It's time for Member's Statements. Member for Kingston and the Islands. Thank you Mr. Speaker. On April 24th, when asked if a Conservative Government would kill the Ontario Basic Income Pilot party official said, and I quote, nope, we look forward to seeing the results. While it took only a few short weeks before the Conservatives got used to breaking their promises to the people, at its core basic income is the right to self-determination beyond circumstance and that is a powerful idea. Ontarians who participated in the pilot have said that it was life-changing. Dave Tchaikovsky of Hamilton lived in poverty for 10 years before this pilot. Now he's able to afford fresh, healthy food and his anxiety has been curbed. Another recipient named Jody said, basic income has given me the security I need to help relieve the stress of our everyday lives. But I can see why this Government of the few is only, for only the few. If they were to truly empower the many including those families partaking in this pilot, their mandate would be short indeed. I would remind the members opposite that the last Premier to cancel a basic income pilot was defeated shortly thereafter. When you slash income and resources for the impoverished and the vulnerable while also pledging to cut taxes for the rich and the powerful, it is obvious who this Government actually stands for. I urge this Government to show some compassion to live up to all of your promises. Thank you. Member statements, Member for Etobicoke Lakeshore. Etobicoke Lakeshore's version of Mardi Gras which was inspired by the New Orleans famous Mardi Gras kicks off this Friday August the third and runs throughout the weekend. Lakeshore Mardi Gras will be celebrating their 15th year in the community and we're expecting this year to be bigger and better than ever before. Visitors will have the opportunity to join, enjoy great live music which will include bands like and hopefully you all remember 5440 Rick Emmett and Resolution 9. The festival will also have great food vendors with amazing assortment of delicious carnival style treats which children will love and adults where children at heart will love even more. And of course, no carnival or summertime event would be complete without a beer garden. In addition to great music, there will be dazzling displays of entertainment such as buskers, clown shows and much, much more. The Yolkman atmosphere, natural park setting, beautiful lake Ontario shoreline and beautiful sunny skies is what makes Etobicoke Lakeshore such an inviting community to spend time in during the summer months. Of course great events are only made possible with organizations and community involvement. I would like to sincerely thank the organizations and the volunteer committees and the generous community sponsors who are supporting Lakeshore Mardi Gras. Come out to Colonel Samuel Smith Park in Etobicoke Lakeshore this weekend. It's for everyone, younger people, older people, singles, couples and families. The food is great, the music is great and we're expecting some great Etobicoke Lakeshore summer weather. Hope to see you there. For statements, the member for Nekol Belt. Thank you, Speaker. Today I want to talk about a safety issue in the community of Dowling in my writing of Nekol Belt. In Dowling the Large Wood Public School, the library, the community center, the ball field, the ice rink, you get the idea are on one side of Highway 144. The houses where the people live are on the other side of the highway. For many years parents and residents have been worried about children having to cross Highway 144 to get to school or to go play. We contacted the Ministry of Transportation who did a traffic study. The study showed clearly that this situation was too dangerous and they agreed to build a crosswalk to make things safer. Two long years have now passed school will start in a few weeks and there is no sign of a crosswalk being built. My constituents are running out of patience. They have decided to take things into their own hands. They are running a blockade of Highway 144, a major Northern Highway on the first day of school. Why do we have to come to that? The Ministry of Transportation agree, what are they waiting for? The death of a child is too high of a price to pay for in action. Those delays will never be tolerated anywhere else and will never accept being treated as a second class citizen because I choose to live here. Minister, the safety of these children are in your hands. Please do the right thing. Build a crosswalk in dialing before our kids go back to school and before tragedy strikes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is with a heavy heart that I rise today to pay tribute to Milton's Councillor Mike Bolton who passed away on Monday after a long battle with cancer. I know Mr. Bolton is a great man. He helped make life better for many Maltonians. He was a very, very proud Maltonian and watched not only our town grow but many of those that he helped work towards in terms of making their life better, Mr Speaker, right across Milton. He was a owner of a barber shop and very proud of his family and friends. Thank you, Mr Speaker. There is a very large void left in Milton Town Council and I know he will be greatly missed. On behalf of all of my colleagues in this house, I want to take this opportunity to send our condolences to his family, friends and fellow council members, Mr Speaker. Thank you. Statements, the member for Brampton Centre. I would like to thank Mr. Bolton for all the support he has made. It is an honour to be celebrating Caribbean heritage and all of its forms at caribbean. Over two million are expected to celebrate dance, jump up and wave to soak music and dance hall. Let's not forget that this week we celebrated emancipation day. and the diverse cultures we have. We will have people from Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica, St. Kitts, the Grenada Guyana, as I am, from celebrating and waving their flags with pride. And I hope that on this long weekend, we can all take an opportunity and participate in celebrating Caribbean heritage and the diverse cultures that we have here in our communities. Unfortunately, due to a wedding, which I'm really also very excited to announce, my cousin's getting married to her long-term fiance. And so I won't be able to jump and wave with my flag, but I'll be doing that at our reception. So I wanted to also congratulate them on their auspicious wedding. Thank you very much. Member's statements. Member for Scarborough, Gildewin. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to stand for the 4,000 people living in Thunder Bay, Lindsay Hamilton, Brantford, and Brant County, and the thousands of families in Scarborough and throughout Ontario receiving income supports from Ontario Works and ODSP, and who are going to be severely affected by the Premier's latest decision to scrap the basic income pilot project and the planned increase of 3% to the people on Ontario Works and ODSP. Canceling the basic income pilot project and reducing the planned increase by 1.5% to people on Ontario Works and ODSP is not being compassionate, nor is it for the people. Let me be clear, Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Government is breaking their promises by cancelling the programme that they said they would keep. The Conservative Government is now, instead, dragging Ontario backwards by breaking their promises, crushing the hopes of people living with no basic income and those living on low income. Mr. Speaker, reducing poverty in Ontario does not work by decreasing the rates for Ontario's most disadvantaged and marginalised people' income that they depend on. Mr. Speaker, even Conservative Senator Hussigal said that this is a horrific mistake and that he is embarrassed as a progressive Conservative. The pilot project was Ontario's way to gather our own evidence and the Premier has destroyed that opportunity. The research suggests that this won't save any money and, in fact, it would further deteriorate people's health and well-being, leaving them in poorer... Thank you. Member Statements, the Member for Eglinton, Lawrence. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just steps away from the bustling intersection of Young and Eglinton is the hockey arena that has seen generations of aspiring athletes take to the ice. It is perhaps most well-known as the home rink of former Hall of Famer Eric Lindross. And I'm speaking, of course, of the North Toronto arena, which is located in my riding of Eglinton, Lawrence. But these days, another professional hockey player is at the centre of attention in North Toronto. If you call the arena now, you will be greeted by a voicemail message that says, thank you for calling North Toronto arena home rink of Stanley Cup champion Tom Wilson. Our community is rightfully proud of Tom Wilson, who long before winning the Stanley Cup as a member of the Washington Capitals, cut his teeth playing hockey at North Toronto arena. In fact, my son Eric actually played with Tom Wilson on the North Toronto AA team. And, Speaker, I am very happy to report that Tom Wilson is bringing the Stanley Cup home to Toronto this weekend. And I would like to invite all members of this house to join me in congratulating Tom Wilson and the Stanley Cup champions, the Washington Capitals. Thank you. Member Statements, the member for Timmons. Well, Mr. Speaker, we'll all remember in the last election as we led up to it then leader of the official opposition, Mr. Ford said he was going to cancel the green belt. Remember that? He had a cozy little meeting with developers and he says, don't worry everybody, put your confidence in me, we'll just get rid of the green belt. Then all of a sudden the public started to push away. And as the public pushed away and said this was a bad idea, because it was an election coming. And they knew that this was not very popular and people want to protect the green belt. He says, no, no, I'm listening to the people. Oh, I'm not going to do that. Absolutely not. So what's the government's response and what's the Premier's response? Let's get rid of city council. If you can reduce the amount of councillors at City Hall, it's the developers who are going to control what goes on at that city hall. It's not going to be the people. This will be all about redeveloping the green belt according to what Doug Ford and developers want to do. And it's a real sinister way. And ask the member to refer to the Premier by his parliamentary title. Premier? Isn't that what I used? Anyways, I apologize. So I say again, the Premier is pretty clear what he's up to. This is all about attacking the green belt and doing development in a way that takes people out of the decision of what should be developed. Mr. Speaker, it's our land, it's our city and the people have to be at the center of all of the decisions. And for the Premier to say, no, I want to put my friends there so we could redevelop the green belt and do what we want is wrong and we're not a bunch of fishes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is my first time speaking in the legislature. As the MPP Speaker, it is an honor and a privilege that the residents of Donva-Linoc have placed their trust in me. I want to thank all the volunteers on my campaign and I also want to thank my wife, Chang Hong and my son Han for their love and support as I began my new position. My constituents are happy to see our government for people has kept its promises. We have legislation to cancel the cap and trade program. We have passed the registration to end the longest post-secondary education strike at the York University. The Board of High School has resigned and we are going to undertake the largest public consultation regarding the sex education curriculum starting in the fall. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to serving the residents of Donva-Linoc as a member of the provincial parliament. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak before the House today. Member Statements, the Member for Carlton. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. July 31st marked the beginning of the 2018 Special Olympics in Antigonishno, Scotia. Hundreds of athletes are competing to qualify for the 2019 Special Olympics World Games in Abu Dhabi. With over 260 athletes competing, Team Ontario is the largest team by far at the Games. Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to receive a letter from Mr. Glenn McDonnell, President and CEO of Special Olympics Ontario, highlighting two of Team Ontario's athletes that just happened to live in my riding of Carlton. Emily Byrne will be competing in the Sport of Rhythmic Gymnastics and Christian Schofield will be competing in the Sport of Swimming. I'm always pleased to hear about the accomplishments of the people I have the privilege of representing here at the legislature. Emily Byrne and Christian Schofield are an inspiration to our community and I'm proud to have them represent us as part of Team Ontario. Mr. Speaker, I want to wish them as well as all the athletes across Ontario, all the best during this competition. No matter the outcome, they are already winners and champions here at home. I look forward to meeting Emily and Christian upon their return, congratulating them in person and sharing in the celebration that recognizes their efforts. Thank you. That concludes our member's statements time this afternoon. Report.


