and also how he came to dropshipping and the hard times which he had, which is very, very, very interesting. How are you Ron? I'm great. Thank you. I'm very excited to be here. Great. So I prepared some questions which I will ask you and also I will ask you about the answer so it will be like an open interview. So how did you start with dropshipping and when did you start with the dropshipping? Okay, so six months ago I just was my phone looking at on Instagram and then I saw some ads of some eBay course. So before I bought it I just learned by myself, saw some YouTube videos, saw many webinars and after a month I decided that I want a bit more professional course. So I bought a course and learned with it. So actually I started by just watching on YouTube and then you took a professional course, right? Cool. And what was your goal when you took this course? Like what was your final goal? I really wanted to succeed in this business. I heard like that I can have store of my own that works 24-7 and without me working all the day with it. I wanted to spend my time like I have a lot of time. I'm in high school so to take my time to my advantage and to use it as much as possible. And this is what was your like final goal when you grow and with the business and the business goes forward? What do you want to reach? I wanted to like now I want to have a lot of stores. I want to outsource the most of the store, the work so I can keep on growing my business, opening more stores, just making profit. Nice.  Yeah, I want to hire some VAs of customer service, of fulfilling orders just to so I could focus really the important things and how to just grow and grow and expand my business. Nice. Now I wanted to ask you about the age. I know that it's very hard on this age to manage a business in many different parts of life. Can you tell us a bit about which problems did you have with the business on this age? Yes, so I do have some problems with it. First of all, because I'm below 18 years old, so I can't have PayPal, I can't have eBay account, and I can't have Payoneer account. So I need to use in each of my stores, my family names, my friends that are older than me names and need to find a lot of identities to all of my stores and PayPal. And in addition, it's in another aspect. Working on eBay really demands from you to work at late hours, like 1am, 2am. So I took these hours and I slept a bit less, but I think it's worth it. This is very professional. So great. So you have the two problems. So actually, you immediately started with Stealth accounts, because you don't have any other option. So we even don't know who is wrong. Cool. So I remember that when we talked around, I think it started two weeks ago maybe, you had a lot of problems with eBay. Can you tell us a bit about the challenges which you had and the problems which you had with your accounts? Yes. So after I started the mentoring program, like a month and a bit more ago, I saw really big, super fast growth in my store in just one month. So I needed to call eBay and even to have more like higher limits. I had I think 30,000 items limit and 900,000 limits, but I needed more. So I called them and asked them, please give me higher limits. I want to expand my business and stuff like this. And they told me no problem, but it will take some days. The internal team need to review your account. So I waited a few days and then I got not so happy notice that I got MC011 restriction, that is one of the hardest restrictions. And it was a problem. Good. And how did you solve this problem? Did you solve it alone or how did you do it? Yeah. So first of all, because of my age, I don't have like a thousand dollars to spend on to give someone to open it for me. So I needed to do it myself. So I called eBay many times. I sent them all the documents they wanted. I really didn't gave up because I wanted it to work. After I saw this grow in my business, I couldn't give up on it so fast. I understand. How did you feel about this when you got this restriction? It was very bad feeling. But after I saw it, I looked at it a bit different because after I got this result, so I understand that now I know how it works. I know now how should I work to make the best profit that I can. So it did have some advantages on this side that I just decided from now. I'm opening five more stores. I'm going to expand my business five times more. So I mean, actually, it changed your mindset. That you just need to grow. Okay. Cool. And I wanted to ask you about the course which you did in the beginning. What did you learn in this course? Like it was basic course or more? How it was? So it was actually a basic course. I taught me really just teaching how to open the eBay account and how to list your items and then how to use automation that's a monitor and product research tools. And I think the best thing that really changed from zero sales that I had when I learned alone to the first and after sales is to start with low price. I started to just list items when I learned alone, even without researching them, I think, and like $10 profit or something like this. And it didn't work. I didn't understand why. And then after I bought the course and saw the videos. So I understood that I should start from the beginning when I'm a new seller only with a few items and only with like 50 cents profit. And then after each sale, to grow the price, to make it higher, to have more profit. So this is what you learned in the course and with which supplier did you work on these days? I was very focused. So I used Amazon, but not really in Target. So in Target, I also have interesting story. The people that see it, I hope they won't touch Target. I found a very interesting item, which sales like in $5 profit. And it was like the lowest price on eBay. It just sells like 70 sales a week. It was amazing. But then Target started to realize, understand that I'm a drop shipper. So it just started to cancel all my orders one by one. And I succeeded to save the most, but I needed to cancel 26 orders. And on these days, I didn't know what is defects. So I also canceled them with out-of-stock reason. And it made a big problem on eBay, on my account. And this is what I learned how to manage many difficults. Wow. So you had a lot of difficult sales, the target and the accounts block and like many difficults in the way. And they still grow. It's amazing. How did you get to this mindset? Like how did you grow to this? Did you learn from someone or just you? How did you get to this? I think that because of my mistakes, I learned how to deal them. After each mistake I did, I know now to not repeat it again. So I learned a lot from experience. And also now like the new method of working is from the mentoring program. I understand. So actually the mindset is just because it's CEO, like you just want always to go forward. This is just how you work in life in general, right? Yeah. Amazing. So I want to go to the second part of the interview after we know people a bit and know how did you start about your current days in the drug