what's up everyone jossie here and in today's video i'm going to be showing you what a productive work day in my life looks like but before we continue this video i want to thank western digital for sponsoring this video i'm actually really happy to be working with western digital because i've been using their external hard drive for multiple years now so i have most of my video content saved onto my external hard drive so it's always good to work with a brand whose products you already use on days like today where i'm really busy have a lot of meetings along with programming that needs to get done in the morning i like to wake up about 30 minutes before my first meeting just to get in the right headspace and do all the necessary things that i need to do to start the day off the right way and one thing that i do in the morning to help me stay productive and on track with the tasks that need to be completed for this specific day or really any day is by actually adding the meetings that i have appointments along with tasks that i want to get completed by a certain time within the day using one of my favorite apps called time page has a really beautiful user experience i think the app was created by moleskin i think that's like a really nice like notebook brand but anyways it's a really cool user experience and it's really easy to add appointments amongst other things into the time page app you have like location that you can add URLs for like zoom links along with like being able to you know repeat whatever tasks or meeting that is if it's something that needs to be repeated so that's the first thing that i like to do in the morning i'm really excited to talk about western digital and their wd blue sn 550 nvme solid state drive i've made a lot of laptop videos and i get a lot of questions about hey what type of laptop should i get as a software developer or software engineer and i typically recommend laptops based on three performance category which is memory of course storage if a laptop doesn't have ssd it's a deal breaker and then of course graphics as a content creator i notice some of you all are probably thinking hey isn't website development and programming more software related well here's the thing you can't have software without hardware well for one high processing speed is essential for web development and mobile development as a software developer i know for a fact that installing packages building solutions and handling large code bases can take up a lot of space and the last thing that you want is system lag when you're trying to build or run a solution but here's the thing about nvme ssd it gives your pc a substantial power boost for one nvme ssd is a cost effective storage system that adds reliability to the solid state drive with nvme build a powerful small form pc with a slim single sided m.2 2280 pc le gen 3 x4 nvme solid state drive you can also do more with less with its scalable hardware accelerated architecture for high performance and low power draw and i mean look at how small this solid state drive is it's literally the size of my chapstick also not to forget that western digital design controller and firmware paired with the latest 3d nand for optimized and consistent performance and like i mentioned earlier western digital is such a reliable brand with a long heritage of advanced award-winning and quality hardware and firmware so the first meeting that i have and typically this happens on tuesdays and thursdays is our stand-up meeting so i do have stand-up every day but on tuesdays and thursdays i have stand-up at 840 in the morning and what's really nice about having stand-up is that you get a chance to talk with your team members about your progress on projects if you have any stumbling blocks and what projects you plan on tackling for the day this also helps me stay productive because it keeps me accountable to my team members all right so after having that first stand-up meeting one other thing that i noticed that keeps me productive along with keeping track of all the projects that i have along with the progress that is being made whether it's you know other business areas giving me assets that i need to complete whatever web development tasks that i have so actually going through my outlook and reading through emails is it sounds really simple but as a developer you get really caught up in the weeds of programming and sometimes ignore emails but it's actually best to go through those emails especially when other business areas rely on you to complete projects so i know that i feel a lot better knowing what's going on within the other business areas because sometimes there's like stumbling blocks with getting things approved along with you know maybe pushing dates back or just asking for the overall progress another way that i like to stay productive after reading through my emails is tackling the first programming tasks but before i get to that point i usually like to like run my code and see what i actually worked on i'm a visual learner and when your context switching let's say i didn't get a chance to program as much yesterday on this project because i worked on something else or had a lot of meetings it's great to like visually see what i built and then i'll go through like my one no and go through the tasks that i actually need to complete for that day one recommendation that i have for anybody whether they're a programmer or not is to use a pomodoro timer i typically work in like 45 minute increments and then i step away for 15 minutes especially when i have a lot of programming to do i recently downloaded this pomodoro timer app that's been a great integration into my system because i typically would just go to like google and type in 45 minute timer and then play lo-fi music in the background so with this app it's made it a lot easier for me to start my tasks by just opening up the app and selecting a 45 minute work session you can do 25 minute you do whatever increment you want so for those of you all who've been following my channel like the past year you know that making coffee has been a huge part of my morning routine and kind of daily routine so making coffee or tea breaks up my morning it really energizes me and inspires me however i've actually been drinking less coffee recently so i'm not so reliant on something that keeps me productive and motivated and i've been drinking a lot more tea nevertheless for the sake of this video i want to give you some really nice coffee making b-roll so now i'm actually about to meet up with one of my best friends and we're going to go to a coffee shop it's one of my favorite place to shoot like b-roll and we're just going to talk for a little bit i think i'm just going to grab a smooth but uh yeah i just it's hot outside i want to smoothy i want to get out of the apartment and enjoy this really nice weather during the afternoon time is typically when i like to take my break for lunch and this can be anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour it depends on what the work day is like but one thing that has also helped me be productive and not sluggish is the food that i put into my body and on days like today when i'm really busy and may not have time to work out because i got to do programming stuff i got a lot of meetings i got video editing i got a shoot video and all these things to do i may not have time to work out or work out as long as i'd like to so one thing to kind of feel that void is to eat healthy so i'm going to be making some salmon not just by myself my wife and i are going to kind of make this together it's going to be mostly her because she's a way better cook than me so today has been really busy um i hope this video is helpful there's really no equation to productivity this is just me showing you what steps i make to be productive but for the rest of the day i have more meetings like meetings on top of meetings on top of meetings so it's kind of hard not to be productive with meetings because i literally don't have time to be distracted because i have to be in the meeting but after my meetings around 3 30 3 45 i'm going to spend the rest of the day coding and using my pomodoro timer to keep me focused and also not to burn myself out i hope this video was helpful i didn't want to make it too long i just wanted to give you like a quick short version of how i stay productive it seems like you all like these kind of like lifestyle productivity routine kind of videos which really makes me excited because i can add a little bit more creativity to those videos opposed to like the software engineering stuff so be sure to give this video a thumbs up it helps out with the algorithm a lot comment down below your morning routine or how you stay productive and some apps that you use i love engaging with you all in the comment section and it lets me know if you like the video if you haven't already subscribe to the channel i love for you all to become a part of this amazing community and as always have a blessed rest of your week once again thank you to western digital for sponsoring this video peace


I'm Wendy Lo and I'm here with you as we journey to take your health back. We are coming to you live from downtown Honolulu from the studios of ThinkTek Hava'i. ThinkTek Hava'i offers you a spectrum of personalities as they offer you 45 different hosts with very different topics of interest. Today our topic of discussion will be on mentorship for complete wellness. Centers are essential for spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical wellness. How do we set ourselves up for success and complete wellness in every area of our lives? What we would like you to take away from today's discussion is to seek people who have been successful in all the areas of wellness and allow them to hold you accountable. That is so key, the accountability part. Today we are very honored to welcome Joseph Delaney, Marine Corps Colonel and Life Coach with mentorship for complete wellness. So welcome to my show, Joseph. Aloha, Wendy. Thank you for having me. We're so excited that you're here. And I know that I found you on Facebook, I mean of course you're one of my Dragon Boat paddlers and shown up, did the job, we brought him the trophy, we're excited to have you on board next year. I've probably already recruited you for next year. So excited about that and that you said yes. Yes. Yes, okay. And after serving 26 years as an officer in the Marine Corps, I just loved your discipline on our boat. You came on board and you just knew what you had to do and you did it. And we brought home the trophy, as I said. So a lot of credit goes to you for being that personality on our ship, I should say. Right? So Joseph, just tell us a little bit about who you are. Well, a lot of credit goes to you as well for driving the team so on. But you've probably alluded to me being a Marine Corps officer and I owe a lot of what I do today to the Marine Corps. And I'm very thankful for that. I am a product of a lot of mentorship over those 26 years. I'm originally from Trinidad, the West Indies. And I grew up in Augusta, Georgia, where I graduated from Savannah State University. I love so many things about life. I'm a big picture fanatic. I love videos. I love the beach. I love health and wellness, all components, fruits and veggies. I have the one, you know, I don't like chocolate. Oh! And I know your background, so that's a little bit odd. Then I should have worked for me because that's the kind of people I like, the ones that don't like chocolate.   