Hi everyone, Joe for jaspyscasebreaks.com coming at you with a brand and new release just dropped today 2020 2021 Panini contenders draft picks basketball looking ahead to the upcoming NBA draft class, which should be pretty awesome. This is a two-box random pack break number one from jaspyscasebreaks.com Next couple or next one is sold out next couple are in the process of being sold out Just a 12-spot break the two-box 12-spot break each box has six packs in there We're gonna open both boxes number the packs one through 12 Then we're gonna randomize your names randomize the numbers and whatever pack you get That's what will match you up with and and we'll do though packs in It's the easiest way for me to do it. Let's go numerical order. I don't know We'll try numerical order see how it goes big thanks to these folks for getting into the action There are the numbers right there, and we're gonna put all the results of the randomizer in here first We got to turn on my camera First break of the day happens. All right, there we go And we got a pop open this box It's fresh case right here What up, and we'll see which two boxes we're gonna do Unexpectedly heavy. All right, so you can see on the top camera right there. There's Two boxes in each row right so we're gonna go one two three four five six on the dice roll I'm gonna use that right there and It's three One two three, so we're gonna do these two boxes right here Right in the middle, and we'll save these For next time All right, and I actually printed out labels before I started the video for the pack numbers So I think each pack should have an autograph right It's usually how they do it one Two And six Obviously if you're watching the replay of this you can fast forward through this this little tedious part here If you're watching live, you're just stuck with me watching me label packs seven eight nine ten eleven and 12 All right now. Let's go back to this screen right here. Let's roll it. Let's randomize each list five and one six times one two three four five And oh one Six in final time after six we got Ron Wester down to Rick Serrano And then five and a one six times for the pack numbers one two three four five We got nine down to twelve All right So Ron with pack nine Kang with two Jerry with ten David with eleven J with six Kyle with five last spot mojo Ron with four Michael with seven Nick with three and eight Kang with one and Rick with twelve So let's order these numerically. So we'll see Kang and the number one on top And he has packed two as well. I'm actually gonna Let's get all fancy here. Let's print out the labels for this too. All right, so today is Wednesday 1021 this is 2021 contend draft Mba two box RP number one random pack break number one Here we go All right, so Kang you have packs one and two. Do you have any more packs after that? I don't think so All right, so these are your two packs right here Good luck There it is right off the top one and two.  You got DeMar DeRosin Campus ticket a little bit of foil there. Where's the number? No number on this one We've got another campus ticket John Wall a little bit of a foil pattern there and your autograph is Lamar Stevens Now I Don't know about you guys. I have no familiarity with with this upcoming draft class. You're gonna have to let me know If if these autographs are of players that are expected to be good or not as the case may be I'm sure a second year Zion stuff like Luka Donchich this year. We'll do well. There's Zion So very clean familiar Design right here There's a conference. There's a number right there on this one 11 out of 75 John Wall and the autograph is Ramis Ramsey Have I heard of this kid before maybe On-card autograph it's not sounds familiar Tony's like, I only know Weisman and Lamella. I think that's about as far as my knowledge goes to there's a John Morant right here, too. Oh Yeah, Palakins speaking of Zion Palakins got a new coach. There's John Morant They got a Stan Van Gundy. I'm pretty sure right Stan Van Gundy was announced as the coach today. All right, Kang Thank you very much. There you go Bag those up in a second All right, Nick Coba With pack three. I think you've got where's my where's my main list here. I Think you've got some others too, right? I think you got one more coming up There's all the depot and Ben Simmons And we've got Dukes, Javan, DeLaurier Kyle Young drew Holly Wicks in that and Carmelo Andrea All right, so Nick. There's your first pack right there. We'll get to your other pack in a little bit Ron Wester I think this is your first of a couple as well. So but first let's do your pack four There's Kyrie. There's Clay Thompson and there's Udoka as a Buike Nailed it. Kyle Young, he looks there too. All right, there you go Ron That's for you Kyle. I think this is your only pack here Kyle. Pack five Thanks There we go Got another break that's coming up in a little bit and we've got plenty more in the store and I'm sure this is I'm sure the personal channel jaspys.com at jaspys break should have plenty of this as well probably a good a Good personal box product as well 27 out of 275 Conference finals ticket autograph Xavier Snead. All right, there you go Kyle. Thank you Next up is Jay Who's got a pack and we got Omer your seven Prospect ticket autograph some decent penmanship there. This guy's supposed to be up there. All right. Thanks Jay and Michael Gabby There you go Michael Thanks for getting Michael G pack seven See what we got. It's Jimmy Butler Haskell Siakam and Ryan Woolrich From Gonzaga and we've got No, these are just good this way now. All right. There's a Zion right there for you too. All right. There you go Michael. Thanks All right. What do we what else do we got here? We've got Nick Koba there's Nick Koba again. We can add to his stack over there pack eight This is your last one Nick. Nice. Good luck. There's a Zion right out of the gate RJ Barrett drew holiday and we've got Austin O'Wiley 29 out of 99 conference ticket autograph I Kind of there's kind of a cool pattern Behind his picture, which I like it's pretty cool All right All right next pack is pack nine that's Ron's other pack he had packed four before right there and Now it's time for you and pack nine Marcus Aldridge Hachimura, and we've got another Ryan Woolrich He's got pretty good penmanship there, too. That's nice All right, there you go there Ron. Thank you Got a few more packs to go Jerry David Rick. All right, Jerry here we go Usually that first card was I don't know how that goes anymore Kevin love Kevin Durant. Oh, I thought there was gonna be a third Kevin.  Thanks, Jerry Pack 11 belongs to David Baker Good luck David Damien Lillard Bradley Beale and Josh Nebo That's another die-cut autograph. I do like the that ticket stub idea or the raffle ticket Whatever you want to call it Die-cut I think it's a good idea It's two out of 37 on that on the Texas A&M player and Durant right there and there you go David. Thank you And last but not least Rick Serrano. Good luck. That's true Trey. Yeah It's always interesting to see whose autos Get better a Lot of times they get worse and the last one here is Grant Riller prospect ticket autograph For Rick. Let's see what else we got here. Obviously everything ships Popping in a team bag and off it goes to ship out pretty quickly And we've got it. Let's see if a second-year John Morant right here too might as well There you go. Thanks Rick. Thanks everyone for getting into the action really appreciate it. I'm Joe I'll see you next time for this brand-new release jaspyscasebreaks.com. Bye. Bye


What's up everyone? It's your girl Kenzie here from Lane Sports Cards and I'm rep in 2022 Panini impeccable football I'll be three bucks full case break number 85 pick your team got Alvin S. Jags Ryan B. Bears Colby S. Panthers and Brian B. Eagles Dallas P. Cardinals and Giants Edward P. Ravens John F. Bucks Matthias S. Browns Matthew G. Titans Anthony G. Colts Rams Peter M. Lyons David F. Texans Brandon W. Dolphins and Patriots Eric P. Jet Seahawks Lindsay H commanders Carlos F. Falcons Edward P. Niners Michael S. Chiefs Steve S Vikings Greg L. Saints Travis M. Raiders Edward P. Cowboys Michael T. Steelers Allen G Packers Russell B with the Bills Bangles Carlos F Broncos and Armando B. Chargers. I was at all of order Sorry about that y'all All right, here we go. Good luck. Again y'all no personal tonight after group breaks I'll be back here in a few hours for Sunday daytime personals Such a tiny case filled with Some beautiful beautiful cards. Here we go Um, I gotta be here at 9 a.m. Yeah, I'll be fine You know, I think that sucks is where we moved is like a good 40 minute drive home Well worth it fillers Yeah All right, good luck y'all we have Derek Henry. This is gonna be gold three out of ten Tiny break in the morning and 11 of 50 Devontae Smith first up. We've got extravagance 29 of 35 Micahide For the bills on the two-color patch. I appreciate your confidence Going to the Steelers rookie auto 33 a 35 the Marvin leal Chargers we have our sorry not RPA patch auto 63 of 99 Derwin James, Jr. Three-colored patch there. We have rookie landscape for the Jets 79 of 99 briefs haul. Here's a nice one Going to Greg L. We have Drew breeze auto three out of 25 on the immortal ink nice breeze Three of 25 we'll get this one magged up for you beautiful hit New Orleans And redemption elegance rookie helmet and nameplate autos card 116 Jameson Williams He's JMO for the Lions It's all first boxer fillers Deontay Johnson seven of 75 Steelers bronze nine of 25 Dak Prescott for the Cowboys And a Justin Jefferson 19 of 75 Got giants on the uh 26 of 75 Super Bowl champ lexco barris your giants Super Bowl champ Nice one here eagles campus creations 40 of 49 a j brown Little Philly Brian B with Philly Redemption up next. We have Wandaille Robinson rookie patch autos Giants on that one giants taking home two hits in this box so far Nice one there And we've got ramps on the master strokes one of 25 of kurt warner Nice kurt warner those master strokes are just beautiful looking cards Very nice one there And we've got last but not least steelers rpa 72 is 75 Kenny pick it on the jersey and helmet relic You go Pittsburgh Michael T very nice Mag this one for you too All right last box should have our bar card in here and it indeed does Very nice save the bar card for last got Rashad Bateman seven of 10 on gold George Kittle two out of 50 And we have hey slash cordel stewart 81 of 99 That's so cool Love the nickname cards here nice big auto on that one too Got texas uh rickie auto 38 of 99 Derek stingley jr Wow team tandems you've got elie manning and plexiglas burris man giants kind of killed this case As I say that oh my gosh that is so sick Dallas p With the giants that's a really cool card They did that's what I was saying. I was like wait a second. They did sign on opposite sides We'll mag that one And right behind it elie manning super bowl champ 12 of 49 It's like four or five hits for the giants. There you go. Dallas killing it Mag this one too And we have an alec pierce on the uh rpa 35 of 35 you got the helmet relic in jersey. There is like Some scuff marks or there's something on that helmet piece. Obviously this is not going to be game warm It's not for many game in or event. I will send a box here with the uh colts You can see that pretty clearly right there. I'm not too sure what that is on the helmets bar card time Come on go. Good luck everyone last card of the night And It's going to the vikings. How about a justin jefferson five of 25 A nice way to end it there for you minnesota steve s On the one tryouts fine silver justin jefferson Very nice do a quick recap here Yeah, we got the alec pierce. We will be sending a box due to the helmet's gotten got some gunk on it I don't know what that is colts. We've got derrick stingley jr. Texans Slash a.k.a. Cordell stewarton steelers giants redemption wandale robinson kurt warner ramps a.j Brown eagles plexigal boris giants of demarvin leal steelers Of riss hall jets mica hide bills derwin james jr. Chargers Our mags cards. We had these super gold champ 12 of 49 elia manning The team tandems boris and elia manning giants Drupere's the 25 It's when they're saints Then we had lion's redemption of james and williams rookie helmet and nameplate auto The kenny picket dual relic auto 72 75 And the silver bar card of justin jefferson the 25 for the vikings Alrighty y'all that will do it for the group breaks tonight. Thanks so much. We'll get these cards right out to you