shipping and how do you work on these days? So first I want to ask you, first of all, to make a small introduction, Ron started in the mentorship program as a Clayton student around when did you start on? At the beginning of March. Yeah, around one and a half months ago. And then the things went very good. He will tell about this soon. And I want first to ask with which suppliers they work right now. Okay. So now I have three stores in the US that working on Amazon and another two stores in Germany that working with Aliexpress. Cool. You work with Aliexpress because of the VAT or the AT? Yeah, because of the VAT. So this way you saved the AT. Cool. Can you tell us a bit about the strategy which you work and use now? Yes. So the strategy is the big rules, the big numbers rule, as you call it. I use the find and recurring uploads. I upload to my store, I think like 200 listings a day in very low profit margin, like 3%. And the most of the profit comes from gift cards that I'm buying on discounts of 15%. And also cashback of 7% approximately. And I also use the new feature of the coupons in the Autodesk Finder that sometimes can be amazing, like 20% saving on a very expensive item. That's a lot of profit. Nice. So I mean you don't sell tons of these coupon products, but when you sell, so it gives you a good profit. Yeah. Nice. How many products do you upload per store, per day? So I did it, I started like from 50 a day and then 100 a day and then 200 and even more. And I reached up to 5,000 listings on my UB store. Amazing. Nice. Okay. And after you got a mentor, can you please explain how was the process with the mentor about the WhatsApp group, about the lesson, how it works for you? So first of all, I scheduled my first meeting and it was a bit afraid because Clayton just explained me like the new method of work. And I needed to purchase anchor store that is $350 and I needed to purchase a lot of credit for the Finder. And then I decided, okay, I'm doing it. I pressed him and it did work. And after I think two or three weeks, I did a growth of 600%. I went from $1,000 approximately of selling a month to $2,000 a week. Wow. It was amazing. That's a crazy girl. I didn't know about this crazy. Wow. And what did you change in your strategy? Like it was just this that you moved to Amazon or it was a completely different strategy? Like what was the different this and the course which you did before? So with the course, I researched more. I took more time on researching the items and listing them one by one. And I didn't have many items in my store, maybe like 500 items or something like this. And then I grow to 5,000. And like the eBay flag didn't, I didn't care about it anymore. Like with a flag, I didn't sell a lot from in the beginning before the strategy changed. And then after it, I sold like 20 items a day, which I maybe sold it in a week or two before. So actually your accounts are flagged and you just don't care and continue to work? Yeah. Amazing. This is something which I really tried to explain people because people are always trying to remove the flag instead of focusing on how to work with the flag account and still make profits because it's possible. So I really hope we'll show people and inspire them. Do you feel with the mental that you have someone that you can ask questions about the dropshipping or any holidays that you have about dropshipping? Yes, actually, I think every day that if I have any problem, I just contact Clayton and the answers me even the same minute sometimes. It's very available to any question that I have. And really, I owe him a lot of my success. Cool. I hope that he will listen to this interview. I will send it to him. Actually, for you, it's great because it's in your nights. Clayton is US time zone and you are working in nights, so it works good for you. Are you optimizing the prices or the titans or anything in your listings? Actually, I'm only using the auto price feature. If the product doesn't sell, so I drop the price until I'm getting a very small amount of profit. And I increase the price, like the auto price does it, increase the price if the item sells as good. If the item sells two times, it starts to increase the price and then I have more profit of a good item. Cool. So we're just giving the system to do it automatically for you. You use both the price less and price drop. By how many percentage or dollars do you increase the price? I do it with 51 cents because I'm using the 99 cents end. So that way it always changed by one dollar. Cool. Do you have any specific niche that you use? No, actually, as I said before also, I'm not researching the items anymore. I'm just letting Autodesk do it for me and just uploading from the Finder. So it uploads many, many niches. I don't focus on a specific one and I think this works. Amazing. Cool. So actually, in your age and this mindset and the results are really amazing. I'm sure that it will inspire a lot of people. What are your next steps from now? How do you plan to continue growing, create more stores or what are you doing now? Yes. So now I'm expanding like I now open five stores. So my plans are to open over 100 stores because if I have each store doing more than $1,000 sales a day, so it can be very, very, very good out of profit. And just to keep expanding my business every day to hire VA's, to do customer service, really focus on the important things. Nice. So you're starting now to create more and more stores and grow all of them together. Yeah. Amazing. Actually, you already got this $1,000 I think with the big store, right before you had the problems. Yeah. So we just saw that you can do it and now you want to expand it to many, many different. Amazing. Cool. Do you have any other tips that you want to share with people, any thoughts, anything that you want to tell to people? Just to not give up and really if I can do it, when I'm 16 years old, so I'm sure every person can do it and you can learn from other mistakes also. Like from my mistake that I work with Target and now I know don't work with Target. So just to learn from others' experience and also to not listen to people that saying that it doesn't work and now maybe flag is your account. So now you can sell anymore because it's not true. I took a non-selling account because it was flagged to sell $1,000 a day and I'm sure everyone can do it. It's amazing. So guys and people who listen to this actually think about this alone at 16 years old really made it and made it very, very great business and very fast and big growth. So actually Ron's starting point is much harder but his mindset has really helped him to succeed and grow. I actually got a, I remember the first message which I got from you about the suspension. It was like a bit, oh my god, what to do now. But the second time was like, okay, it suspended again. Let me just continue, which is amazing. I think that everybody need to really learn from this. Thank you very much for this interview, Ron. I'm sure you've been thanking me. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.