And that's important. Well, I have found out that's not normal, but I'm okay. I'm not normal in a lot of good ways. And hopefully we'll see that come out in the video. But you know what's really neat, too? It's my two daughters. They were born and raised in the chocolate factory. They don't like chocolate, either. Oh, I love them already. Yeah. But see, again, that was really good because I didn't have to worry about turning my back and like, what are you doing, girls? That's, again, already a pound of chocolate you've consumed today. So I didn't have that issue as a mother in a chocolate factory. So I would welcome you at any time to volunteer at the River of Life Chocolate Unimission, because you're the best kind of person I'm, on the other hand, am a chocolate and I will and have eaten most of the profits. Uh-oh. Can you tell? So let me jump into your professional career as a Marine Corps Colonel. What were and what do you do in the Marine Corps? What did I do in the Marine Corps? What do I do? What do you do? So I came in and listed right after high school. I've known since seventh grade I wanted to be a Marine. I met a guy who would later become my mentor, my first mentor, outside of my parents, of course. Master Sergeant Raymond Snyder made a tremendous impact on my life and I never looked back. Walked into the recruiter's office right after high school and enlisted in the Marine Corps. I later went to Savannah State University where I earned my commission as a Marine. 26 years later now I'm part of Marine Forces Pacific. I've had great opportunity to lead the finest men and women across the Pacific and I've never, never even doubted what I do for a moment. I love it. So right now we just want to say mahalo to you for knowing what you wanted to do, serving our country and doing such a great job in doing so and still very passionate after 26 years of serving and well that's even better that you considered an honor because we considered an honor that you've done that for us so we mahalo you. Thank you for your support. And so now as a young man, signing up, joining, that's a big decision and were your parents a part of that decision or did you just decide that that's what you wanted to do? My parents were not a part of that decision. I was only 17 and I had to get my parents permission. My dad served 30 years in the Army, retired as a Soviet major and had a significant influence but not directly on going into the military just on the way he lived his life in an honorable sense of how he lived his life. When it was that first Marine, that's the Soviet Schneider that really inspired me to join the Marine for I loved everything about what I saw and he exhibited such a high degree of integrity and discipline that I knew I wanted to be whatever that was. I didn't even know it was a Marine at that time but I knew that's what I wanted. So did the look, yourself looking at you in a uniform, did that have anything to do with it? That you wanted to be that man in the uniform? It was the way he carried himself. It was the uniform, it was the pride, it was something different about him. He walked into the auditorium that day, it was a career day at my middle school and everyone else, every service, every profession had done presentations but when he walked in there was just this confidence about him, he was powerful, he was confident, he knew what he wanted, he knew what he was doing and he wasn't selling, he was just being himself. Wow. And that drove me in and I never even had it out.  This was never planned to be this long, I just enjoyed what I do. Well, so the fact that it is this long and that you still enjoy and are honored and I think you would encourage a lot of other 17 year olds to do as you did and make that decision and be grateful and happy about it. I'm hoping to do that in a lot of different ways. Yes, I can understand that and I see that's what attracted me to have you on the show is that you have that passion for mentoring and so critically needed for so many and so we're going to encourage you in any which way that you can get this and reach as many as you can. So now I would like you to tell us a little bit about your family outside of your work. Oh, my family. I'll have to try to keep my composure when I talk about my family, my girls. Jayla is now 13, she turned 13 last month, well two months ago now in October and Alyssa will be 11 later on this year. I still call them my babies but you can tell by the pictures they are not babies anymore. They'll always be your babies.  One of the things I think about a lot is my goal, my public goal in life is to help other people recognize and achieve their full potential but the reality is when I'm at home alone with just me and my thoughts, my goal is to be the hero that my girls believe that I am. Yes. And that's what really drives me. That's my reason why they are my everything. Yes. That's an amazing goal and a reason and I'm sure you're accomplishing it every day of your lives. I hope so. And so that is so critical as a parent to have that goal and your daughters will have great success as they're growing up. I have to tell you my daughter's team from Christian Academy, they are going to the basketball championship for Intermediate so they will be at the basketball championship on Thursday night and I am so proud. I will be in the front row trying not to lose my voice. Lose your voice. It's worth it. It's all worth it. So now you have a happy, enduring family life. You have a great career with the Marine Corps and what makes you happy? I mean, what kind of hobbies outside of family and work do you have? I am willing to try anything at least one time. I've done the Spartan Race, I do CrossFit, I cycle, I run, I paddle, I paddle board, I obviously I was on your team for the Dragon Boat Race, but there's some other hobbies too. I enjoy reading. I read a lot and that's the foundation of who I am. I digest books at a very fast pace. I have to, but I'm not a fast reader. I'm just a consistent reader. But everything, anything I get my hands on, every athletic event that someone invites me to, I take advantage of. I just enjoy being outdoors. That's part of the reason why I enjoy Hawaii so much. We can be outdoors year round. My true passion is helping other people. My faith is what really guides me. But my hobbies, my fitness, I actually have to remember this day balance. Wellness is so much more than the physical component. It's the spiritual, the emotional, the mental. I can get wrapped up in the physical very fast and I know I'm competitive, so I actually have to hold back on that stuff. Right. And you've hit it right on the nail and that's why, you know, when they asked me to do this show, what would the title of my show be? And it would be take your health back because it doesn't just confine me to nutritional health or, you know, physical health, but all. I mean, if you were a banker, it would be financial health. It would be anything related to health because your health is within.  And that's health and wellness is so important. Mental health, the direction that you're specializing in, that's very critical as well. Right. We need more of that. We need absolutely more of that. We need more of you to go out there and just talk to kids, talk to adults. And that's basically what we need to do more of. End time, just hearing people's hearts. Yes. Are they suffering? Are they hurting? Are they joyful that they share? Whether it's good or bad, sharing. And that's very critical for everyone. Yes. So why did you choose to focus on mentorship? I didn't originally choose it. I chose to lead. I wanted the opportunity to lead, and the Marine Corps gave me more opportunities than I could ever imagine. At the age of 20 and 21, I had tremendous leadership opportunities, and it blew my mind of what I was allowed to do. And then I met one of the first mentors I had as an officer. After I met the son, Schneider, he became our general Stanley, the gentleman you see me within the photo. He took me under his wing and showed me what compassion was really all about. He gave one of the first speeches I ever heard him give, was called the Big C. And I didn't know what he meant by that. How can you lead Marines and show such tremendous compassion? What I wanted to do was take that to the next level. I realized that I had a gift. I received the confirmation, the affirmation, and the phrase over my 26 years in the Marine Corps. And it was time for me to do something different. It was time for me to give back. And I wanted to give back in a personal way. I didn't want to just lead Marines. I wanted to mentor them and take care of them at the heart level. Well, that's so powerful. And you often, I'm not a military family or person, so I'm not privileged to experience what you have. But we watch movies, and you see when they go to the boot camp, and they're, you know, and so that's the kind of, yeah, OK, so I just see them try to, I guess they try to build up character by spanking you guys around and just being mean and rough to you, but in my heart, how does that really build somebody's character up when you're putting him down so bad? You know what I mean? I don't know exactly. That's just from movies, so can you clarify that a little bit? Everything has a purpose. In Marine Corps Boot Camp and Marine Corps Officer Candidate School, we want to get everyone on the same playing field. So first, you strip down everyone. You get rid of all those bad habits from the years of upbringing. We have good habits, too, of course. But we want to get everyone on the same playing field. One of the things in Marine Corps does exceptionally well is we build everyone up. We start off as a Marine the day you graduate, the day you receive that Eagle Globe and anchor. We are all equal, and we know that because we've created that brotherhood through shared experiences of everything we've been through. Wow. I want to sign up. Oh, no, no, no. So you're branching out way beyond your leadership roles as a Marine. Why, at this point in your life, why are you branching out now? It's time, Wendy. It's time. I reached the crossroads in my life this past summer. I had reached the pinnacle of my career. I am extremely fulfilled of everything I accomplished, goals beyond my wildest dreams. I never set out to do this for a lifetime. And I absolutely have no regrets. And I can keep doing this as long as the Marine Corps will continue to keep me around because I truly enjoy it. But I realized that while I've done well and gotten the confirmation within the scope of the responsibility the Marine Corps has given me, as I broke out the journal one day and I began the journal, I realized there's so much more out there. And I asked myself, who am I? All these gifts that I've been told about, why am I only using these in my limited scope of responsibility, which varies. Sometimes I might be responsible for 1,200 Marines. Sometimes it might be a few hundred. But there's so much more out there if I'm just willing to step out. Wow. I mean, you said you accomplished so many goals and now you want to go to the next level. So I'm so excited to hear about the next level because you've accomplished so much. And I mean, a colonel, okay. That's amazing. And I have not seen you in your uniform yet with all your medals and decorations, but a colonel guys, that's amazing. And so we're so grateful that you're still happy and honored to serve. And you have this disposition that you want to give back by helping others. And so we're so excited to hear further from you. But at this time, we are going to take a one minute break and we'll be right back with Joseph Delaney. Colonel Joseph Delaney. Aloha. Thanks to our ThinkTech underwriters and grand tours, the Atherton Family Foundation, Carol Monli and the Friends of ThinkTech, the Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education, collateral analytics, the Cook Foundation, Dwayne Kurisu, the Hawaii Community Foundation, the Hawaii Council of Associations of Abarbon Owners, Hawaii Energy, the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, Hawaiian Electric Company, Integrated Security Technologies, Galen Ho of BAE Systems, Kamehameha Schools, MW Group, the Shidler Family Foundation, the Sydney Stern Memorial Trust, Volo Foundation, Yuriko J. Sugimura. Thanks so much to you all. Oh, and welcome back. Wow, so much honor in this room and integrity. I'm so excited and honored to have Colonel Joseph Delaney with us today as he shares his life experiences from a 17-year-old young man joining the Marine Corps and now 26 plus years. He was as excited as he was when he signed up and