So whether it's a character weakness or character strength, that thing is gonna come out and the issue is it comes out in public. It comes out maybe nationally. So knowing you and then just being your authentic self, once you know who you are, I tell this to people, if you need therapy, get therapy. If you need medicine, get medicine. If you need ice cream, get ice cream. Whatever your thing is, that's me, I do ice cream and therapy. But get those things and be your authentic self.  You're not trying to assimilate or be like someone else. You're not trying to be this polished somebody that they can't believe in. Just the other day, I was speaking at an event and I had on ripped up jeans and I say, you know what, because I'm running as I am. And because once I get to Congress, you're gonna see me in ripped up jeans. So you might as well know now that I were ripped up jeans and big earrings. Well, I have on now. But so what I'm saying is, if you can be your authentic self and know your mission, know the reason why you're running and he says it all the time. And he says, know your why. I say, know your mission. Know the reason why you're doing it. Because in those days when you have hard, when it's hard and the trolls are at you and money isn't there. And all of these things are happening.  And so that will help pull you through. Yeah, these are all really good points because I don't think that people really think about this aspect of like self care because you just kind of get in it and you don't realize that you've been working kind of like Paula said, I've been doing this for like three months and I didn't even take a day off. That really takes a toll on you. If the film demonstrated anything, you are normal people. And even if politicians generally seem robotic and they're rehearsed, what I like so much about you guys and what the film does so well is it demonstrates, these are normal human beings. Like the most powerful part in the film was when it showed each of you getting the results. And I'm so glad, like I knew that in the film Corey's election came after AOCs. I'm glad they showed AOCs last because that was such a gut punch to see all of your reactions. Because I mean, we all kind of reacted individually and we kind of coped with it after following you for so long. But seeing that toll after like a year and a half of just pouring your heart and soul into it, that was so rough. So one thing that I wanted to follow up on was with Paula Jean, you were talking to Joe Manchin, he planned a meeting with you. Did he follow through? Did you get that meeting that he promised you? And how did that go if so? Well, I did. And I can honestly say that Joe Manchin is a personable person. He's done a lot of bad things in West Virginia but he's very friendly. We sat down, well he is. So everybody calls him Uncle Joe.  I guess that's how I should put it. But he asked me how to get my votes and I told him he'd have to earn on like with blood, sweat and tears like I did. And I told him he could go out with a legacy like Robert Burr did and Rockefeller did and he could serve the people of West Virginia or he could move forward like down the same path that he has. And I didn't concede, I didn't endorse him but I told him if he did good things that I would sing his praises that the people of West Virginia deserve better no matter what. And so the first step was he went down into a community called Menden, West Virginia. I spoke a lot about it in my campaign. It's a community that's been begging to be on the Superfund list for about 40 years. There was a company called Schaefer that's buried PCBs and put PCBs into an abandoned coal mine there. And so people are dying in alarming rates. And so he did put out a letter to the EPA and asked the EPA to put him on the Superfund site and he sit down in his campaign manager Mora to tour the community. And she acted like she really cared but she was talking about getting on new roofs and new carpet and fixing their houses and myself and the community told him that's not what they wanted. They wanted relocated because they're dying. And he took in water, he got him a truckload of water but one thing that he did promise that he didn't follow through with was he promised a mobile health clinic for one of the universities. And they came back and said that they could go to the sliding scale clinic in Oak Hill and adjoining community, which is still detrimental for them, that's always been available but they can't afford $600 for x-rays. And within the week too, he was campaigning in the general trying to get the Republican vote.  Yeah, yeah, I don't blame you. One question. Let us follow. Yeah, I love the fire, I love the passion. One thing that I wanted to ask you Amy was there was this really, I think, incredible moment between you and your campaign manager where you guys were both kind of in tears. This was I think before the results were learned and you were saying, look, win or lose you've been one of the best campaign managers. That reminded me of a battle scene or a pre-battle scene in Game of Thrones where it's like, okay, we may not come out. Can you talk about this? Because what I learned is that these are all basically mini proxies for you. They know that jumping on board with the grassroots candidate who isn't taking corporate money, that's gonna be difficult but they're still pouring all this time into it. So first of all, my question is, do you still keep in touch with them and how do you keep people motivated or does it just happen organically? And they're always motivated. I definitely do keep in touch with them. I love them like family. And when you go through this together, that battle together, as you saw, they did whatever was necessary. I mean, spray painting signs, I mean, out of the 113 degree weather knocking doors. I mean, we were doing garage sales to try to raise money. We were doing like so much and all of it came from a love of community. When you love your community and you're fighting for the same things, when you're fighting for social and healthcare and racial and economic justice and LGBTQ justice, every one of them represented a different facet and we were all intersectional as far as the way that our issues, we're intersectional with each other. That love was immense. And there were parts of the movie that didn't get in there but people, we were bawling. I mean, I wasn't the only one crying. We were all really upset because we knew that the alternative was gonna be that we were gonna have someone who was just gonna be interested in keeping status quo and that's what's happened. And so it was crushing more because we had been out in the community, Mike, and had solved not only our own issues, but the people that were even in the communities, the more that you're out there and you're seeing all the pain and the despair and the suffering, knowing you have the answers, knowing that you have the drive and the fight, but you just can't make it over that last hurdle. It was tough, but it's been motivating for all of them. I'm happy to report they're all still involved in politics. Good. A lot of our organizations are through Nevada. We're all through Nevada. Good. We're not done. We're not done. It's been, we haven't kept it in touch as much as we want, Mike, but I've been traveling around helping a lot of different states as well. I've been doing some work in Texas. I've been traveling around to different states talking about healthcare. So I really have been able to use that time knowing that Nevada's in good hands and use it to also help other people in other states to get motivated and start fighting for these issues. Yeah, that was really something that I was curious about because it's not just that you're learning about these four women, but these people who are also kind of helping with the message and you kind of develop the sense of like, well, what are they doing now? Where are they at?  This is a documentary with real people. And going to Corey, the scene at the end where it kind of like ended with you, your story in the film ends with you crying after the loss, that was so difficult. But the good news, the good news is that that's not the end because you're running for Congress again. So what we saw was basically an hour and a half of you guys telling us how difficult it is to run for Congress. And my thought was, oh my God, I would never be up to this. I would not have the willpower. But you're in the race again, Corey. So tell me, what made you wanna run again? Cause it was hard enough the first time, but what made you wanna keep going? So let me start with one thing that you brought up with Amy. So when we lost, so my team was, when Amy was talking about balling, my team was, it was a mess. And, but they were balling and then they went over into a corner in the room at the watch party and they started organizing the next race, literally at the party. And so they carried that on. They started having meetings and I'm still like, what the heck?  I lost my job. I couldn't walk out. Like I was still in pain for my accident news, but they had, they stayed together and they kept it going. It was just amazing. So they said, okay, you're gonna run again. So just let us know when you're ready. So that was, so, you know, it was kind of like, and then people that didn't believe in me before running came to me during that, during those few weeks saying, hey, if you run again, we understand now we'll support you. And so, but I got back in the race personally though, one because of the support and the love and then the terrible feeling that I felt when I felt like I let everybody down, that people gave their time, their talent and their treasure in the hopes that I would make it in. And I didn't.  But also we still have the same dang issues we had the day when I decided to run the first time. We still have those same problems. We still have somebody that's never present in our district that, you know, they didn't grow here. You know, somebody that does not, that whose blood, sweat and tears isn't in this community and people are hurting and suffering and the only way to change that is for somebody to run against them. And this is the thing I did better than anybody else has ever run against him before for Congress. I ran, I did better than him. A congressman ran against him when redistricting. I did better than that person and I did better than a sitting state senator. So those people had name recognition. Those people had money. I'm the one saying I'm not taking corporate pack money even though 250,000 was offered to me, you know? And so, but we still did better. And I did and we did better. And for the last three months I was off my feet. My team did everything. So if because of that, that meant that it's time.  I knew that with that and then all the things that I deal with, one thing I just need to say, Mike, you know, what people don't realize is I'm still, I still, I'm still heavily surveilled from Ferguson through my activism. I still get death threats. I still get tastes. I'm stopped.  