Save 10% with my code Bobby10 on raw, organic, grass-fed and grass-finished, freeze-dried organ meats from grassland nutrition. Link in the description box. All right guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're new, my name is Bobby. Guys, today we're gonna revisit one of my favorite topics, the ego. We're gonna watch how to counter your ego with Sheikh Hamza Yousef yet again. I talk to people offline and as with anything, people are divided. Some say that Sheikh Hamza Yousef is the man, he's an absolutely beautiful representative for Islam. Others say that he's a kafir and not a trustable source at all. To me personally, what I have heard from him was beautiful, was impressive and aligned with what I understood from the Quran. With no further ado, let's have a look. You have four enemies in this life and only four, nafs, shaitan, hawah and dunya. All the other enemies, if Allah sends them to you, it's a tribulation but your real enemies are these four. And if you can conquer these four enemies, all the other enemies are very insignificant. But the nafs is the number one. I learned this from you guys in the comment section. So thank you very much. You said that the ego is nafs in Arabic. That's Hibayna Jambayk.  And we all have them. We're born with children, children have wonderful, beautiful side, but then they've got that horrible child that's selfish, but it's mine. You know, when they grab a toy, it's mine. So this is something that, as you grow older... I can relate to that as a father. Hopefully you learned to overcome that, but there are many people that behave like infants throughout their whole lives. This is actually something very, very interesting that I observed in Thai culture. In Thailand, people say that culturally, those childish behaviors like being envious, being grumpy, this is something that you will have to let go of as an adult. This is mine. This egocentric behavior is seen as something childish within the country. And this is why Thailand is called the land of thousand smiles, but it's not artificial. It's not fake. The Thai people truly see this as something childish and therefore just leave it in the past. Leave it for the children as grown-ups they see it as their responsibility to be happy, smiling adults. Absolutely beautiful. One of the most important things that we can do is to remember Allah, to work on ourselves. We have to work on ourselves. I mean, we all struggle. I struggle with myself. We have to work on ourselves. We can always do better.   You know, I don't think I listened to you attentively. And that was my mistake. And I think being able just to admit that you're wrong about things is really important, not being defensive. The ego always defends itself. The ego defends itself because every loss for the ego is a death. This is what the ego is truly about.  But every single time you can objectively reflect and look at your ego and do not identify with your ego, you essentially start understanding that you are not your ego. And like this, you can actually know your enemy, know thyself, so you know God. Most extraordinary scholars, Ibrahim al-Laqani, amazing man.  He actually wrote the Johara in one night. And when he finished it, he went to his sheikh and he gave it to him. And his sheikh knew what it meant, like he had had an opening because it's a stunning poem, 144 lines of just crisp creed. And he took an oath with him. He said, from this day forward, I never want you to defend yourself. And that's a powerful practice of just not defending yourself. We have an amazing story of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, when a man was really abusing him in front of the prophets that I sent him. And the prophet was there listening and smiling. And then Abu Bakr just couldn't take it anymore. So now his nafs came in. And even Abu Bakr had nafs. I mean, it's the purest of all. Of course. Our prophet's life sent him in his ummah. This is what it means to be human. Every human will have an ego. This is the battle that we have within ourselves. As far as I know, this is the internal jihad. He didn't take it anymore. He started defending himself. The prophet left. When he saw him later, he asked him why he left. He said, that man was, it wasn't true what he was saying. He said, I saw the angels defending you. And right when you began to defend yourself, Shaitaan came into the room and I don't sit with Shaitaan. I mean, that is just such a stunning testimony to the power of fighting the ego. Sure. So what I would suggest first and foremost is that you begin to do a type of muhassabah. And we actually, Imam Zaynay worked on something together. What is muhassabah? Called the Agenda for Changing Our Condition. And it's actually a program to work on the self, where you do a musharata and then muhassabah. As much as I appreciate the Arabic language, the issue with many Islamic videos is, we simply do not understand. Within Christian orthodoxy, for example, there are many Greek words that are being used, but every single time the people make at least an effort to translate them to us. It would be beautiful to see if scholars could translate those words to us non-Arabic speakers. So you do, you actually commit like, I'm not going to backbite and you commit to doing it for 40 days. 40 days straight, because it takes 40 days to really, Allah swt gave 40 nights. He gave 40 nights to prepare for the meeting, he gave Moses 40 nights to prepare. And Jesus fasted for 40 days. 40, this is why in Jama'at Tabligh they go out for 40 days. There's a big secret in the number 40. And so you do 40 days of, I'm not going to backbite for 40 days. And if you do, you have to do mu'aqab at the end of the day. And then, what is mu'aqab? You start over if you didn't do it.  