wanting to give back a little bit more with all those years of experience. He wants to now lead others in a different way and so we're gonna come back with Joseph and learn more about that with him. So what is the number one thing a mentor can assist with? When it is so much. And I thought about this. If I had to boil it down to one thing, I would say perspective. When we wake up every morning, we look in the mirror and people see all of their scars, they see all their faults, they see everything that they've struggled with throughout their life. They look in the mirror and they begin, I'm too fat, I'm too slow, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough. When they wake up every morning at about 3.59 right before my long clock goes off, I grab my phone, I turn my long clock off and I walk over to my mirror and this is serious. I've had to learn this and it begins every morning and I begin with my affirmation statement and it goes, I am just a portion of it. I love myself and have everything that I need just the way that I am. I'm spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically strong. I'm an amazing father and leader. And it goes on and on. But the point is I had to learn that a mentor can help with that. I have people that told me, you need to do this. You need to read this book. You need to do these affirmation statements. I didn't figure that out on my own. It's too easy to allow the negativity of the world to just take over. There's so much positivity out there but it has to be deliberate. It has to be intentional. Right, absolutely. And you know, that's key. Everything that comes out of our mouth, I mean, even for myself, you know, I've learned to actually I do a lot of this. Immentally I do this, meaning Wendy stop, don't say that. How can we see it that would be more effective or more positive? So I myself am trying to self-coach and understand the impact of what I say. And so it's been an experience and a journey that it's so powerful because people always say, wow, how do you see that when I see this? Yes. Right, isn't that exciting? Right, yes. And you must get that all the time. I do. I do. And it's hard. You gotta go against everything else that you're hearing this negative. And there's a lot out there, as you said. So you know, when we spoke and again, when I saw you on Facebook launching a mentoring and so passionate about it, as I said, I just wanted to have you on so that you could share more of this. But your vision to become a life coach, I mean, lots of times we have all this experience and we're just gonna keep it within and mentor our girls and our families and our friends around us. But being a titled life coach, that's a big responsibility. So can you tell us how that differs from being a mentor and what someone should look for in either one that they choose? Absolutely, they can be the same thing. A life coach is someone who finally has established a business. They have a framework, usually somebody who is designed or dedicated to helping people establish a vision, affirmations, goals, and action steps. A mentor can do the same thing. I have a passion to do both. But for me, mentorship is more personal. If I'm mentoring you, I need to know about you.  What are the things that you wanna achieve out of life? Otherwise, I can't mentor you unless I'm gonna be an episodic mentor. Maybe because of one aspect of your life that you see and you wanna be like me in that one aspect. We can talk in that area, but for me to mentor you as a lifestyle mentor or even as a coach, I wanna have a personal effect. I wanna have a personal relationship with you. A coach might be someone you're just paying for a brief period of time to help you overcome a hurdle, but that mentorship is personal. And that's what I love about it. So ideally, I wanna have a balance of both. And I have coaches in my life who have now become mentors and friends. There's also an evolution to that process as well. Oh, and I believe the key to this whole relationship is trust. Yes.  And so until you can get that trust that they feel comfortable enough with you, so that they can unleash, we call them the aces, the adverse childhood experiences.  It's always gonna inhibit us from being the best we can be. And that's the negativity that people speak about through their, when they speak on or to others, it's from themselves that they see darkness. And so that's the whole thing. That's powerful. So that you need to trust how that relationship so that they can feel comfortable to let that out for you. And then you can start doing your little healing. It's a lot for them to be for someone you're mentoring or coaching to be vulnerable. Oh, yes. So as a mentor or a coach, what do you want from a mentee or a client? And that begins with vulnerability, but the number one thing is honesty. And that honesty will lead to vulnerability that will foster that trust that you were just talking about. There's so much more. I want a mentor just to believe, believe in me. I, they don't have to believe in themselves yet. I will help them over those hurdles or whoever they're asking to mentor them a life coach. Just believe in them, but know why they're signing up with that mentor and know why they're signing up with that coach. It's not a monetary thing, it's a relationship. I tell people all the time, if they want me to mentor them, let's build a relationship, let's talk, let's have a cup of coffee and let's find out what you're struggling with in life. People are hurting out there. Oh, yes. And that's what you were talking about. People are trying to figure out how do they take their relationships to the next level? How do they be better in their career? How do they be better at their sport activities? And everyone has that potential. I can see that beauty and love in everyone, but not everyone is using it. Exactly, and then I think, I feel you can even voluntarily go to different companies that have a lot of staffing under them and work with that general manager or the manager in charge, because once you get to work and mentor him, then he can be a on-the-job site mentor and put into practice all the things that you shared with him. He can put into practice and actually self-coming coach and mentor his staff and employees. He might not be able to send everyone to you, but as long as you and him have that relationship and trust, that means all the tools that you've given him, you would now go to the workplace and use it to coach and manage his team. Do you agree with this? I do, I love that idea. Yeah, and I think that would be one of your, not targets, but your client base. Go from the top and then work down. And then yes, they like what they're seeing from their boss who hadn't had those skills before. And then he goes, yeah, I've been working with this guy named Joseph and he's really made an impact in my life. And they might say, well, you know what? I think I might need to have a session or two with him as well and build a relationship. So I too, because I see the difference in you, boss. And I like what I see. I appreciate that. So I think that might be a really good avenue for you to go down. I'm just trying to enjoy life and help people. Yeah, and I can see that in the smile in your face, on your face.  Yeah, so you also mentioned your vision of being a motivational speaker and author. I know you love reading books, so you probably have put the pen to the paper and written a few things up to this point in your life. But how does this support your goal of coaching and mentoring? Neither one of those were actually originally my goals. They were spoken to me over many years and I finally embraced them. What I realized is when you look at books like Thinking Girl Rich or The Power of Positive Thinking or It's Not Over Until I Win, some of my favorite authors, Napoleon Hill, Les Brown, they touched the world. Decades after those books were written, they are still touching people. If you read those books and you really get into what those books are about, they didn't write those books to get a book deal. That's not what those books are about. They are about changing lives. They are about telling the story and helping people truly look in the mirror and see what everyone else sees. See the positivity in their life, see what's possible. And just dream bigger and actually achieve their dreams. It's too many unhappy people in the world. Yes, way too many. We have to do this. And you can see the evidence of that in the news and what they're reporting in the news. And so there's so much work to be done by mentors and life coaches like yourself. But we just have to try and embrace as many people along the way because you just don't know who that troubled person is. So if you had to recommend one book to our audience, what would that book be that if I were not an avid reader I would pick up that book and I would be like, wow, that truly impacted my life. What book would that if there is one book you recommend? Well, it depends on the day of the week. Today I would actually recommend Love and Respect. Love and Respect is a book about relationship, not necessarily intimate relationships, not necessarily husband and wife, but about men and women about the different people in your life. I actually just did a video on books and there's so many I enjoy and I can go on and on, but today I'll leave it at Love and Respect. Guys, heard that? That's Oprah's book choice. Joseph Oprah's book choice. So what is your biggest challenge and how would you recommend other people approach life, challenges and to stay optimistic? I get in trouble for this one. Okay, well, let's get you in trouble. My daughters actually say I'm too positive and they've seen me reading the Power of Positive thinking one of my other favorites on Good the Great or Seven Habits, so you name it. And they realize where a lot of that comes from. And the reality is you have to choose joy every day. I talked about my affirmation and my affirmation is not optional, but there are days when all I can do is slide out of bed and get on my knees because that's where I need to be. Exactly. And I understand that and that's okay. I've learned that sometimes not being okay is exactly where I need to be and accepting that, but life will be bumpy. Right. Today I woke up and my 13-year-old Jailer told me about the project she had due today at school. So I'm running around the house grabbing stuff. There were numerous conflicts that came up and that's okay. We chose joy. We went outside and it was pouring down rain, but you know what? We live in Hawaii. There's gonna be a rainbow. And that's the way life is. You might be on a detour for a day, a week, a month, a couple years, but when that detour is over, you get back on track. You get in the mirror. You practice those affirmations and you choose joy. Wow, powerful. So what is the one thing you want people to walk away with above anything else from today's talk? Today are worthy of more. They absolutely are. They were designed for more. They were not designed to be broken. They are definitely worthy of the best that life has to offer. Yes. And if they go through the course of the day with that thought in their mind, they will be more and they will be their best. Absolutely. Yes, and so that's very powerful. I mean, you should make a T-shirt and then a bumper sticker and then a hat. No, no. That's very encouraging and positive, powerful thinking. That's where we need to be more and more today. Otherwise, our news just gets filled with more and more of sadness and sorrow and I just pray that we could just fill it with more joy and happiness and good life stories. And so Joseph, our time has come to an end. Your positiveness, your willingness to share and your desire to serve our country in the capacity that you've done. So we really, really truly appreciate you and we're honored to have you here on the show and just continue your positiveness as you mentor your girls, as you mentor your men and women and other men and women of the community. So we mahalo you. Mahalo. Yes, and so thank you, guest. Aloha.