And I live a very dangerous, very dangerous life here. And so if I sit down and I say enough is enough, then they win. They can continue to do those things. And so I'm staying in the forefront. I'm staying in their faces and I'm not gonna back down because they can't win. This is why we love you. And this is why I recommended that my mom watch the film and she calls me like immediately, she's like, these women are so amazing. I feel like I can do anything because it's like, you watch these films with like these superheroes and whatnot, like Wonder Woman and whatnot, but you don't get role models like this, like where you have normal people who you can actually identify with. Like normal people just like me, just like you, who are doing something that is entirely possible that theoretically can be done by anyone. Now it's tough. That's really what the film showcased, but it's possible. So I want to end by kind of asking what happens next because you guys all have a lot of political capital. Now you have the name recognition and you're kind of superstars now. So now if you run for Congress, it's gonna be a different story. So what is the future happen store for the stars have knocked down the house? Well, before we get into that, I wanted to echo what Corey said. I think that was one of the biggest hardest thing for me when I came home after my campaign was feeling like the disappointment of not, feeling like I probably disappointed people. During my campaign, I lost three of my family members and seven of my friends. It was cancer, drug addiction and suicide. So people were still dying. During my campaign, I had my neighbor's baby daughter, he was sitting over there dying with lack of cancer and her coming to the fence every time I come on from the campaign, we need you, Paul, Jane, we need you. You know, my aunt passed away during my campaign of cancer. My uncle was diagnosed with cancer and he has black one. And the hardest thing to come home, even though we have community organizers, you know, still working across the state, I've been organized and even with everybody ever since the campaign and I continue to do that no matter what. It was hard to come home, knowing that Joe mentioned was still gonna, still played a part in that. And, you know, Shelley Moore Capito, Democrat or Republican, you know, we have people in Congress that still play part of that. We still have people in the Capitol that still play a part in the death and destruction of West Virginia. And I thought about my brother, sister, candidates. I thought about being out of Ferguson with Corey when I was and seeing what she's going through and thought about Amy and her daughter. It was really, really hard to come home and know that, you know, that was their biggest losses because we're still gonna keep going and we're still gonna be community organizers, but these people are still in power too. So that's why it's so vitally important. And I've said it before and I'll say it again over and over again, as if you can run for office from a local level to a federal level, do it as past time, not only West Virginia, but everybody's invested in themselves because these problems are not gonna go away. No matter how many times you've got some women that's getting some popularity on knockdown the house or you hear somebody give good speeches, I humbly ask everybody in this country to vet your candidates because Amy was talking about changing the conversation, but now everybody's progressive and everybody has a grassroots campaign when they're taking corporate and corporate pack dollars and there's, you see, whatever needs to be said. And that's, that has inspired me to be on in that there's so many progresses now. Patrick Morsi said he was running a grassroots campaign in the deep of my life. We have to vet our candidates. I know it's hard to understand campaign financing. I fully didn't even understand campaign financing until I run for office. I know it's hard to look at voting records. It's hard to look at past speeches and previous speeches.  You know, they can paint a pretty picture, but are they really going to serve the people?  We have to vet our candidates. We have to. Or we're going to be in the same position. You know, they may sound glorious, but our lives are not going to be glorious. And as far as next steps, I am exploring my option. Apologizing is not done. There'll be some announcements really soon, but I'm not ready to make those announcements. Okay, sounds good. How about you, Amy? Oh, I would love to run again, but I think I'm going to be sitting out this election because I really want to help a certain presidential candidate win. Are you allowed to say which presidential candidate that is? Oh. Is it Beto? Yes, look at that. I love it. I have to ask. I can't tell you how many times that people ask me, who are you supporting for president? I don't know. Maybe the Revolution sticker or the Bernie book on the background. Or am I going to let you know? I would really like to be a part of making sure and helping in any way I can with Bernie's campaign. I'm also going to be helping, you know, candidates that are needing to run. I, and then, you know, definitely going to be helping out too that I know that are on board right now on this interview. And then I will run again. I will run again. And I will go in there probably in 2022 and hopefully make it into Congress this time. Yeah, because I'm going to do fundraisers and everything and you get to come to my office. You know, I'm going to have it all laid out. You know, I'll get you real out. Of course, me. I know where they live. Well, since you brought up Bernie, Amy, let me ask everyone else. Is it Bernie again for you guys? I fully endorse Bernie Sanders. Right on. I'm not saying yet. I'm rolling mine out when I'm ready. All right. All right. I can respect that. Let me ask you guys this, though, because you all want to run for Congress. And here's one thing that really struck me. I mean, it's not surprising, but it still is during Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is target enemy number one, not just for the Democratic Party establishment, but for Republicans. And we see this with Ilhan Omar, other grassroots candidates, or people that came into office. So are you ready? Like, how do you think you'd be able to cope with that? Because I'm just thinking psychologically how difficult this must be to be the number one target when you're one of the only people in Congress representing the people. Like, can you just respond to the response that AOC got after she won and how you think you would be able to cope with that if, you know, it remained the same, which I'm assuming it would. How about you, Corey, because you're running again right now. Yeah, so I guess the last five years of my life has been nothing but the first three years anyway, which is a lot of scrutiny, a lot of people saying some really terrible things about me not knowing who I am, you know, and then I became a black identity extremist and then all of those things. So I think for every bullet that's been shot into my car, for everything that I've gone through, every time I was ran off of a road, I think that I pretty much, I think I'm ready to be able to, if I can handle that, if I can stand up in front of tanks, if I could be, you know, if I can be assaulted by the police, I can handle that. Like, I think I'm ready for that. And I know that, but when I see Alex, every time, and she can still say this, every time I see her, I say, how are you doing? How are you handling this? How are you sleeping at night?  But I think that that comes with it. That's part of it. So I think that in the same way, we grew to be to this point, because we're different people than we were when we first decided to run. You know, we've, our skin has thickened and so many other things. And so in the same way, I think that we'll all be ready. Yeah, yeah. How about you, Amy? I agree. I think that we've all been brought to this level by the amount of persecution that we face, even just with announcing. And I have to say that, you know, Alex is a human being. I mean, she is dealing with an immense amount of pressure. And you know, all of us, we offer words of encouragement when we see each other. But you know, at the end of the day, I think all of us know that what we're up against is the fight of our lives for this country. And even the ones that didn't make it, we're still feeling repercussions from us standing up publicly for us having a voice in our communities, in our abilities to have jobs, and our people, you know, the way that they treat us. We're, every one of us across the board has had to pay prices. Many of us can't get jobs in our career fields anymore. Many of us because of running for office and being not outspoken. But that's what it takes to go and have a movement. That's what it takes to stand up against a machine and against power. We have to be willing to sacrifice and say, come what may, bring it on. Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How about you, Paula? Well, I was already facing a lot of scrutiny before I run for office.  And so, you know, I've been through a lot of that already. It was, it was amplified probably 10 times after running for office. You know, there was a lot more scrutiny. I had my life threatened, I had people follow me. But the struggle, the struggle here at home is no greater than any struggle that we can face. You know, like Ferguson, like losing their children and people dying because they don't have healthcare or people dying of drug addiction in this state and dying of cancer. People think they think it's extreme, but I've said it, you know, what they've asked me, why aren't you afraid for your life?   And that's real, that's real.  And I would whole lot rather fight than lay down and take it. And so, you know, when and if I run for office again, it's no bigger than the battle than probably have a home. Yeah. Well put. So before we end, I just wanna give you guys each the opportunity to kind of plug whatever you're doing, your Twitter, because obviously we're not gonna hear, you know, this isn't gonna be the last that we hear from you. So if you guys can just direct us to what you need, Corey, I know you're running for Congress and you need money. So plug all of that and we'll go through each of you. If we've learned anything from the documentary is that money is key, unfortunately, but that's the way that it is. Yes, yeah. So yeah, please, if you have anything that you could give, that you can donate, we need every single dollar that somebody is willing to give. You can look us up on Act Blue. My name is Corey, C-O-R-I-B-U-S-H. I'm the good bush.  We would love for you to do a recurring donation because that way we know how much money we have every month and we can kind of plan. So if you're able to do it, even if it's just $10, if that's all you have, we appreciate it. So go in there and make a donation. Tell your friends, you gotta tell other people, thank you for your donation, I'm so pleased to other people to donate. And my Twitter is at CoreyBush. Facebook and everything else is at CoreyBush. Reach out to me. We need help, we need volunteers remotely and locally and just help us amplify this message. All right, Amy? Yeah, so right now, definitely keep an eye out on my social media. I will be, you know, again, releasing a book for those who are planning to run for office or who are just interested in the story of what it was like to be running and how you actually, I really want to be a transformative book that is gonna help give people, you know, that power within to, you know, how do you transform from a place of grief and feeling less than to using that as power to go forward and fight for the people? So keep a look at it, Amy. The number four, thepeople.com. Also, you can follow me on Twitter, Amy, the number four, thepeople.com. And as far as what I'm doing, you know, go to ourrevolution.com and berniestanders.com. Definitely can use people, you know, volunteering your time, donating, you know, of all of us are running, we definitely need to have somebody who's going to be able to, you know, implement any of these issues and policies that we're fighting for. So it is so important as much as you scrutinize someone who's in the house or the Senate, you need to do the same for someone who's gonna be the president. And as far as I can see, the only person I know that's gonna be putting the fight necessary to win on the issues that we were fighting for is gonna be Bernie Sanders. So sorry, I have to do that shameless plug. No, hey, this is where you get to plug whatever you want. So... So berniestanders.com. Love it, love it. How about you Paula? Real quick, let me plug, baby, let me plug, before Paula goes, let me plug, I need Twitter to verify me. This is, this is getting... I need that again too. Me too. Okay, yeah. Are you verified, Amy? I am.  