Even a Wahhaban said, I made many oaths to give up backbiting. And I ended up fasting a lot, because he would break the oath, he'd do another and then he'd have to fast. And he said, so I decided that I would give a dinar in charity every time I spoke ill of someone. And he said, because of my love for money, I was able to finally give up, because he made his oath instead of fasting, breaking his oath. So I think that's something that you can practice. It's just working on things. One of the things, most of us in insana, you know, the human being knows his own soul. Even if he gives his excuses, he knows his own soul. Of course, his self accountability, essentially, you will always have to face yourself in the mirror. You cannot escape yourself. Even if you escape a situation, you weaseled yourself through something and nobody saw it. You got away. Ho, ho, ho. The reality is, you saw it. You will always see what you have done. And you will always have to face your own judgment first. This is why I have to repeat, know thyself. And then you can know God. You're in a constant battle with yourself. And when you set out to do something or to not do something, and then you fail, you know that you failed. And that is the beauty of self accountability. What's wrong? It's very good to ask people. I mean, I always get shocked sometimes. Do I do this or do I do that? Yes, you do. You know, that's an ouch. But it's something that you have to take reflection from other people. So that's important. And then the best thing, and this is absolutely well established, is prayer on the Prophet's life. So if you make it a consistent practice, your soul will align. And this is something witnessed by many, many people. So people that do consistent practice of prayer on the Prophet's life, that it has an effect on the heart. What does that exactly mean? Please let me know in the comments section as well. Prayer on the Prophet. As far as I know, Muslims are commanded to pray to Allah and not to Mohammed. So please let me know and clarify this for me. And they really begin to behave in a much better way. But each of us have our trials and tribulations. All right. This is it for today's short video. I absolutely love this subject. As you can clearly see, the ego is simply such a fascinating enemy that we have to face on a daily basis. People ask me, how do you get rid of the ego? You don't. You don't get rid of the ego.  That's all you can do. Once you understand that you are not the ego, this is when the liberation starts. All right guys, but this is it for today's video. If you liked it, leave the thumbs up. If you haven't subscribed already, guys, please do so. And if you want to support this channel via Patreon, for example, help me out and click on the description box below. Check out the links. Thank you so much for that. As always, may God bless you all. Much love and peace.


I'm Dan Berset. I'm the executive director of the Environmental Energy Study Institute, and I'm joined by two of my colleagues, Miguel Ines-Barnuevo and Molly Brindemore. They work with me in Washington, and one of the things they work on is the work around IJA and IR implementation. We are also joined by special guest Jerry Lawson with EPA Energy Star. Jerry, it's great to see you. Before we dig in to the slides, why don't I turn it over to you, Jerry? I think you have a few welcoming remarks you'd like to make. Okay, thank you. I would like to welcome everyone, but primarily to thank EESI, not only for today's important webinar, but for their years of environmental and energy analysis, advocacy, and education. If you haven't already, I recommend subscribing to EESI's newsletter and spending some time on their valuable website. As Energy Stars lead for small business in the faith community, I've been especially appreciative of EESI's articles for energy efficiency for nonprofits, as well as their general initiatives, publications, and these issue briefings, and also their social media presence. Finally, I'd like to invite anyone whose organization is not yet an Energy Star partner to visit EnergyStar.gov to find the sustainability tools and training and technical support that we offer, as well as links to more sustainability resources across EPA. With that, thank you and enjoy. Well, thanks, Jerry. It's hard to say enough good things about all the cool stuff that Energy Star has going on. I think Bank for the Buck, probably the best federal program, and so thanks for your long service to it. You think of all of the facilities you've helped make more energy efficient. Probably a really, really long list, so thanks for joining us today. We are here today to talk about opportunities for energy efficiency and for nonprofits. Just very briefly, EESI is, we're based here in Washington, DC. We were founded in 1984 on a bipartisan basis to provide policy educational, policymaker educational resources. Our emphasis is on Congress, and over time, our work has also expanded to help provide direct assistance to utilities and rural areas to offer inclusive on-bill financing programs. We take, we have a commitment, we've made a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and justice. We take that very seriously. If you would like to learn more about our work on DEIJ, we have a statement online. That statement is how we sort of internally report on our progress, and by no means a suggestion that we haven't all figured out, but we do do our best, and we recognize that we have a long, long way to go. Our mission is to advance science-based solutions for climate change, energy, and environmental challenges, and our vision is a sustainable, resilient and equitable world. The reason why we're talking about nonprofits and energy efficiency today is because there's some really exciting things coming down the line that will help nonprofits improve the energy efficiency of their facilities, and then also more broadly embrace clean energy. And thanks to our friends at Energy Star, we've been given an opportunity to make the presentation today. We'll start, and we will have lots of time for questions. So for those who are online in our Zoom meeting, please use the chat, and that's how we'll keep track of questions. Even if you have a question as we go, we'll do our best to come back to it. This presentation won't take the full hour, not by any means, so we'll have lots of time for discussion and for Q&A. And if you would like to come back and look at any of this, we'll make the slides available, and then also post the recording, probably on our YouTube channel, which EESI uses to collect all of our online briefings and things like that. Let's just start with the basics, and that is that energy efficiency is always a good thing. Fans of Energy Star know that already, but it's always good to reiterate it. For nonprofit organizations, energy efficiency is especially good, and that's because it saves previously wasted money that can then be reinvested back into the core mission. EESI is a nonprofit. We know just how hard it is to do what we need to do with scarce resources, and simply put, the idea of wasting energy is really important to how we should be going about our work as a nonprofit. It also improves the sustainability of our facilities, of our operations. It makes a positive contribution to our community. As nonprofit corporate citizens, we want to do right by our communities. It sets in a good example. We talk a lot about climate change at EESI, and energy efficiency is one way that we can also set a great example. It also increases readiness for other improvements, like solar, for example, and lastly, it allows us to help do our part to advance climate change solutions. Specifically, we're here today to talk a little bit about