to the Contract Packaging Association webinar are answering consumer challenges in the flexible packaging and labeling industry. I see a lot of people who are presently logging on. We'll give them a couple more minutes. And in the meantime, let me do a few introductions and overview. My name is Ron Puvak. I am the managing director of the Contract Packaging Association. Since 1992, the CPA has been promoting growth and welfare of members through the industry exposure and networking programs. CPA members comprise the nation's leading contract packages and manufacturers who perform all types of manufacturing and packaging functions for brands and CPGs, as well as entrepreneurs and startups. The Contract Packaging Association serves the needs of the industry through continued education, market knowledge, and customer relationships. One of our key components of our mission is education. Today's webinar is an ongoing commitment to inform the industry on innovation, as well as to stimulate the audience's interest.  If you have questions, and we definitely encourage those, please use the question box that's on your screen when we respond to as many as we can. This webinar is being recorded, and will be posted on the CPA website at contractpackaging.org within a day or two, so that if you miss a part or you have somebody else would like to attend, please feel free to take that advantage. There are other webinars on the site. Today, I am pleased to introduce our two presenters. First is Joe Kaye, he's the key account manager at Century Label in the Division of CNC Group. And Jonathan Jakubowski, and the director of SmartSols, also a division of the CNC Group. Each of them will introduce themselves briefly. Joe and Jonathan, please take it away, and the stage is all yours. Thanks, Ron. On behalf of Century Label and SmartSolve, we want to thank everybody for tuning in. First, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Joe Kaye. I work for Century Label as a key account manager, and I also head up the flexible packaging division here. Jon? Yeah, nice to be with you today. Thanks for having us. I am the director of SmartSolve. You hear a little bit more about the innovation that we work on later in the presentation. It's a pleasure to be with you today. Thanks, everybody. Jon and I truly believe today's webinar will be worth your time. Some of this information you guys might know or have heard previously. Hopefully, most of it will be new to you. We have an information overloaded webinar in store for you today, so thank you all so much for listening in. The topics of discussion today will be answering major challenges in the flexible packaging industry, led by myself. I'll also be leading active and intelligent packaging. And finally, Jon will finish up with a most unique and timely packaging innovation. So let's start off by answering major challenges in the flexible packaging industry. What your customers want and why it's important to them? Millennials driving the conversation from rigid to flexible packaging. You want it, but conventional Flexback printers don't offer it, and then we'll end up with does your packaging have SSI, solid shelf influencers? So let's first look at what your customers want. Pull was done at Global Pouch Forum in 2017 that said the most important packaging developments were shelf impact and differentiation and consumer convenience. Consumers really want everything they've always wanted, flavor, freshness, nutrition, and value, except today they needed faster and they wanted easier to use. Differentiation or shelf impact and consumer convenience are really driving CPGs to find creative ways to sell more products. Shelf impact, according to the flexible packaging association, 80% of brand owners agree that packaging influences brand value. And 81% of consumers pulled by the FPA said that they noticed when products packaging changes. So let's go into shelf impact and differentiation. How does your customer's products stand out from a sea of other products? The picture here shows many different products. Which one of these stand out to you? What makes their brand different? Can you help them sell more products? Differentiation or shelf impact are driving CPGs to find creative ways to sell more product. Some of these creative ways will be discussed later on in the webinar. But most of the differentiation is really just skew proliferation. Or the simple phrase, multiple different products. Most people or consumers want choices. As we, the contract packageers know that becomes expensive. Startup costs, copy changes, and plates can really take the wind out of your sale. In the past, this has been a major challenge. But now, due to the advancements in digital printing technology, multiple SKUs, high quality print, and low minimums are no longer a challenge. Now let's talk about consumer convenience. Consumer convenience is really driven by three key factors. Visual appeal and style, easy to use functionality and convenience and sustainability and freshness. So visual appeal and style. With today's competitive market and explosion of new products being introduced, CPGs have to be able to stand out on a crowded store shelf or internet marketplace. The best way to develop your package is to use every square inch of its real estate. The nice thing about flexible packaging, this can be achieved without any added cost. It's really your billboard to the world. Visual appeal and style of your package should be the core emphasis in your print. What else is important? Customers want large nutrition panels, clearly spelling out all the ingredients. People wanna know what's in the food they're buying. Consumers also wanna see the products before they're buying it. So with the right barrier films, the clear window is the best choice. Now I was at Global Pouch Form this year and there was an applesauce company. And in the past, I'm sure you guys have probably seen the videos or pictures online, but kids opening stand-up pouches filled with applesauce and they're full of mold. Well, this company that presented at Global Pouch Form came out with the very first see-through pouch. So mothers could actually see the applesauce not being rotted before they gave it to their kids. So I thought that was a pretty unique story that they told their sales when they came out with that clear pouch skyrocketed. They increased sales over 600% just by going from a metalized film to a clear pouch. So we're gonna talk about easy to use functionality and convenience. Today's changing society is constantly on the move and needs to re-energize quickly. Flexible packaging that's easy to use and functions well on the run is ideal for the on-the-go lifestyle. If we take a look at consumers, you'll find that a fair percentage of them aren't even sitting down to have meals. They're constantly on the move. Data has shown that there is substantial growth in the on-the-go food markets. Flexible packaging, once again, proving to be the largest segment in the packaging industry and this is really due to its convenience and functionality. So here's the bottom line. Flexible packaging assures sustainability and freshness. It allows us to offer the highest level of food safety. You can literally squeeze the air out of it. You can't do that with rigid packaging. I'm sure we'll all agree that consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious. They are really starting to demand the products they buy carry longer shelf-lifes. I know when I buy food, I wanted to stay fresh longer and I've even caught myself paying more money for that same package that offers a longer shelf-life. How about you guys? A recent poll by the Flexible Packaging Association found that 60% of consumers are willing to pay more for packaging that offers extended shelf-lifes. So next we're gonna go into why millennials are driving the conversion from rigid to flexible packaging. You guys might already know this, but flexible packaging is the fastest growing segment in the packaging industry. And the reason? Millennials. With over 92 million strong, the millennial generation is the largest in US history. They have by far the largest buying power out of any generation. Can anyone guess, can anyone guess, excuse me, how large their buying power is? $600 billion annually is their purchasing power. And by 2020, it's predicted to reach $1.4 trillion. That's a lot of buying power. But if we look at millennials, millennials have really spent their entire lives using flexible packaging. As children, they were the first to use stand-up pouches. If you think about it, just think of the Capri Sun pouches. From the beginning, millennials have seen stand-up pouches and everything they buy, from candy to nuts to soup. Here's a little data that I wanted to share with you guys. This is the conversion of rigid to flexible packaging. So if we look at the graph on the left, when given the choice between the same product and different packaging, consumers prefer almost 75% of the time flexible packaging over non-flexible packaging. And if you break that down by age groups, 81% of people between the ages of 35 and 44, say they prefer flexible packaging over non-flexible packaging. As a label company who offers shrink and flexible packaging, this is kind of scary. My team here, we always go to a show called Fancy Food Show. And there's a winter show and a summer show. I've been with Century Label for three years now. And over the years, when I first started three years ago, the majority of the products that I saw were labels and shrink sleeves. And over the last three years, I've really seen more and more rigid packaging converting into flexible packaging. When we were there in 2018 in January, it was remarkable. I would probably say 10% of the products there had labels and shrink sleeves, and the other 90% were all flexible packaging. So the market is really changing. They're converting over to flexible packaging. So next we're gonna talk about, you want it, but conventional flex pack printers don't offer it. So you're probably wondering, what does this mean? Well, all of you listening know the importance of packaging. I don't need to tell you that. The power of packaging design on the shelf can help you stand out from the crowd. So let me take this full circle. Flexible packaging is the fastest growing industry, but the biggest challenge is dealing with traditional flexible packaging printers. So what's the answer? The answer is clear. Digital flexible packaging is really the answer. So I wanna kinda go over why digital printing is the answers. First we're gonna look at speed to market. Digital printing can print so much faster and get to the laminator quicker because the ink is instantly dried. Digital printing offers lower minimum order quantities. It also offers the highest print quality. Digital printing can print up to 2,400 DPI. That's amazing. And it's perfect registration on every single imprint. You'll never have to worry about your copy going out of register in your picture or your package looking blurry. I think the biggest part of this is no flexo plate cost. Some flexo plate cost or tooling can be an upwards to $5,000 to start a project. But with digital printing, there are no flexo plate cost or tooling charges. And then the fact that digital printing can be customizable. So everyone knows that your package is a silent salesman. It never really stopped selling your product. But over the last few years, printing has become so advanced that the package is no longer silent. It can actually speak to you. So I wanna ask you guys, are you offering your customers SSI? Now you're probably wondering, what is SSI? SSI stands for solid shelf influencers and brands can take advantage of SSI to help propel their product sales growth. So I believe that Glenroy said it best and I quote, loyalty can't be purchased with advertising. In fact, millennials hate advertising, viewing it as inauthentic, end quote. So really groundbreaking active and intelligent packaging helps millennials live easier and therefore you win their hearts. And basically once you've won their