I was verified.  And so... Oh, really? Because I'm a lifetime candidate, I think. Huh. I was verified at Paula Jean 2018. I think I just got on. Yeah, it changed in January, 2018. Yeah. Yeah, they're very stingy with the verifications nowadays, I hear. I was verified at Paula Jean 2018, but when I went Paula Jean 2020, I wasn't verified anymore. It went away. Do you want to plug anything, Paula? Well, you can follow me on Twitter, Paula Jean 2020. You can find me on Facebook, Paula Jean Swearingen. But I am plugging for my brothers and sisters as they're still running for office. Donate to Cory Bush, donate to Anthony Clark. Look at this slate of Brandon Congress candidates that are about to be recruited and help donate and volunteer for Brandon Congress. So we can, and also look at your local candidates. Local candidates do not get a lot of support. We had a lot of support as congressional candidates, but local races, it's really, really hard. If you can knock on doors and donate and phone bank for local candidates, they'll have the available resources that we do. Take a, you know, try to pick a congressional candidate and a local candidate to support because it's really important, not just, you know, not just Congress. And start looking at the Senate. And we need to vet more people to run for Senate right now because no matter what's going through the house, it's getting knocked down in the Senate. So we need some more people to run for Senate. So if anybody has the guts to do it, we need more people in those seats. And I think that's it for me. Yeah, just donate and keep watching. All right, well, thank you all so much for coming on. It's been an absolute privilege to talk to you again and to see the documentary. It was just such a great work. It has 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, by the way. So obviously it's good. And I'm just so excited to see what you guys are doing next and you know, what the movement has in store. I know that we're gonna hear more from you. So thank you all so much for coming on. One more plug. I wanna thank you and other people like you as we have, we've been running for office because if it wasn't for you, we would have not got the name recognition that we did. Thank you for amplifying our voices and supporting us. Thank you. That means a lot. That means a lot.  So. Yeah, it's hard because I don't, it's difficult because every time that I bring on a candidate, I try to have this theme of, they need money. They're not taking corporate money, but that means you have to come in. So I don't know how successful that is. I hope that you guys got boosts whenever you came on like an indie show like this. But certainly I'll be doing whatever I can as loud as I possibly can scream, use my platform to help you guys. Because like the documentary kind of illustrated, this isn't just about people, like individual one person. This is about a movement, which I feel like I'm part of that movement. And I know people watching feel like they're part of that movement. So, you know, anything to help our brothers and sisters? Yes, because like yesterday, we brought in $18. Oh my gosh. That's the realization of this. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it's a tough struggle. Yes, we will try whatever we can. So thank you all so much. Thank you for running again. Thank you for dedicating yourselves to the cause and just tremendous sacrifice. It truly is so meaningful to people. And let me just say one more thing. The people who watch, like I think they would have tuned out of politics had it not been for people like you because it's so difficult to stay like motivated when constantly we're beat down. We see everything unfolding, you know, in DC. And there's all of these local issues on top of that. So if there were people that just gave up, if there was nobody like you guys willing to run, then it would be very difficult to stay motivated. So just understand that what that means to us is huge. Your contribution is tremendous. So thank you all so much. It really is meaningful. Thank you. Well, that's all that I've got for you guys today. Thank you so much for tuning in if you've made it this far. As usual, I'm gonna thank all of our Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members for helping the show to survive and thrive. And also a shout out to all of our iTunes and SoundCloud listeners for listening loyally every single week. Thank you all so much. This has been The Humanist Report. My name is Mike Figueredo. I'll talk to you all next week. Take care.


Sarah Wiley is the VP of Product Development at Genesis Block, a Utah-based startup building a consumer bank powered by Web 3. Sarah studied computer science at BYU and has worked as a software engineer for 20-plus years with a long tenure at Intuit before making the leap into the alluring world of startups. Three years ago, Sarah started learning about blockchain, decentralized development, and crypto, and quickly became enthralled by the promises and possibilities of these new technologies. Sarah lives with her husband and children in Provo, Utah, and takes any chance she can get to escape on foot or bike into the breathtaking canyons of the Wasatch Mountains. Sarah Wiley. It is an honor to be here. I am a crypto blockchain newbie compared to so many here. It is humbling to be following so many great talks, but I am honored to be here and I'm excited to share a little bit about what we're doing at Genesis Block. The promises of DeFi, decentralized finance, stem from the overarching and general promises of decentralization as it applies to finance. They're made possible by the powerful and innovative advances in technology through blockchain. The ideal, and I say ideal because we all know we're not there yet, but the ideal is to build and leverage systems that are, as we've heard many times, censorship resistant, permissionless, and peer-to-peer. For DeFi, this looks like democratic governance through DAOs and transparency through open source contracts and public ledgers. Trustless transactions can have the possibility, the potential of removing institutional bias that has plagued our systems historically and enable cross-border and cross-demographic transactions. The incentivized networks with values and processes built into their framework mean no central authority and more efficient alignment of our values. At Genesis Block, and particularly I have to give a shout out to our CEO and founder, We are true believers in these promises and our active participants in the ecosystem. We look for opportunities to advise and influence legislation and regulation to build awareness and public perception and to be supporters and sponsors of projects that reflect our values and help progress these promises of DeFi. So we are here to unlock the power of crypto and DeFi for everyone. Accessing DeFi today is ridiculously complicated and can be really scary. The benefits are truly only available to those who are willing and able to figure it out and in a position to afford the risk. We are currently sponsoring a March Madness competition internally at Genesis Block and we're all experiencing where we are supposed to use the phantom network to make as much money as we can. And we are all experiencing firsthand how impossible it can be as most of us have lost all money that we've put into it. So now the winner will be the one who has lost the least rather than who has made the most. But our vision at Genesis Block is to offer the benefits of DeFi in an accessible, familiar and comfortable package. That means removing that risk, removing that barrier to entry. To build a delightful user experience, transparent and educational tools all bundled within a framework that people understand, the traditional finance workflows. And we use economies of scale to make fees more manageable and to mitigate risk. So what are we doing? We're building a mobile application offering full-featured financial services for a crypto generation. We offer high-yield savings accounts that are powered by DeFi. We have FDIC-insured depository accounts for traditional banking services. We have an integrated crypto wallet with easy ways to buy, sell, hold, exchange crypto. And we offer a Visa debit card with crypto cashback rewards. So for Genesis Block users, we are attempting to reduce the risk of DeFi while maintaining the high rewards that are possible. So the question, of course, is how do we do this? And I know we run the gamut in this room of some DeFi DGENs and crypto curious and total newbies. So forgive me if I'm oversimplifying or not explaining enough, but there's a lot of resources out there. So we reduce the risk and volatility inherent in crypto and DeFi by using stablecoins. Stablecoins are crypto assets that are pegged and backed one-to-one with stable assets like the US dollar. And we use those stablecoins to bridge the world between traditional finance and decentralized finance. So as much as we wish we could just teleport to the new and better world of complete decentralization, we're obviously not there yet. And so we're trying to be a part of the transition. By strategically introducing DeFi into tools and systems that people already use and understand. So DeFi protocols provide opportunities to make money through several avenues. There's safe lending markets with over-collateralized leverage. There's providing liquidity for exchange services. And through incentives from platforms that pay commissions for participation. So making money is not the only thing we're interested in at Genesis Block. We are also on a mission to do good. We donate 10% of our revenue to causes that our community chooses this year. We had a combination of causes related to the environment, financial access and inclusion, and helping refugees. We set up a donor advice fund which allows users to grow their assets tax-free, supersize them with DeFi, and donate them to their favorite nonprofits. We're pending B Corp certification and have worked really hard to get there. And in our app users can earn rewards points for healthy behaviors like saving, donating, and learning more than just spending. We are executing on an everybody wins strategy. We believe strongly in the potential of decentralized finance to make the world a better place. There's that optimism that we've been warned against, but you know it takes a certain amount of conviction and optimism to face the challenges that we are to make it a reality. We're building a product to help our users make money, which then helps us build our company, which then enables all of us to do good in our communities while also participating in and building momentum for DeFi. This obviously is not without its challenges. As others have mentioned, we are absolutely facing immense pushback and challenges by archaic, restrictive, and uncertain regulatory environments. But we're up for the challenge. We're invested and motivated and optimistic that this will ultimately help make the promise of DeFi a reality. Thank you.