something called the Energy Efficiency Materials Pilot Program. In November 2021, Congress passed and the President signed into law the Infrastructure Investment in Jobs Act, aka IIGA. Some of you may also know it as the bipartisan infrastructure law. Buried inside that big bill, which was billions and billions of dollars of new spending, is a pilot program, $50 million provided to the Department of Energy to make competitive grants to install energy efficiency materials in nonprofit buildings. These grants are capped by statute at $200,000. We are still very much early in the stages of developing and the Department of Energy in particular developing this pilot program, but it's really, really exciting. It had previously been a bill introduced in Congress on a bipartisan basis. Here it is with funding in the infrastructure bill. It really does present a really awesome opportunity potentially to improve some nonprofit facilities, but also to focus generally on the benefits of energy efficiency. The statute doesn't have a lot of detail in it, but it does have some things. I think at this point in the development process of the pilot program, it's good to take stock of what we know and what we don't know, because as we're talking today, there is an opportunity to provide comment that can help DOE sort out some of those unknowns. For example, we know what a nonprofit means. That's a definition that refers to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 that we're all familiar with, 501C3. We also know what energy efficiency material means, and that's a product, piece of equipment, or system that results in a reduction of energy or fuel consumption, and it lists a few examples of common energy efficiency measures. And we know roughly what the criteria of these grants will be. We know that DOE will apply what they call or what the statute calls performance-based criteria, and that will give priority to applications based on several factors. One of those factors is the financial need of the organization, but the other criteria involve energy savings, cost effectiveness, things like that. And again, if you have questions as we go, please feel free to pop them in the chat, and we'll be sure to get them. The statute, like I said, it's not a very detailed provision, so there's a lot of unknowns. A lot is left to the experts and the professionals at the Department of Energy to sort out, but they're a good group to do that. Some of the things we don't know are actually pretty important. So for example, we don't know what the minimum grant will be. We know that there's a statutory cap at $200,000, but we don't know how small the grants will go. We also don't know exactly if the criteria that the statute provides will be weighted in any way. Will they all be considered equally? Will some be given preference? We just simply don't know that, and that will obviously have a lot of influence on the types of projects that ultimately get awarded. We don't know how involved the application process will be, and for nonprofit organizations, that's really, really important. A big burdensome application process is obviously much less attractive than one that's more streamlined and straightforward, that doesn't take dozens and dozens of hours to complete, but we don't know what that looks like yet. We also don't know how many applications do we will receive. We know we have $50 million, we know we have five years to spend it, we know what the maximum grant is, but we don't know actually how subscribed or oversubscribed the program will be. That's obviously an important piece of information to know, and it will likely affect how DOE plans for the overall implementation of the pilot program, not just in the near term. We don't know when the grants will be awarded. We know that they're currently collecting information, but we don't know exactly how long it will take, and we also don't know when the grants will be dispersed. I think it's fair to say some time difference between when an application period opens, when applications are reviewed, and when disbursements are made, and for nonprofits that have to manage cash flows, especially nonprofits like ours that those are seasonal, obviously really, really important programmatic details to figure out. The good news is that the Department of Energy is currently taking ideas. There's a comment period open right now, and comments are due two weeks from today, Thursday, December 22nd. That's a great opportunity to share information with the Department of Energy about what the pilot program ought to look like. The RFI, I have a copy of it right here, and it goes into a fair amount of detail. It describes where the program came from, how it was authorized. It describes sort of the goals of the comment period and what DOE is trying to accomplish in these weeks. They are looking to solicit feedback on issues related to program development and execution, and they have a series of questions, a number of questions split across five areas, outreach, technical assistance, criteria and metrics, funding, and partnerships and community benefits. Each one of these categories, like I said, is broken up into questions. Those are pretty broad topics, and DOE is, I think, very open to all of the feedback that they get from organizations, organizations like ours that want to weigh in in order to support the implementation program and organizations like yours that may have ideas and comments and feedback, preliminarily at least, about how the program can be that's ultimately developed and implemented is the best version of the pilot program. A couple of comments on the pilot program comments. One is that you don't have to address every question. You don't have to try to answer every question. You don't have to address every issue, but the comment period is a really, really important time for nonprofits that have something to say to speak up and to provide DOE with information that will help them ultimately implement the program. Like I said, they're due two weeks from today, Thursday, December 22nd. DOE is looking to collect them electronically. There's an email address here and the RFI includes some fairly specific guidance about how to go about submitting comments. And whenever you're responding to a DOE request for information, it's always a really good idea to read the instructions because you wouldn't want your comments to be excluded because they're submitted wrong or because they otherwise aren't in compliance with the overall set of guidance that DOE's issued. The RFI also includes some important caveats I think for everyone to be aware of. The first is that the RFI is not an application. It doesn't envision any funding at all at this point. And also there's no advantage or