hearts, they will help spread your brand by writing blogs, giving reviews, posting on social media about all the products that they like. So now you're probably wondering, how can I add SSIs to my packaging? So solid shelf influencers, so now we can take the silent salesman, your package and actually allow it to talk. HP has a technology, what's called embedded QR codes or digital watermarks that can really make your product stand out on the shelf. SSIs are the building block of active and intelligent packaging. So these next five SSIs will help your product transform into an active and intelligent package. What if your product incorporated a QR code that could be scanned? This QR code could quickly allow end users and consumers to read a blog about the experiences other people had about your product. Now we can totally spin this. That same QR code could track your package from start to finish, allowing you to find out who bought your product, where it was bought and how fast it sold off the shelf. So later in the webinar, we're gonna visit some videos that talk about embedded security features and QR codes. But first let's talk about active and intelligent packaging. So active and intelligent packaging can be labeled in multiple different ways, but we're gonna just talk about five today. The first one is gonna be augmented reality. And I'm sure you guys have heard the buzz around the industry on augmented reality and people doing very, very cool things with this. Next we're gonna go into some videos talking about how you can promote a company's vision. Educational product training and safety, these are really neat. I don't know if you guys have ever went to the store and bought maybe say a spray bottle of chemicals and it comes with a booklet that has six or seven pages on how to use the actual product. The text is so small, you can hardly read it, you almost need a magnifying glass. But there's different ways that we can actually embed product training videos into our print right now. So next we're gonna go to product use and promotion and contest and then finally we'll end up with security. So let's start the videos. Well, this is something pretty common, right?  Well, our shopping experience is about to make a huge leap into the future with talking labels and no, not just from me drinking too much of the wine. Tim Irwin is about to explain what the new technology that became popular with the Pokemon go craze has to do now with our wine purchases. Tim, when I say a big leap into the future, I really mean it, right? Yeah, Tina, we're super excited to be launching the first ever talking wine label and I think the great part is it's fun, it's interactive and it's simple to use. So, Tina, maybe we should go through it, how it works because it is kind of the future here today. So what you do is you go to Google Play or iTunes, you download the app, you follow the prompts. And it's very simple here. All you do is hold your phone over the label. There's a rogue substance when the bars are man impede. And you can see that it starts talking to you. So what's great about this is 19 crimes is based off authentic true stories. So in this instance here, we've got Jon O'Reilly who was fighting political oppression and was sentenced to mutiny and was either losing his life or going to Australia for 20 years. So it's also culture and history in the foundation of Australia. And that's just pretty cool. So, and it's augmented reality, right? Is that what we're calling it? And I have my bottle here, so this little guy is gonna tell me a little bit about the wine. Yeah, so not to be confused, virtual reality is basically putting on goggles and that's changing. Augmented reality is about changing what's in front of you. So, Pokemon Go that we've kind of known about for a few years, it's really altering the state of, and how you bring it to life. So each convict has a different story that they wanna tell and that, like I said, they're real stories. It's kind of taking convicts to colonists. So yeah, that's what augmented reality is and it's pretty exciting. It is pretty exciting. Now on top of it just being cool, and like you said, we're gonna be able to learn a little bit. What else can we gain? I mean, obviously I know that this wine is awesome. Yeah, the shopper experience is continually changing. You've got online shopping in the aisle and I think people really wanna know what they're consuming. What's in the product and this brings it to life. We know that everyone's somewhat connected to a smartphone these days and that's our source of information. So naturally it's easy to transition there and kind of learn more about it. And as you saw, it's a very simple process and not just in store, but think about going to a dinner party with family and friends at home, showing your partner what have you. It's so engaging, it's so fun. Like watching someone's reaction on this is really enjoyable. It's a tough enjoyment. Oh, you will definitely be the hit at any party if you break out this and show them that your bottle of wine has a talking label on it. And now this is 19 crimes wine. This is the type of wine that this app is gonna work with, right? Yeah, so we have seven different wines that this kind of works on. So as I mentioned, each convict has a different story. So the foundation for 19 crimes is that story and the history of Australia. You know, as a Australian, I'm very proud and this was our foundation. So it works across all our wines. As I mentioned, we're slowly introducing new wines. We've just launched a hard Chardonnay that tells you the first of our female convict, Jane Fleming and her story. So a great way to bring these real stories to life. Well, they always say there's an app for everything. There really is an app for everything now. So we will make sure, like you said, go to our Google Play and our App Store and make sure that we get that app. And then do this is gonna be pretty cool to show off to everyone. Tim, this is something pretty awesome. I can't wait to try it out. Thank you so much for telling us about it. Thanks, Dana. Have fun. I will. Don't go anywhere the morning play. We'll be right back. It is really how you can get people engaged with your actual product. So if you guys wanna know more about that, we can definitely let you know. This next video that I wanna show you guys is all about company vision. Now, Peak Enterprises is a good customer of ours. He is a CPG and basically what he wanted to do was he wanted to create a video to let people know what his actual company vision was and what he stood for. So what we did was we partnered up with him. We printed a flexible package for his tongue gel and tongue brush to actually go in that had a QR code embedded in the print. So when it's sitting on the store shelf, a customer can actually come up with their phone, scan it, and it would take them directly out to this video. So let me know what you guys think about this one. Starting a business is a journey. It's one steeped in risk and uncertainty. Values learned on a ranch in Wisconsin and in the mountains of Montana served as a foundation in this journey. Small invention designed to improve the lives of many created by a company appropriately named Peak Enterprises for shadowing the climb to come. The challenge, it started over 20 years ago with a culture focused on teamwork and perseverance. We hope our story is inspired to all entrepreneurs with ideas none too small. We're an American company with a story worth telling. Creating the video, but then also incorporating that into their package.  Imagine your package on the shelf with an embedded QR code that a customer can scan and watch a video like that. Educational products, training, and safety videos. So this would be cool if you had workers that you didn't want to have to actually teach. You wanted them to scan the bottle that they had to use in the manufacturing facility and watch a video on how to actually use the product. Portable relation control has never been easier with fast draw freedom. Fast draw freedom is a simple, and versatile chemical management system that saves you time and money. The fast draw freedom is easy to use. First, connect the freedom to a fast draw bottle. Then connect to a hose. Turn the water on. Rotate to the bottle or bucket fill position. Rotate to the off position when done. As a water benefit, the fast draw freedom has the capability to be a fulmer. First, remove the fill tube end. Then turn the dial to the bucket fill position. Only the fast draw freedom allows you to clean without limits. How much easier is learning when you watch a video versus actually having to read very teeny, tiny, fine print? I know for me, if my wife gives me a project at home, the first thing I do, if I don't know how to do it, is I go out to YouTube and I watch a video to see how to do it properly. Our next video is going to be product use, promotion, and contests. Bud Light actually did a mosaic print here that just got people extremely excited. Now, I can't do this video any justice. I think you guys just have to watch it. It's pretty compelling. Now, this is all mosaic print. As more and more brands try to engage music fans, they often just create more noise. Logos on a music stage have become just wallpaper and meaningless without the right brand behaviors. We know the best way to engage an audience is through authenticity and creating value for fans. Which is why we created 31 music-inspired Bud Light cans for the seventh annual Mad Decent Block Party, including four special hero cans, which were co-branded with the Mad Decent and Bud Light logos together. Using an innovative printing technology, we created 31 million unique label variations. So no two cans would be exactly alike. We pioneered Bud Light to not only be the first beer brand, but the first brand of the United States to use this new packaging technology, Bud Light presented at 22 Mad Decent Block Parties in 18 different cities with over 63 different artists performing. On Facebook, we've reached 23.1 million unique people with over 54.3 million impressions. Twitter generated 4.1 million impressions with an engagement rate of over 15%, and influencers on Instagram generated 13 million impressions. The best of the cans generated 81.6 million impressions leading to a 97% positive sentiment. People were so excited by the new Bud Light look, they asked where they could buy more to take home. In the end, Bud Light became more than just a presenting sponsor. It literally became collectible in fans' hands, reshaping perceptions, building music authenticity, and embraced by the Mad Decent Block Party artists on stage.  