Hey guys, welcome back to Six Sister Stuff. Today I'm making a delicious instant pot meatball soup. You're not gonna wanna miss it. So my name is Kristen Hills and I am the second sister from Six Sister Stuff. Now every Sunday we share an instant pot recipe with you. Today I'm sharing instant pot meatball soup. Now I love cooking meatballs in the instant pot. It's one of my most favorite things because frozen meatballs cook so fast and you can have a recipe literally on your table in about 15 minutes. So if you guys are ready, let's get cooking. All right, so the first thing we're gonna do is kind of saute the vegetables to get them just a little bit softer and full of flavor. So we're going to go over to our instant pot. Now this is a Luxe, it's an older version but all the instant pots should have a saute button. So you're gonna just push the saute and then wait for it to get hot. So once your instant pot's hot, we're gonna add just two tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of olive oil. Then we're just gonna mix this around, melt our butter, get the bottom hot and toasty so we can cook the vegetables. Okay, so the first thing we're gonna put in there is just one onion all chopped up small. I like little onions. Then we're just gonna add about four to six stalks of celery depending on how much you like.  Okay, once our vegetables are in we're kind of just gonna stir it around with the oil and the butter just to brown them up a little bit. So this will take about two to three minutes just until your onions start to get soft, your celery starts to get soft but don't worry, your carrots will cook as your instant pot cooks. Okay, as your vegetables are cooking we're just gonna add four teaspoons of garlic in there. Make that smell really good with the onions. Okay, so it's been a few minutes now I'm going to add all my other stuff. So first I'm gonna just add two cans of crushed tomatoes. Now you wanna leave the juice in there because this is a soup so you want it to be soupy. Mix that around a little bit. You can still have your saute on. It won't hurt anything. Now we have three tablespoons of tomato paste that we're gonna throw in there. Now I am just going to eyeball it because that's how I roll. Then we're gonna just add one packet of ranch. Now my secret, this is Kroger Ranch. Now you can buy name brand ranch but you'll pay almost a dollar more. I love buying store brand because it's literally the same ingredients and it tastes just as good. So save a dollar here and there when you buy store brand. Okay, we're gonna mix this in for a little bit. Mmm, it's starting to smell really good. Okay, now we're gonna add the beef broth. Okay, so we have, because of the soup we're gonna add four cups of beef broth which is this whole entire container. I love buying these containers because I don't have to measure, I can just pour it all in. Okay, mix that around a little bit. Now we're getting pretty full on our instant pot. So this is a six quart.  So you can make this recipe just fine in a six quart or eight quart. All right, now the most important part is the meatballs. I just have a 32 ounce bag of frozen meatballs. This is one of my favorite brands. It's cooked perfect. This is kind of, these are the meatballs that I buy all the time. So I'm just gonna dump those carefully and without splashing too much. There we go. Okay, mix those around a little bit. Now there's enough liquid in here.  So we're gonna put the lid on right now. Make sure that this little knob is turned to ceiling not venting. Now because we have the saute button on we need to turn that off. So we have to push cancel. So we'll push cancel and then we'll push either this is the old version so it's a manual button or pressure cook button depending on what you have. Now I love this cause meatballs only take seven minutes to cook. So once you set the timer you can just walk away. Okay, so when the timer is done you're just gonna turn the little knob to venting to let out all the pressure and steam so the lid can open. So once the lid is up, oh it smells so good. Nice. Okay, we're gonna just dish it up and you guys will see just how yummy it is. Now my kids like this because they love the meatballs in it. I swear that's their favorite food. I like it cause there's vegetables and other good things in it. Okay, so we're just gonna add some toppings onto it. So we like to add cheese cause my kids will eat anything with cheese, right? And then just a little bit of green onions on top. Just give it a pop of color and a little bit of flavor. All right guys, there you go. Super easy meatball soup. Now if you want more dump and go recipes you can find them right over here and I'll see you guys next time. See ya, bye.


We're going to be inviting our first speaker of the day, Mr. Mayank Kumar, co-founder and MD Upgrad. Well, an education maven and accomplished entrepreneur, Mayank Kumar is one of the sharpest minds leading in the EdTech revolution in India. Mayank is the co-founder and managing director of India's largest online higher education company Upgrad, which within a span of five years has impacted almost one million learners globally. Well, this fireside chat will elaborate on how a future forward brand transforming ambitions. Thank you so much, Mayank, for joining us today and over to you, Dr. Bhattra and Mayank. No, thanks, Pavna. Thanks for having me here. Hi, Dr. Bhattra. How are you? Thank you so much, Mayank. I'm sure the last eight months have been very busy for you. First of all, how have the last eight months worked personally and professionally? A lot of other things have, as you rightly said in your opening note, that online education in EdTech has started to take the center stage. So we've jokingly called that violent K through 12. There has been an inflection point, but for higher education and working professional EdTech ecosystem, it's a good tailwind. So it's been quite positive overall. People have taken things quite well towards online education. Personally, we are getting to spend a lot more time with your son at home and with your wife at home, which otherwise was getting missed out. So overall, I would not complain. I think whatever that happened helped us build a larger business, a scale, a much more scale business. By the same time, give us some time instead of spending time on traffic. You can spend time at home with your family out there.  Yes, Mayank. And apart from the fact that you saved time, Upgrad was launched many years back. About five years back, Mayank? Five years back, correct, yeah. But the acceleration has happened in the last 10 months, I mean, of a different kind. Of course, it was growing every year. There was a natural traction, but the COVID has acted as a chief acceleration officer, a chief digital officer, a chief transformation officer. Tell us, how has Upgrad kind of grown in the last eight months? And what is the future you see for Upgrad? And genuinely, education technology becoming mainstream, then being adjunct? Yeah, no, I think there are a lot of questions in that. I think overall, yeah, we have been growing at 100% year on year. This plan was for us to sort of grow at close to 200% plus. With COVID being there, it definitely helped us push the pedal on the accelerator much faster. It definitely sort of brought online education to the main light. It brought us a lot of PR coverage because of all those things happening on the COVID ecosystem. So for us, I think interestingly, this is a good fact, Dr. Bhatia, that when we started off, March 17th is when we said, it's work from home, and 17th onward, 18th onward, everyone was starting to work from home. We were at about 600 employees at that point in time. Come today on 2nd of December, we are currently with about 2,200 employees. And that scale up of 3xing, 4xing, the number of employees has happened completely remotely. So we joke internally that 80% of Upgrad employees, we haven't seen each other face to face. So that's been the challenge from a scale up and the team perspective. Overall, our business has quadrupled in similar period. We are seeing good traction, good sort of people coming in. People are taking online education very seriously. So while the adoption has happened, so one of the things that I say that what would have taken perhaps three, four years for online education to get into mainstream happened in three, four months. So that's been a good positive sign overall. And I think because of that, if you actually notice a lot of great high quality online education companies started coming in recent past that has opened up, I mean, from an entrepreneurial perspective, very different kind of ecosystem, which otherwise was not very easily accessible. Thank you so much for giving a sense of those numbers. Now, give us a sense of what kind of courses are being taken, what is the kind of people for us to understand what is the nature of adoption. And as they say, right now we are compelled to do certain things. You've done remote hiring because you don't have a choice. But when we have a choice, what will stick and what will go. Give us a sense of your own understanding from what you see happening in terms of adoption of a grant. Sure, so I think the kind of program that I've worked well with an upgrade. I think the broader theme of data technology, those programs definitely do well. If you read, I mean, even today, if DCF enforcers are coming up with the reports, one of the key things that they always put down is what proportion of my revenue is coming through digital projects. And the general rule of thumb, as you know that in IT sector for every employee, you generate about $50,000 to $70,000 per year. But if you're digital in nature, you generate about $120,000 to $150,000 per year. So Infosys is a $10 billion revenue company. 200,000 people at $50,000 give you $10 billion. But if they have to go to the $20 billion mark with fewer employees, digital is the way to go. I think data and technology are therefore very common field that people look for, specifically from the Indian IT, Indian technology ecosystem. But interestingly what we started doing and given BW, you guys are quite focused on the media marketing space. We are seeing a very strong traction coming from marketing professionals, sales professionals, trying to learn digital marketing. And trying to get sort of mainstream on the digital side. We are seeing also equal traction from people who are currently in traditional sectors looking at doing a new age MBA. So between MBA, marketing, law, these programs have suddenly got lot more prominence on the other hand. To your second question, whether with COVID era going away when you have choices, how things will pan out. See, my personal take is that, look, as a working profession, you don't have any other alternative. If you want to do a good master's post graduate program, you either quit your job and then take up something. Otherwise, you don't have an option of saying, okay, I was going to an offline school, can I do online tutoring? It's unlike that, it is, you don't have an option. You have to do something, online is the way to go. So we do believe that post the pandemic and post sort of market opening up, the positive would be that online would become take more center stage. People will accept online and lack of any options offline would mean that the trajectory will continue to grow. On the last point that I just want to leave you with Dr. Batra is that while you see a strong tailwind for the education sector, online education sector specific in working profession, there's also equally a sense of confusion in the minds of employees. Will my job remain today, tomorrow, day after? And therefore, I'm meeting myself to stay relevant in the future. Yeah, correct. So while there is a thought of how do I obscure and stay relevant, apparently there's also a thought that, hey, now if I don't have a job, do I invest in any further education? So I think those two counterbalancing, but education is a counter cyclical business. So