disadvantage to making a response or to submitting comments. It's purely information gathering at this point. So if you are not able to muster comments that wouldn't have any negative impact on an application, if you are able to submit comments, it wouldn't necessarily mean that you have a leg up when applications are eventually open. We wanted to take a few minutes to talk a little bit about sort of what can happen in the meantime. So we know that comments are due in December. The program will continue to make good progress as 2023 rolls along. But there are things that nonprofits can be doing now to help them be prepared for when applications are open. And of course, energy efficiency is always a good thing. So these are good practices for nonprofits to be doing anyway. We have a couple of suggestions that we wanted to pass along and we have a lot more detail on these suggestions in some of the articles that we've been publishing over the last several months. And there are links to those articles at the end of these slides. The first of our suggestions is to simply learn how energy is consumed in your facilities in your buildings. That could involve an inventory where someone walks through the building in a facility and notes the energy consuming equipment or appliances that are operational. And the age, the serial numbers, the type, those are all, they all sound like very basic things, but they're all really important things to know. And that leads directly into our second suggestion, which is to engage in some benchmarking. Benchmarking can be sort of done at different levels. It could be you know, done sort of on the back of an envelope, so to speak. But since we're talking today with our friends at Energy Star, it's a great opportunity to plug an incredibly robust benchmarking tool called Portfolio Manager that is really probably the best benchmarking tool out there. It takes a little time to orient yourself with it, but it's an incredibly powerful tool. And the benefits of benchmarking done now is that it gives you a very good idea of how your building is performing, how your organization's current level of energy efficiency. And that's really helpful for scoping out what types of projects might be cost effective for your organization. So it's definitely something to take a look at. Also a good time to start defining success, what kind of projects is your organization thinking about? Do you already have energy efficiency goals in place? If not, are there energy efficiency goals you'd like your organization to work toward? And importantly, a lot of the barriers to energy efficiency aren't technical and a lot of them aren't even financial, a lot of them are organizational. And so this is a good time to also start doing the work to identify who in and out of your organization might need to be involved in decisions concerning energy efficiency and moving ahead with the project. It's never too early to start that process. We also recommend this is a good time to start looking for other funding sources to leverage. Many nonprofits are located in utility service territories where the utility offers incentive programs. There may be other financial benefits offered by your state or state energy office. Based on that inventory that you've already assembled, you should be able to identify using online resources like Energy Star, opportunities for additional incentives. And that's really important when you're talking about grants and rebates, but also for financing programs that can take a little bit longer to come together. And many states and utilities offer financing programs that might be applicable or available. This is also a good time to start thinking about your audit options. There are different levels of audits and your utility may be a good resource for finding professionals who can help come in and help you assess sort of opportunities for cost-effective energy efficiency. And then also, there are a lot of great case studies including some that we've published about nonprofits that have made a commitment to energy efficiency and that had benefited in reading those nonprofits, nonprofits from across the entire sector. It could be a good way to learn what's worked, to get ideas, and also potentially also expand your network and make connections. We also wanted to spend a few moments today talking about some other opportunities that are coming down the line. The first that we wanted to mention is a provision that's soon to be implemented by the Treasury Department that was enacted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. This involves direct pay for tax incentives that were previously out of reach for tax exempt organizations. We have a little chart here. Previously, nonprofits were able to benefit from these provisions, but only if there was a private company with a tax liability involved and what the new direct pay allows for is for tax-exempt entities to receive a direct benefit from the federal government. That's important, maybe a little less so for energy efficiency, but for what might come next, like for example solar energy. If you're thinking about installing a solar system on your nonprofit, this is a good thing to be aware of, especially if you're a clean energy project would exist in what they call an energy community. And again, we have resources on our website that goes into this more in detail. If you are thinking about solar, if you are thinking about taking advantage of this direct pay, also a good time to start thinking about energy efficiency. It's a lot easier to install solar panels on an efficient building than when it's inefficient. And the second thing that we wanted to mention was nonprofits serve a lot of different groups and a lot of different individuals and the Inflation Reduction Act also includes a lot of individual incentives. These are probably not within reach for nonprofits, but the people in your networks may be tracking them and may start hearing about them. So this is a rundown of some of the biggest ones that are available to residential or households, residential utility customers or households. The first is the energy efficiency home credit. This is a rebate or a tax credit, I should say, for heat pumps and pump water heaters as well as building envelope improvements. There are caps, but those caps have been increased since the last time this tax credit was authorized. So this is a good thing and the tax credits take effect in the new year. We're also a couple really exciting rebate programs. The first is the home electrification rebate program. This is one that is income-based, but it's going to help a lot of people transition their residential heating and cooling equipment over from fossil fuels to electric. And that's a really tremendous