So you heard the statistics is our security video. Now, this is gonna talk to you guys about embedded security in the label or ink. What would you do if each and every product you produced had its very own fingerprint? What would you protect if you could track and trace every printed piece you put out into the world at any given point in its life cycle? What would you create if your customers could interact with that unique ID to learn about your product, to verify its authenticity, to engage with your brand in real time? What would you do with ingenuity like that? Introducing Link Technology from HP. It's a printing innovation that uses the high-speed creation and embedding marks and unique IDs to give every single product you produce its own individual identity. A digital fingerprint that can be made visible or invisible. It can go on your label, on your package or directly on your product and can be followed from here to here to here. With HP Labs portfolio of secure marks and seamless digital press integration, you can easily match and identify packaging and final products in your supply chain to know exactly where each item is, while it's made, when it's shipped, where it's distributed and that it's where it's supposed to be, enabling you to prevent diversion, avoid theft and combat gray markets. Link Technology's secure marks allow you to quickly verify and authenticate products at any point in their life cycle, helping you guard against counterfeits, save on costly recalls and defend your brand from start to finish. Link Technology also gives you the power to create real-time interactive experiences that move your customer closer to your brand, empowering you to develop one-to-one relationships and deliver targeted offers and personalized content in real-time, all with one mark. From packaged goods to publishing, from graphics and photos to direct mail and marketing collateral, from your brand and your products to all the people they touch everywhere, every day. Link Technology from HP. Find out what you can do with it at linkcreationsstudio.com. I'll let you guys know, all of this can be achieved with our digital print capabilities. Century label has four HP indigos. We can help you guys if you have any questions on QR codes or security features, consecutive numbering for traceability, mosaic, variable data and personalization or names, numbers, pictures, et cetera, pulling from Excel databases. So thank you guys so much for listening in. I'm gonna pass this off to John now. Excellent, Joe. What a very incredible presentation. Extremely insightful. It's amazing to see what innovation is doing in a packaging world. With the Bud Light example, it's amazing to see that the package itself became even more valuable than what they were consuming. So there's a lot to do with packaging, a lot of innovation that matters. And one of the words that you used in your presentation, Joe, was that millennials look for authenticity. They use the word inauthentic when they were looking at some of the packaging types that were out there. As we segue into a presentation on an incredible innovation that really gives that millennial generation an authentic experience around sustainability, I'm delighted to begin with a video. So Joe, would you mind queuing the video up for us? Labeling, packaging and otherwise other industries. We've been involved with this specific technology since the mid-90s. And it's been something that we've seen develop and grow. And it's something that has inspired us to reach new heights, to identify new industries and new opportunities. I recently listened to an author of a book, speak at a forum, his name's Simon Sinek, and he wrote the book, The Infinite Game. And he was comparing companies that are pursuing finite metrics, finite goals, finite ends. He used the example specifically of Microsoft, who's always trying to create the best gadget, the better gadget than that, which their ultimate competitor would have of Apple. And then he went on to compare Apple to the Infinite Company, pursuing infinite goals, infinite metrics, and infinite ends. And as you look at the millennial generation and that word authenticity that really stands out to me when you compare companies that pursue finite ends versus company that pursue infinite ends. And what Apple has done to capture that infinite pursuit of opportunity is they go deeper. They go beyond simply a technology, beyond an innovation, and they tap deeper into the apparatus that moves the soul, that moves the heart, that moves the mind of the individual. With this innovation, I think we have a similar opportunity, especially as it relates to sustainability. Let me take us back, however, first into the 1950s. Water-soluble, paper-based technology, in our minds, is very comparable to that of Velcro technology. It was a guy walking through the cockle burrs in Belgium in the woods, found cockle burrs, got them stuck to his pants, and realized that he had something that would be able to be used in a very dynamic manner. Now, what was impressive about this inventor was he did not limit that innovation to one opportunity. He saw it as something that had global ramifications and was able to, with broad vision, take it into industries, including aerospace industry, shoes, and homes, everywhere around the world. We think water-soluble, paper-based technology has a similar opportunity. So today, given the fact that it's a premium technology that is extremely expensive, there's a lot of cost factors associated with it that every conversation that we'll have with individuals, that's the first thing that we wanna put on the table, is it's gonna be more expensive? So what are the value proposition components of the technology that drive the customer to make a decision to say, yes, I wanna invest in this opportunity? So of the six, the first one is employee safety. With employee safety, it's one of the most critical aspects of how a corporation runs. If a company has an incredible technology and vision but it doesn't keep its employees safe or doesn't keep its consumers safe, then we're in big trouble. Some examples of what a water-soluble barrier can do, specifically when you form a water-soluble paper-based pouch, you can put inside of it dry chemicals, for example, pesticides, that can go inside of the pouch and then once that pouch is sealed and delivered into the field where the farmer is, no longer will the farmer have to open up the package and pour the powder out into the mixture, causing potential aspirational elements of that pesticide into the lungs or touching it with their skin, you now have a water-soluble barrier that protects their skin and their breeding from needing to come in contact with that pesticide. So that's an example of one way in which a water-soluble barrier can be used to generate employee safety. Next, I'll talk about sustainability. I mentioned this at the beginning. This generation, the millennials and a lot of the CPGs that are seeking to tap into that purchasing power that Joe was talking about, this is a buzzword for them and it's critical that materials have the ability to register on these very metrics of what is green. So the water-soluble paper-based technology that we have been using, we've been able to leverage all different types of independent laboratory testing and all different types of certifications including the ones that you see here on the screen like EUReach and California Prop 65. What makes water-soluble paper different from its other water-soluble products that are out in the market, primarily that of PVA. When most people think of water-soluble, they think of the tide pods that go into your dishwasher. The primary driver of difference between those two items is that the water-soluble PVA is petroleum-based. Whereas water-soluble paper is fiber-based and that's a big opportunity to demonstrate a characteristic that a company looking for sustainability metrics would have interest in. We'll move to the next benefit and we'll talk about time savings. Let's go back one there Joe, thanks. Regarding time savings, there's a lot of opportunities for this but one of the things that I can say that you will probably resonate with me on is anytime you buy a glass or a vase or a jar at a store and you bring that vase home and there's a label that's stuck to it, how much time do we spend trying to carve off that label from that vase or that jar? Significant amounts of time. This is where, and that's just one example of many, this is where water-soluble labels with our technology, with the technology that can be used, water-soluble labels can simply be put under the sink and washed away. It's as simple as that. So the time savings delivered to the customer allow for the value proposition to justify an increase in spend on that type of label. Next we'll go into labor savings. I can use that same example but now talk about it in an industrial format. There are all sorts of reusable plastic containers that are used to transport food. Those RPCs as they are called use permanent labels and those permanent labels go to wash centers where there are dozens of employees that are employed to simply get those labels off because if there's residue that remains on that container it has become a possible transfer. There's a possibility of transferring the bacteria from the previous food that was being contained in the RPC to the next food that's being placed in it. So these people are employed to take off those labels. Well, when you introduce a water-soluble label you immediately reduce the need to have labor involved in that process and you simply as it goes to the wash center see the label go away. If I'll move to the next slide here Joe Pormes, thank you. Innovation, this is where the conversations get very exciting with potential customers that you may interface with. The story of Velcro that I mentioned has become relevant with this specific technology from aerospace to agriculture to anything you could possibly imagine in the bathroom. If you were to pay me a million dollars to guess what innovation your customer's coming to deliver to talk to you about with this type of technology I wouldn't be able to guess it. It's a technology that has significant opportunity because it is used as a raw material. And off of that raw material there are unlimited configurations that can be built and unlimited opportunity to try and use that substrate in a manner that helps to meet the customer's desire and demand. So I'll go to the next one. And that is product portioning. So this is the final benefit I'll highlight with product portioning the story of the tide pods I think tells it best. It's the ability to give consumers the ease of use of a single pod that they can just pull out of a package and drop into the dishwasher and not have to think about it once, not have to think about it twice. The same story could be told with detergents and there's a lot of dry powders that are out there and I should make note of this. Water soluble paper is not going to work with a liquid. It works with solids. So anything that's powdery, anything that's dry will fit inside of this technology and the technology will work as you saw in the video. So with single use detergents and the opportunities to make life at home more convenient for consumers while telling that sustainability story is a tremendous opportunity for folks looking to engage this technology. And as I close it out the thing that I'd like to point out is the ways in which this technology can be used ways that we have used it from label stock to pouches to board stock and all sorts of variations in between the technology has been converted as I mentioned leveraging it as a raw material and then turning it into something that helps the customer meet their specific need and their specific vision and requirement for the technology is what we have been able to do and we're certain and confident that the same value propositions that make this function you will also find in your company and your business. Thank you for taking the time to listen to me talk about water soluble technology and Joe talk about the innovation and flexible packaging space we're delighted to be a part of this presentation and looking forward to any questions that you may have. Thank you gentlemen, much appreciated. Excellent presentation. And we've come to that portion what I think is often the most interesting is the questions and answers. By the way, I personally have viewed this technology and I found it very interesting it's one of the reasons we wanted to have this conversation you guys did a great, great job. So a couple of questions that come through and let me get started here and I'll just throw them up and I think Joe and John and you'll know which one to answer. I believe Joe, you talked about the see-through pouch and the innovation you saw, global pouch. Do you have an idea or a sense of that of more expensive material or is, you know, since you're going away from metalized film, do you have any sense for that? It all depends on the product that's going in and how long you want the shelf life to be on the product. So a lot of people don't want additives to their products to give it an extended shelf life. So you have to get a better barrier film and barrier films do cost more money but generally they're always less than a metalized film. Okay, because that was actually the second question was tied into that, you know, was the shelf life compromised? So there really isn't any. Okay. Again, there's another cost question and this goes back