when things go bad, education picks up. So that's been the journey for us that there's positive of higher adoption. There's a negative that my job will disappear tomorrow and therefore what do I do? And those are the ecosystem aspects that we are currently working with and figuring out how to move from here to the next stage. So we do believe online will continue to stay even post pandemic. Thank you, Manju, you're so right. And more and more professionals, the learning cycles are getting shortened, which means they're learning more than once a year. I mean, earlier it would possibly make it simple once a year. Actually, it will be twice a year and you learn one more skill. Also, there is this notion for a lot of professional that they need to create a second source of income. So they need to learn a new skill, a new technology based skill that will keep them more relevant. Now, let me focus, my moniker says business world, but I'm doing this role as an exchange for media team member. And we're about brands, marketing, advertising at exchange for media. Now, upgrade as a brand has been built in the last five years. What do you think are the attributes of upgrade? If we had to do the brand positioning in the minds of the learners who have actually adopted upgrade and benefited through it, what would be the brand attributes of upgrade that would come to the form? Yeah, no, actually, I'll answer that. And maybe a very interesting point that you mentioned. I do this experiment every time when someone joins us. So I do induction of about 1,500 people together. And I ask them one question, give me the ratio of number of years of experience that you have and divide by the number of jobs that you have worked on. So if you have 10 years of experience, divided by three, you will get three. And if you have 15 years of experience divided by two, you will get seven, eight. And I do this consistently. So the usual median number, Dr. What we are getting right now is about two to three. A person stays in a job for two to three years, and then they shift job, or maybe five years in the longer run. And I asked them the second question, what was the ratio for your parents? And the answer is usually 30s to one or 40s to one. So I think you point very clearly that while there was a one job for one career, now there are at least about seven to eight job in the same career span that individuals are going through. And therefore that skilling, constant going back, picking up a new skill is important and getting an additional source of income become extremely, extremely relevant for people in the longer run. Coming on from an exchange for media perspective as a brand positioning and what we look at, honestly, we don't feel we are a brand. We feel that we are creating awareness. A brand will take a huge amount of time for us to build and establish. But when we go out as awareness, we look at two or three attributes at which we want to sort of stand clearly on. I think one very clearly for us is trust. That I mean, education is a brand that you need to trust because it's a serious investment you're making and you need to have the trust that look, this brand will help me out the entire journey. The second for me, the word that I always connect, upgrade should be equal to success. But if you're doing a program with upgrade, it should lead to some kind of success. You're not doing for fun that you're coming in at the end of the day. And third, we do want to give a feeling of celebration slash making our learners feel special that look, when you're coming in, you will feel special. We will take you through the entire journey. You will have trust with us. You will find success. But whatever that you do, you should celebrate that. So if a learner has written a nice thesis paper, we celebrate it. If the learner has, there's a learner whose parents were old age and he wrote a PhD master thesis note on how to use data science to predict ophthalmology problems when you sort of get old age. Any small things we celebrate so that the person starts feeling very confident because a typical Indian middle class doctor that I've noticed is, I mean, I come from that background is low on confidence. Man, me too. If they're extremely low on confidence and they need to just believe that if they're doing it, they will make it big. And we want to just change that thing. And I call our learners as middle of the middle. They're not at the top. They're not at the bottom within the middle. They're at the middle level. How do I let them feel confident that look you can be as sharp as successful as someone who has gone to let's say MIT or Stanford or IITs of the world because you are spending enough time. So I think those three parameters of making the field special, giving them a sense of success and building a trust worthy brand. Those are things that matter a lot to us in the journey. Thank you, Man. I remember my meeting with you at ITC Paril four years back and you come a long way from that and I feel very happy about it. Now, let me talk in the context of brand building. You're primarily used for adoption and sales, if I may say, for go-to-market use digital in a big way. Whereas a lot of other funded edutech players are using television. They're using newspapers. They're using all established mass media and digital to build the brand. Give us a sense of how you're approaching this. No, sir. I mean, it's an ongoing debate. If I know the answer, I would be a millionaire right now. You are clearly a billionaire and no longer a millionaire. I say I only talk to billionaires. So clearly I'm talking to one. But on a serious note, you've done very well. And I'm just saying that there is a rush out there to be able to capture the market, accelerate, go-to and build a brand. Because education is a lot about credibility. There's one category. By the way, there's another rule in education. Old rule may not be true in the new economy. In education brands, hardly advertise. In fact, if you look at every major, you know, celebrated institutions, they hardly advertise.   They're more announcements than that. So clearly the world has changed. So how do you see the process of brand building and media? No, it's a very important topic. And I think every EdTech founder who's looking at building something, it's an interesting, very important answer that they need to have very clearly on. So we look at three, I mean, all channels very differently. We look at the Googles and the Facebooks of the world as sort of, I mean, the social medias for acquisition and digital platform for acquisition. But on digital, those medium I feel is not economically viable in the long run. And on the digital front, we are strongly moving towards creating branded content and brand integration. So we may come and work with Exchange for Media or the brand conclave to figure out how do I align my story of success with the brand event that is happening. So we do a lot of content integration, whether it is YouTube channels or OTT providers. And interestingly, Dr. Bhatia, the moment you do that, two, three days later, you start seeing your brand searches going up on the system. More people start looking for your brand, start looking for your searches, etc. Television is a step-function change is how I see this thing. That if you're at certain level, television will take you to the next level. It will drop you at the next level. Then you work, work, work.  So television uses that intermittently to move up onto the ladder because you want parents to know of us, spouses to know of us. And sometimes television helps us quite a lot in that direction. But digital overall is extremely, extremely relevant for us. We look at any kind of content integration. We evaluate content on a regular basis that look office setup is working. But I think we should look at some kind of a house setup for a new kind of content or friends talking it vernacular within content become very, very critical. So if you have noticed last few months or so, we are in the Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali sort of channels and then various places. It is just mind blowing the kind of audience that it opens up, which we haven't sort of had access to. So we pilot, if it pilot works, we scale and figure out scaling of that aspect. So in a way, digital for me at the bottom level is a, in the old context used to be called BTL below the line marketing. Digital brand integration is mid funnel to create larger awareness and television is just step change if you have to move from level A to level B. That's how we have looked at all three ecosystems come together for us. Thank you. Now, I also want to ask you is going forward in 2022, will your brand building and marketing budgets go up? And if yes, by what proportion? No, I think we will take up brand building budgets higher to the next level. And the reason is that as you rightly said, Dr. Rautra, for us, we are making a change in behavior. I'll give you three, four things that A, we are not trained to learn after we finish an undergrad or post grad program. As far as, I mean, even in a cultural thing, life is broken into four phases. I mean, after Brahmacharya, you have to go to Grestha and there you cannot study. Changing that, that age or behavior requires sufficient amount of awareness building in the minds of consumer that that's supposed to supposedly need to happen.    Unlike the US, where you know, man, you know, what is the size of the student debt in the US? Yeah, a trillion dollar plus, correct? Yeah, it is a trillion dollar plus. Imagine. So clearly what you're saying is supported by data that culturally we are different and we need to start spending and hence there has to be a behavior change that needs to be induced and television is still a conversation changer or a conversation influencer in a big way. While digital has a role to play, newspapers have a role to play, magazines have a role to play, events have a role to play, but clearly mass adoption happens for that. And digital is not on the cheap, you know, man. No, it's not cheap. If you look at Google, Facebook, they clearly, you know, they're premiumly priced, they're not priced at the bottom of the pyramid. I was running to Dr. Bhattar that look, you can fight with these giants, but they have 10,000 PhDs working out of the valley and you have 500 people working out of India. So it's an unfair fight. So no matter how much you fight is going to be different. So you have to control your own destiny in your own hands. Absolutely right.  And in the process of that, it just gets extremely, extremely expensive. So you need to be smart about what you do. And one last thing that I'll add is that app ecosystem these days have also emerged very strongly, that a lot of what used to happen was on website, on mobile sites, etc. But app is now becoming an extremely important part of acquisition where you can hold, retain, engage and converse with the customer and work with them in the longer period of time. But we need to find our own solutions as to how we win this ecosystem out there. Okay, Mank. Mank, if you had to make three predictions for 2021 in terms of the edutech ecosystem and in terms of upgrade, what would those be? Yeah, my predictions have been this, not similar, but it's changing. But I would say one, edtech and edutech will start becoming household brands. And with all huge respect for what Baiju has done, it has created a household brand in many ways. But I still feel that he has only scratched the surface. There's a lot of potential even left there. So I do believe that on a brand perspective, edutech will start getting more household conversation like how Maruti, Tatas, etc. have been from a brand perspective. I think two, we will also see a lot of scrutiny on the edtech space, specifically when it comes to outcomes. I think we have created a market where getting behaviors to change. But unless what we do as edtech ecosystem is not leading to meaningful outcomes and changes, things will collapse. And there are multiple examples where people have scaled up. But if outcomes are not happening, we will all suffer in the process. So I think outcomes will be a very, very strong focus area, irrespective. Any founder who is not focusing on outcome will not have a lot of legroom to grow in the long run. As you rightly said that big universities don't advertise, the results speak for themselves. And that's the thing that outcomes will come and play a very important role. And the last one, which I would sort of add to is beyond just outcomes, there is going to be a very strong focus on personalization of learning, which has not yet happened. So if I come in with slightly weaker section in terms of a particular topic, I need a very different attention. So for me, household brand, very strong sort of personalization and focus on outcomes, those are the three significant changes that we will see in the ecosystem as we go along in 2021. Thank you so much, Amank. Before I let you go, I want to ask you a question that is more on the entrepreneurial side. The last eight months have shown all of us that you talked about outcomes. Similarly, a lot has changed over entrepreneurship. In your own sphere of building up grad, what has changed in Mayank Kumar pre-March and Mayank Kumar post-November? And what do you think has changed in the consciousness of an entrepreneur in the last eight months? No, I think there's a huge change. The moment it happened, you start thinking of the worst case scenarios.  