opportunity. There's also the home owner managing energy savings or Homes rebate program. There's a chart here that shows that built, broken out a little bit into more detail, but we're talking about billions and billions of dollars. And this was probably a good time to plug state energy offices, which are present in your state and will eventually be a very, very important source of information about how these rebate programs are implemented because these rebate programs will flow through states. And then lastly, you've probably already heard about the electric vehicle tax credit, but that's been expanded and increased. So not only can you get a tax credit now for a new electric vehicle, but you can also get a tax credit for a used electric vehicle, which is really exciting. That brings us to just a couple wrap up slides. The first is just running through some of the educational resources that we produced. DOE also has published a lot of really, really high quality and timely educational resources. So I encourage folks who would like to learn a little bit more about those to click those links. And then if you're interested in the incentives that are sort of like the tax credits and the rebate programs that are not available to nonprofits, but that are available to people in your personal networks, we also have some articles at esi.org that link to those. And of course, like I said, we'll make the recording available and also the slides available for anyone who would like to click through those. That brings us to the end. We'll pause there and take any questions via chat. And thanks so much for your attention. And hopefully we hopefully we helped you understand a little bit more about what this opportunity for nonprofits look like. Thank you, Molly. We have a question in the chat and this is about regarding other funding sources. Are there opportunities for nonprofits to partner with a city or county to leverage EECBG allocations and EECBG stands for energy efficiency conservation block grants? Yes, actually there could be. This is the idea of leverage and partnership is something that the RFI specifically asks about. It's really important for DOE to hear sort of how different partnership opportunities or funding sources could be potentially leveraged by your nonprofit and also which funding sources or partnership opportunities might be out of reach for a typical nonprofit. I think one challenge that nonprofits will have to manage as they're thinking about this is the sort of the order of operations in terms of how these programs are rolled out. There will almost certainly be a delay between when applications are due and when applications are reviewed, when applications are approved and then when funding is dispersed. And so it will be a challenge for nonprofits to have visibility into all of those things, including when they come from other agencies. We didn't talk much about the greenhouse gas reduction fund, but that's something that EPA is also working on. So I think the short answer to your question is yes, there almost certainly will be opportunities. What those opportunities look like are very much TBD and a major source or major topic of interest on the part of the Department of Energy. Dan, this is Jerry. Will you all provide follow-up webinars like this in the future as more is known, like in the spring? Yeah, we'd be happy to do that. I think timing-wise it would probably make sense to come back in the January of February timeframe, share a little bit more about what we know. And also by then too we'll have had the experience of going through the RFI process. So yeah, absolutely. Happy to do that at your convenience and the convenience of your network. We have another question in the chat and this is about does the pilot program or the terminology pilot program imply that another round is expected after five years or even sooner if this program is successful? I think DOE is taking very seriously the fact that this is the pilot program. I think they are hopeful that this program is just knock your socks off successful and I think they would very much welcome the opportunity to continue something along these lines should Congress decide to keep it running. I think it's an open question how long the pilot program operates. $50 million is a lot of money, but there are a lot of nonprofits in the United States with lots of energy efficiency needs and so how quickly they're able to move through those dollars is an open question. I think Congress will be paying very close attention to how the pilot program goes and I think DOE is really, really well positioned to do a really excellent job with the pilot program. It wouldn't surprise me at all if DOE learns things from the pilot program experience that could then be used perhaps to either authorize or otherwise fund a version 2.0 that builds on the success, but yes. I think it was very clearly intended by its congressional authorizers to be a pilot program and I think there are lots of opportunities for this to do really, really well and hopefully grow into something that's a little bit more permanent. We'll go ahead and give it a couple more minutes and then we'll wrap up with the idea that we'll make everything available to folks who are able to join us and folks who are not able to join us. The last slide I have here in case anyone's typing a final question is contact information for me and Miguel and Molly. So if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. Email is probably best, but those are our phone numbers as well. We will continue writing articles on documenting case studies of nonprofits. We'll continue monitoring and tracking closely the implementation and then in the spring or in the new year when it's the right time, we'll come back and we'll do another one of these. But as we start to wrap up, like I said before, the comment period is a really great opportunity to make it known to DOE. What would make the pilot program especially successful from your perspective? They're eager for comments and in fact I think they're willing to be overwhelmed. So don't hold back if you have thoughts that you'd like to share. This is a great opportunity to do that. And we'll start winding down. We're just at the half hour mark. Jerry, love to invite you back to send us all on our way and thanks to Molly and Miguel for helping making today possible and thanks to those who are able to join us. Thank you very much. It was excellent. I was also impressed with articulating what you don't know yet, which is what we'll come back for. Thanks everyone. All right, well we'll wrap up. I hope everyone has a great rest of your Thursday and we'll be in touch and don't forget December 22nd. That's the deadline for comments. Thanks everybody.