to John. Paper versus the plastic dissolvable technologies. Is there a cost penalty going between one or the other? Is one a little bit more expensive or is it application-based? Oh yeah, that's a fantastic question. It is application-based but generally a PVA, water-soluble PVA, slightly less expensive than water-soluble paper. The reason for that, Ron, is because water-soluble paper is a relatively new innovation. It has not yet been commoditized and hit some of those verticals that PVA has. We think and we are seeing tremendous growth with this specific technology. There are ways that you can mitigate some of those costs and part of what we do every day is trying to find ways to make sure that we leverage the technology in such a manner that it hits the cost priorities and margin priorities of the consumer, which we believe the customers listening to this presentation will be able to do as well. Great, great. Again, remind everybody, if you have any other questions, please, we have questions coming in but we're gonna try and answer as many as we can. We have a few minutes. Can you show examples? You had some interesting part about the educational videos and safety as part of the label. Can you give us any examples of how somebody might specifically use, I saw the video, but are there any applications you can talk about in a true plant environment? Because oftentimes folks can't use their own smartphones in a plant. They're really not allowed to. So can you give us a sense for is this really smartphone technology or is it have to be something set up in the plant where somebody just scanned the package? I think it can go either way. More and more companies are allowing people to keep cell phones in their pockets. And if that person is actually doing their job, it's not really frowned upon, right? So if they're scanning that particular item in a plant environment, they're learning from that. I don't think companies are gonna get mad about that but I do have somewhat of a example I can share with you guys. We have a great customer of ours who's down the street from us who wanted to do something fun and exciting for one of their buyers who is retiring. This gentleman at this company had worked there for I believe 37 years and their marketing team wanted to do something special for them.  And what they did was they wrapped, I believe it was 40 to 50 bottles of cleaner and passed them out at his retirement party. When you scan that QR code, it told the story about this gentleman's entire career from when he started to when he retired. It's not really an educational one but it tells the story. And I think that gentleman really appreciated the time that somebody spent putting that together for him. Very interesting. And that's kind of a cool, that's one you wouldn't think about, would it? Yeah. So John, you and I mentioned earlier that paper dissolvable is approved for indirect food contact. Is there any work or efforts to get it into direct food contact? As a flavor and it seems to me it'd be a very portion control kind of thing as well as some other aspects. Is there any work on that side? Yeah, absolutely there is Ron. We're working proactively on that. We have the direct food contact approval is really tied to the adhesive that's being used on the material. The water soluble paper itself is okay for direct food contact. But the paper alone without some form of an adhesive is not going to form into something that is usable in most cases. So we're working on an adhesive barrier coating that would give us the ability to deliver a package that would be direct food contact approved. And Ron, if I may just circle back quickly the first question you asked. I wanted to make sure I touched on this as well. One of the reasons that the companies that we're talking to in this industry and you'll see the conversation and buzz around it are driving towards fibers-based or paper-based biobased technology. I'm not sure if you're familiar with some of the tied pod challenges that occurred on the internet with teenagers consuming these things. That I can't attribute to, there's nothing we can do about that, right? But in terms of babies or elderly who would go and see those PVA pods under the sink and they would review them as candy, that's been a major issue and there's been a lot of articles on it. So the companies have come to us saying, well, we like the idea of having a paper barrier where you can put print on it and show it as hazardous. That doesn't mean you're gonna 100% stop a baby or an elderly person or certainly not a teenager from consuming them, but it does create an added step in between the person, the baby that's viewing this and the technology itself. Moreover, I mentioned biobased versus petroleum-based. That's a critical facet of sustainability as you look at the impact on the oceans. There's a lot of buzz around that. The pride don't have the time to delve into it too much and then finally, the ability to print on water-soluble paper. That's not something you can do on water-soluble PVA, which is a huge differentiator as brands seek to carry their brand to the end user. And the same innovation Joe's talking about with augmented reality and otherwise can be leveraged on this technology. You can print it like you can any other substrate and surface. So that's a major advantage to those looking at this technology. So again, I'll be more into our membership question and this is where this kind of comes from. Is there any unique filling process for the paper-soluble paper process? Is there unique filling processes, filling machines? Tell us about how somebody might use this if they've got a need and how they might fill it. Yeah, so this is an area where we want to make sure that you're coaching your customers and coaching your fillers. It is used on most common equipment, vertical form fill and seal equipment and otherwise there's different companies that are using it in different ways. There are some things that they have to do to slightly modify their equipment, whether it's to run it at a slower speed or to ensure that the blades are extremely sharp because the fibers can become pretty tough on the blades but relatively speaking it's used in commercial settings and it's used without issue so long as they're able to dial it in. The one thing I would say that needs to be a caution that's always exacted in conversations around this technology is making sure that it's protected from water. The moment that water enters into the arena, you might have some potential degradation. That's not to say humidity. So it does work in humid environments. There's certain metrics that we talk about where we've seen Miami, Florida, we've seen companies using these pouches and forming pouches without issue but if it turns into condensed water that starts to affect the package, that's gonna matter. So we protect all of the water-soluble materials that we have that we're shipping inside of plastic wraps just to make sure that there's nothing that could touch it that would otherwise cause the degradation process prematurely. Always proof in the pudding so to speak and this next question deals with that is do we see any, you know, significant launches of this technology and paper technology in the near future and you give us an example thereof? If not, we understand, but you know, give us an insight. Yeah, sure, I can speak in general is just because of NDAs and this is something that I think should be exciting to those packages out there that are interested in leveraging this innovation. A lot of these companies swear us a secrecy because they view it as such a significant competitive advantage. They wanna have the ability to make sure that their competition doesn't get access to it. So I'm bound in some cases, especially the larger cases but I can speak to you in industry forms. You're gonna see in the toys market segment coming out this Christmas a few toys that are leveraging this water soluble paper package innovation. And it's gonna be very exciting to see and the tons of orders are coming through all that already with millions of pouches. In the hospital segment, there is cases of this pouch being used on a filler, something that helps with spills that are occurring in the hospital, leveraging the benefits that I mentioned earlier of employee safety, leveraging the benefits of time savings. So it's an easier just toss and open and have to measure it out. So the proportioning aspect to it. And you'll be seeing this innovation also being adopted in industrial categories with chemical categories, cosmetic categories. There's a few out there where everyone, but if you're connected to those markets, you'll see this innovation in use. And if I may, I can point you to one thing that has happened that I can speak to publicly is BuzzFeed has a video using our water soluble paper-based technology and it's hit 1.5 million views. And it's just simply them using our technology and doing a DIY do-it-yourself project where people coat soaps, shampoos, and detergents onto that paper. And they turn it into these little strips that are then used for camping or used for single-use travel, what have you. And we've- Homeless people to do it. You're right, yeah, homeless people, absolutely. So ministries, charities have used the technology to help with some of the reduction of costs in terms of how they're using soaps and shampoos. And on our Amazon page where we sell paper, we've seen a tremendous growth in that category because of that video and growth and knowledge in that arena. Well, excellent, excellent. So this is probably the last question because there'd be a little bit more involved. The question is really about what is the process to look at utilizing these technologies? How does someone get more information, get involved, and where can they go? Can you guys give us an insight of what might be the process somebody has to go through to get the package into some of these technologies? What we've found is a lot of the SSIs start in marketing. SSIs start in marketing. Your marketing departments are really going to be the ones that drive this. A sales guy beat in the street is not going to sell this at a plant level. He's not going to go talk to a plant manager and try to sell something. This is going to come more out of a marketing budget than anything because it's an innovation. So that's what I would kind of say on my end. Ron, what I would say, this is going to sound like a selfish plug, but I truly am convicted by this. Sentry labels, expertise in digital print equipment. With the 6800s, we were the first company to use the HP 8000 selected by HP for that project. There's a ton of experience that we have, the G7 certification that we have in print technology. Sentry labels are a wonderful source for anybody that's interested in leveraging this innovation. And then here at SmartSolve, with water soluble innovation, we are the leaders in this space, have a ton of knowledge and can work with those interested on adopting this innovation for their customers. And go back and look at the PowerPoint. There's many other videos that were in the PowerPoint that we didn't actually view. So we could kind of look at those. And then also Sentry labels website has a lot of different blogs and informational pages where you guys can learn more about it. But it's always best if you would call one of the sales reps here. We have close to 100 years of experience in sales representation here. So any one of our sales reps can kind of tell you more about augmented reality or QR codes or any of the other products that you guys might be interested in. Excellent. Well gentlemen, I want to again thank you. Reminding everybody that this webinar in a couple of days will be up on the CPA website. More than happy for you to go back to review it or to all of the others. We're gonna continue these series. Hopefully you find it enjoyable. John, excellent job. Thank you guys, we appreciate it. Thank to all of you who are on the webinar today. Look forward to seeing you all in a future webinar. And thank you, appreciate it. Take care everybody. Thank you.