You have built a large, multiple large brands and businesses. As entrepreneurs, you sometimes get one life. And that one life, you have to make it into 100 lives. So I think from an individual perspective, the thoughts of thinking about absolute extreme and believing that, look, you have to make it work no matter what happens had been a significant, significant shift, a significant, significant transition at an individual level that no matter what may, we have to make things happen and make things shift. And I think the second thing that I've realized that it's a long game. Destruction comes and go. For me, I had not seen 2009 as an entrepreneur. I'm now seeing the current ecosystem as an entrepreneur where things have gone completely down south. I genuinely feel that it's a long game. You have to be in a marathon. You will get a pedal road climb up where you will realize that all your energy has been sucked away in the marathon track. But then you also know that there's going to be a downhill after the climbing up of the flyover where you will start regaining energy and running much longer because if you have to do 21 kilometer or 42 kilometers, there will be patches where things will go really bad. Just take it on the chin. Move on. Never compromise on giving the best experience to your users and the learner. Never compromise on getting the best team with you. Surround yourself with the smarter people. And I think you just overcome all these problems relatively easier. Okay, my last question before I let you go. There are two, three audience questions. I'll take them after my question. It's Ronnie, you and Fagun. You are the pivot around which the company has come together. Ronnie has a role, Fagun has a role. Tell us how do you segregate roles? I know you drive the company and everyone supports you. But tell us a bit about how the collaborative nature of an entrepreneurship play works. No, that's the best part that I can think. I will be thankful of that. I have co-founders that I can truly rely on and divide and conquer. As you rightly said, education has got multiple opportunities. If you start putting your foot in each of these opportunities, most likely you will end up falling. So we have taken a very clear approach of divide and conquer. From a co-founder perspective, I'm the managing director, I'm running the show. But each of us has a very specific carved out role. Fagun takes care of everything to do with which new product needs to come in, which new university needs to be signed off, which new areas that we need to venture into. So he's the growth lever for us. He drives us on the core business, things that we need to sort of drive and grow into. Ronnie, on the other hand, focuses a lot on non-linear areas of growth. So whether it is M&A, whether it is expanding internally, whether it is brand, because he comes with that background of how to build, scale, brand, et cetera. So he takes care of anything which is non-linear outside the core of what we are doing so that object gets ready for the next five years. Well, I focus on the core business, from a revenue learning product and how the experience will sort of pan out for the learner. So in that way, we all complement each other. Fagun is readying me for two, three quarters in advance. He's preparing organization what it will look like in a year's time. Ronnie is preparing the organization what it will look like in a five years time. But I'm ensuring that by the time they're readying themselves for those two quarters or five years time frame, we don't fall in the process of reaching till that point in time. Beautifully put, I think, I keep saying we have to collaborate internally and externally more if we want to survive in this competitive, contactless economy. So thank you for talking to us, Mank. Let me take the two audience question. One is outside India does upgrade see a market and which would be upgrades because market outside India. So there we have already, we're looking at two specific geographies. One outside India that we're looking at is Southeast Asia and APEC. So from Indonesia, Vietnam, not as much as Singapore and Hong Kong because these are much smaller geographies. So Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines and then over period of time look at Southeast Asia. That's one ecosystem of international market. The second for us is Middle East and EU. So the entire region of Europe, Middle East and part of Africa. So we have hired one CEO for India region who will take care of our expansion in Middle East and the EU market and another CEO for the Southeast Asian market or the APEC market which we will expand our presence into. We are looking at exporting our existing product into the US market not creating new product for the US market for the time being. So those are the three specific flanks that we have opened up. Let's say these are things that will help us for five years from now. So those are the things that Rani has been driving internally but those are the specific international geographies that we are looking at beyond India right now. My last question before I sign up is, you know, you talked about big shifts in education and you've given some of them. Now, the edutex space has seen lots of money being invested and too many players, it's too crowded and every specialized area is getting crowded. What do you have to say to people who are still looking to invest in edutex? Is it early days you have said that? So clearly it's a very crowded space but it is also early days and you would necessarily feel funding is what gets you success or frugality gets you success. How a wish funding would get a success then... I think education is a hard business to build. I mean, there's no doubts about that. It is a business where when you're building it out you are actually letting the individual or their parents or their spouses or their partners to take a significant amount of money and put it into their education. So I mean, I tell everyone it comes with serious amount of responsibility. If you f-up once, the person's life and career will get destroyed. So I do believe that while money and funding can lead you to accelerate the journey, it is very important that you focus on the learner experience and the learner journey and the learner outcome. The moment we lose focus of that things start falling and look, I have been in 2008, 2009 looked at education closely. There are many education-listed players around 2008, 2009, 10 that were there. They reached to the peak and they had to drop off because the business model at such was not focused on providing outcomes for the learners. And therefore, I do believe that I also feel, I mean, I have a personal pet pee doctor that I never congratulate anyone for fund raise. I always send them a message called wish you all the best because whatever fund that you raise it actually sits on the liability side. It never sits on the asset side. So it is a liability at the end of the day which you have to convert into asset which is what the entrepreneurial job is. And therefore, wishing someone for fund raise to me seems like wishing a runner or a 100 meter race champion for buying a new pair of shoes. The race is a little bit different and that's the most important thing that one needs to focus on. So I do believe funding can accelerate to focus on the core. And that's where perhaps frugality to that context helps.  If you have been frugal, it will take much longer time for you to build the market. So the right judicious mix of where you want to accelerate but hold the fourth become extremely, extremely crucial. Okay. And I just as a follow up question you know, if the big daddy is like Geo, Facebook, Google decide to enter the space in a big way. I mean, Geo has an investment in an adult company and is making some more investments. What's your comment? Of course, as you said, it's a nascent area the pie wide and so you being a leading player in it benefit. But tell us if the action in the domain hots up what do you think is likely to happen? I'd be very surprised if it does not hit up. I think I am, I genuinely feel that it will get heated up much faster than what all of us are imagining because I think Amazon has launched an academy business for test prep. Facebook is looking at something in the English language and test prep space Geo with MBI is looking at K through 12 space quite actively. And therefore I always go back and someone asked me this question in London in one of the universities saying you are doing this but I also have one of the largest IT services company in India who is willing to help me build the entire platform much quickly, much faster. Why do I work with you? So I always give the answer that look do you want to work with a real estate developer or do you want to work with an education ecosystem provider and that education DNA I feel it takes time and it takes effort to build that up and that's the reason why even in the US they haven't moved, that's the reason why even in China they haven't moved that DNA building perhaps M&A would be one of the approaches that many will have to take but teaching someone is a fundamentally different ball game and that's the entry barrier to the teaching ecosystem is how I put it down all of them have aspirations education by the way is one of the few sectors in this country that is easily monetizable with a high contribution margin I will come to think of it television we are not willing to pay 500 rupees or 50 rupees per month but for an education you are willing to pay 2-3 lakh rupees for taking the education so it's a monetizable business it can be built and scaled but you also need to have the right DNA of being able to teach own the customer, deliver them because that's what they will be here to pay for Thank you so much Mank for talking at the India brand Canclave you are clearly building a brand for the future it's already a business we wish you luck from exchange for media and business world and we have no doubt that you will be able to build a very sustainable and respected business and the brand will be at the forefront of driving that adoption so wish you luck best Mank to you Fagun and and I mean Deja who on 8th December I was attending Fagun wedding reception in Bombay last year I think the wedding was a little earlier in Nudepur and the reception was 8th December 6 days away from that so wish you luck Mank and Fagun and Rani all the best back to you Bhavna Thank you very much Thank you so much Mr. Kamaran Thank you so much Dr. Bhattra for joining us today