Alcohol and drug problems are present in families from all walks of life. The lives are all-sided, complex, and unique to each family and individual. With this in mind, we still need a general picture in Denmark of the problem, and that is the aim of my PhD project to look into the scope of the problem. But how can we make young people talk about such a personal problem, which is often a secret outside the family, and related with a lot of stigma and taboo? We use survey as a safe and anonymous place for young people to report if their father, mother, or both of the parents have or have had alcohol or drug problems. But it's not enough to address the problem with dark figures and unreported numbers, because we know the most the socially exposed do not participate in survey research. So we combine the survey data with a lot of registered data on not only the participant, but also the non-participants, as well as their parents. So using these data sources, we hope to get a general picture of the problem in Denmark. And this was done by three analyzers. Firstly, I estimated the prevalence of young people who have experienced the appearance to have alcohol or drug problems. And the results show that 15% of young Danish adults have experienced this kind of problem. So this actually means every seventh young Danish person in Denmark. Secondly, I'm looking into the schooling performance and how they are doing compared with their peers. We know from existing research that they are experiencing more troubles and conflicts with classmates and teachers. But I would also like to look into the protective factors for those who are actually doing well in school. Lastly, I am going to look into different family structures and how they relate with different problems, and also consequences for the young persons. I hope my project to be relevant for practice and policy, and to create more knowledge about this issue. The next step for my PhD is to support a discussion of how the surrounding society, such as educational institutions, helping system, social services, can meet the parents and the young adults in their complex, all-sided and unique lives. So thank you for your attention.


Hello and welcome to the session. In this session we will discuss a question that says that if even and e2 are the eccentricities of a hyperbola and its conjugate respectively, find e1 is to e2. Now before starting the solution of this question, we should know a result. And that is if x square over a square minus y square over b square is equal to 1, with a given hyperbola, then minus x square over a square plus y square over b square is equal to 1. That is y square over b square minus x square over a square is equal to 1 or you can write x square over a square minus y square over b square is equal to minus 1 and b are the constants. That is the hyperbola will be the conjugate and transverse axis of the given hyperbola is called the conjugate hyperbola of the given hyperbola. This is the eccentricity hyperbola then e square is equal to 1 plus which is equal to 1 plus now the length of the conjugate axis is 2b and length of transverse axis is 2a or square which is equal to 1 plus b square over a square. Now this result will work out as a key idea for solving out the solution. In the question it is given that e1 and e2 are the eccentricities of the hyperbola and its conjugate respectively then we have to find e1 is to e2. Now let minus y square over b square is equal to 1 with a given hyperbola then using the result for finding out the conjugate hyperbola of the given hyperbola. Here we have our b square minus equal to 1 e1 is the eccentricity that is the hyperbola then using this result which is given the key idea 1 square will be equal to 1 plus b square over a square. e1 is equal to square root of b square over 2 plus b square over the given hyperbola that is the conjugate hyperbola of the given hyperbola therefore e2 square is equal to 1 a square over b square this will be equal to 2a and the length of transverse axis will be equal to 2d. In this solving we are getting e2 square is equal to 1 plus a square over 2 square root of b square plus a square whole upon. Now we have to this to e2. Now using the values of e1 this to e2 is equal to square root of a square plus b square whole upon a square b square plus a square whole upon b square which is further equal to square root of a square into square root of b square over square root of b square plus a square. Now these terms are cancelled with each other. This is equal to square root of b square over a square. Therefore, e1 is to e2 is equal to square root of b square over a square, e1 is to e2 is equal to plus minus b over a, that's a given question and that's all for this session. Hope you all have enjoyed the session.


Hey Chris, I saw you put two extra hours in your time sheet. Can you explain that?  I put a couple extra hours on there for the extra time that I did after hours. Well, I just needed a quick answer for our top client. I do that with all the other sales reps. Oh, then I should start telling all of them that they should start charging for doing stuff after hours. Oh, Ben's gonna be so stoked. He does a lot of stuff for you after hours, so.