When these talks are recorded and put up in the future, they don't include the introductions. So I need to mention that an introduction was just done, and Stephen Johnson mentioned about Joy and me, and last night at the hotel when we met for the first time again, he said, you're the embodiment of joy. And I have to mention that because it totally has to do with my talk. So I have three intentions for our time together this morning. One, increase the frequency of your floating. I will tell you why that makes sense, which will support you in increasing the frequency of floating amongst your current and prospective floaters, which will positively impact the world, and yes, positively impact the economics of your float business. What does frequent floating provide joy? That is a bold statement. I believe that it is both bold and true. For a number of years, I have believed that many, if not most, people who float do not understand or appreciate the benefits of frequent floating. What do I mean by frequent floating? I mean floating daily for an hour or so, or at least a few days every week for months or even years. Many of you may already do this, so I am sure you understand what I am saying. For those who do not, and for the people who float in your centers, who have not considered this, I think you will benefit greatly from this discussion. Yes, occasional floating has benefits, but in comparison, frequent floating has significant exponential benefits, which add up to the simple word joy. Joy from less stress, joy from an increased ability to do more, feel more, create more, and overall be more. Be more present, more focused, more serene, more creative, be more effective, and productive. Tom Brady says it, Steph Curry says it, Michael Crichton said it to Lee and I over 30 years ago, I believe it is now well understood, and I am willing to bet that once again Dr. Justin Feinstein will add to our understanding of the science of it during his presentation tomorrow. A couple, before I proceed, let me see the number of people who have floated pretty much daily for at least a month sometime in their life. Let me see some, let's see, can somebody yell out what percent or how many people are out there, have their hands out, 15 or 20 out of a couple hundred, okay. So a couple of things are necessary to increase the people who float frequently. By the way, thank you for your input. One of those is overcoming the belief that floating is an elective, that we do after our regular chores in life get done, you know, we float when we have spare time. We need to get people to see that floating is not an elective, but an imperative, an essential component of a more joyous life. From this perspective, floating does not consume time, it actually saves and even expands it, the time we have available to focus on what matters most. Another challenge is better communicating the benefits of frequent floating. Since John Lilly suggested we not program people, we merely described the activities of floating and then let people get whatever they got. In the early days, Lee and I would describe how to minimize fears and deal with the logistics of floating, shower, get into the tank, leave the door open if you want to be more comfortable, come out when the filter gets turned on, shower again, but we avoided guiding people in how to make the best use of their time in the tank, other than let whatever happens happen. Said simply, we took a very passive view of float preparation, which could be captured as less is better. I am now seeing we may have missed out on ways to help people get maximum benefit from their time in the tank. My new view is that we could better serve our current and prospective floaters by providing them with some very compelling reasons to float that will increase the benefits they receive, yet doesn't program them as John Lilly warned us against. And I would love your feedback on how these resonate with you. Here are three compelling benefits we can provide floaters, managing the mental chatter when they float, using the tank as the greatest problem solving environment ever invented, strengthening our relationships with ourselves, with others, with the past and the future. Let's take these one at a time. Regarding mental chatter, a study mentioned in the 2018 book Altered Traits by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson says we spend 47 percent of our time with our mind filled with mental chatter. This chatter distracts and interferes with our ability to concentrate on things that require our focus. From the old passive no programming perspective, we might encourage people to let whatever happens happen. Our new approach could be to offer up that when floating, rather than trying to get rid of or avoid this mental chatter, we could choose to be conscious observers without succumbing to or getting sucked into random spikes. We could therefore select from the chatter box of specific issue and dedicate time to process it with the intention of finding the source or identifying a potential resolution. We could ask ourselves, is there an incident from the past that needs to be reflected upon? Is there something in the future that needs to be planned or committed for? Over time, floaters can gradually work through these chatter spikes and with regular and consistent practice, the intensity of this chatter will decrease resulting in increased joy. To take things to a whole other level, those of us who meditate find there is no environment more conducive to achieving an optimal meditative state than floating. Again, from altered traits, the authors cite hundreds of high quality studies done before 2017 on meditation. Unproperly, it results in not just temporary skills, but permanent ones, hence the title Altered Traits. As proof, researchers found that people doing even a small amount of concentration meditation for two weeks before graduate college entrance exams scored significantly better than their peers. So meditating while floating enables us to readily and easily enter an altered state. I call the heart space. I could spend hours on this alone, but for the sake of this conversation, let's understand the heart space as being open, present, and connected to life's higher and greater entities and spirits. The more I touch this heart space, the more my life has been blessed with things showing up when needed. People answers to problems, new ideas coming to mind. This single item alone would make all the time and money spent floating worthwhile, even if I got none of the other results. When Stephen Johnson introduced me this morning, he mentioned joy. When he saw me last night at the hotel, he said, you're the embodiment of joy. And what I'm talking about today in the talk is joy. Spirit brought him saying joy and me talking about joy during the talk together to show how touching the heart space creates what's needed so that it doesn't take time, but it gives time. It gives us what we need. In addition to the altered traits book, another amazing book on meditation I recommend is Shenzhen Young's The Science of Enlightenment. Okay, that's it on compelling reason number one regarding mental chatter. Compelling reason number two, the tank is the best problem solving environment ever invented. Again, rather than simply floating to relax or chill, life is full of projects, problems and opportunities to explore. Let's position the tank as the perfect place for doing real work without the incessant inputs and interruptions life presents. Without distractions, people can zero in on whatever they choose. They can pick it in advance or be guided to allow for something emerging while floating and then choose to work through it. They can focus on the article they have been writing, the app they have been building, the presentation they have been crafting, the ball they have been shooting, throwing or kicking. They can ask for help in solving the problem. They can summon whatever spirit would be helpful or simply trust the heart space to provide what they need. Let the float solution provide solutions. Of course not all problems will be easily solved. In fact, there are times they discover the problem they thought they had is actually something else. When designing the new tank model I had just finished, I had been struggling with some sound and lighting challenges for years.  Leo always thought so. But I still haven't invented a tank that will get me over that issue. I had been trying to find a mechanical solution to one of particular lighting issue but instead I was able to find an electrical solution for the device that worked much better. I'm sorry to give details to any of you geeks out there but I won't bore you all with details up here. For the ten years before building the first tank, I was hooked on the idea I needed to settle down and find a wife and get married that this would fill some happiness or self-worth hole. It was painful. I was very shy and did not know how to meet people. Soon after I designed and constructed the first tank prototype and started floating I realized I must be trying to solve the wrong problem. There was no hole to fill. I was okay and I could bring joy into life rather than seeing it outside myself. I relaxed, became at peace and let things happen. Over the next couple of years I enjoyed my relationships and then I found my partner Lee who was destined to do the float business with me. Had I stuck with the previous orientation I would not have noticed or been open to Lee. I would have been seeking to complete some checklist and would not have been present with her. We decided we wanted to be together all the time so we quit our jobs and started Samadhi Tank Company full-time. I can't imagine this happening had I not been floating. Compelling reason three, strengthening our relationships to ourselves, others, the past and the future. There is no question floating can be relaxing, restful and restorative. I imagine you would agree that managing mental chatter and meditating into your heart space will improve our relationships with ourselves. And being in good relationship with ourselves positions us well for improving our relationships with others. As a matter of fact, working on the mental chatter and doing the meditation and consistently touching the heart space all have the accumulative positive effect. Doing this consistently can help us establish a new baseline for our emotional state. One brief word about fear because I know this is something we all encounter especially with new floaters. The simplest way I believe we can address this in the context of strengthening relationships is to let people know it is perfectly natural for some concerns to arise when doing something new for the first time. This is something everyone experiences at different times when they're doing something new. Of course you're afraid, it would be surprising not to be. Leave the door open if you want to be more comfortable. You will find this will likely dissipate and you can move on to even bigger challenges. In terms of our relationships with others, it is not unusual for upsets to arise in relationships. We can find ourselves irritated, frustrated, even hurt or betrayed. The tank can be used in so many different ways and without telling people what they should do, let me tell you something I have done that I have found very useful. Here are some simple relationship questions I have reflected on while floating. What is upsetting to me about this relationship? Is there anything that happened which I need to forgive or apologize for? With this person or group, what am I committed to being or having? What offer, request or promise could I make to them or myself that would be consistent with my commitment? That's it. We're not aiming to psychoanalyze or put people on a couch. But it gives people a very simple construct for working through issues that we all have from time to time. And finally, our relationship to the past and future. Too often we find ourselves thinking about some event 30 years ago that lives as a magical moment or some incident we wish would have taken a different turn. A friend told me of his relative who still carries around a photo of a Ferrari he owned 40 years ago that was taken away during a messy divorce. We may laugh, but many of us have some version of that Ferrari we carry around. And other aspect of frequent floating is that other modalities showed up that helped make my life more enjoyable. These include diet, health, homeopathy, biogeometry, radionics, raising food, deep tissue body work. I do not have time to go into these, but they have all influenced my life. This is how I think about frequent floating and how it has brought more joy to my life. I hope you appreciate what is available by frequently floating and feel able to communicate that effectively to your floaters. This can open up opportunities for different offers to your clients. I will leave it to you to explore the ways to package this. By taking the opportunity to expand our consciousness and gain the benefits of frequent floating seems like an opportunity for all of us that we should not miss. The purpose of all of this really has but one purpose, to quiet the mind so we frequently enter the heart space. Entering it frequently produces the time saving effect of pulling to us the life we want and love. I think everyone here knows that I love to do what I love to do in life is design. I have spent a good part of the last couple years designing the best tank that I possibly could that I hope you will find is as great as I do. I am 82 and I started floating more than 50 years ago. I have done everything I can to design this tank to last that long. This tank is unique in that it is the only tank that will allow you to make the air quality and solution temperature absolutely perfect just for you since different people need different adjustments in those two qualities. If you are going to float frequently you will want the air quality and the solution temperature absolutely perfect which is what we at Samadhi have worked towards for all these years. If you see me this weekend I may be able to get you the best gift you can possibly have by this Christmas. I wish to leave you with an important question. Could I receive even more benefit from floating more frequently? Bless you all.