Hey everyone, I hope you're well. Welcome back to another vlog with me, Seppy, or if you're new here My name is Seppy. I don't know why I keep ruining my intro so the past like five vlogs But oh well, we'll get over it. Basically today and starting this vlog off I am off to an event at Christian Le Vuitton It's basically for like people who shop from them Regularly like it's not like a blog or event or something is basically what I'm trying to say It's like a customer event They have this event that they invited me to they also invited my sisters that they can't make it and My cousin's also coming my cousin Nico. I don't know if I can convince her to come on the blog But we're going to this event in the Mount Street store, which I'm really looking forward to It is a Friday night, and I'll show you guys my outfit if you watch my Zara Stop pointing if you watch my Zara haul then you would know this outfit from it Let me show you so I'm wearing this pinafore dress from Zara This stoll is from Bloomingdale's my bag is Le Vuitton and my shoes are Christian Le Vuitton's that I got as a gift for my 21st birthday. They are one of my favorite pairs actually Yeah, that they're one of my favorite I don't know I have like two favorites and this is like up there like joint first For a bit of like a classy vibe. It didn't like it wasn't on purpose I just feel like this scarf went well, and I didn't really have any coats I wanted to wear over this because the weather's like 20 degrees So yeah, I'm just gonna be heading to that event and I'll try and give you guys a sneak peek of their new Seasons collection if they let me record So I just got back home and Sinah's here. She's literally standing in front of me, but she's not wearing any Alright go Whilst I'm waiting for Sinah. She's meant to be dressed. I'll show you guys quickly my outfit I probably should have worn my heels, but I'm wearing this kind of body What is it called a jumpsuit? But it's with shorts and it's from shop Toby and I've kind of pinned the front a bit But kind of looks like it could be my bra strap like no one can tell and as per usual just dazzled it up with my gold So I wore this jumper over it just to hide because we're going Somewhere beforehand and this would have been really OTT for Sonic come show you the outfits of the vlog Oh, hello, honey If you don't want to sign on Instagram make sure you check her out She's at Persian honey, and you look so beautiful.  Where's your jacket? Hurry up. Uber's here. You look so hot It is the next morning actually it's like afternoon now Sign in I went out last night. I think you guys saw us all dressed up I think that's the last thing you saw and we're now gonna go get brunch We've both got like a large sunglasses your outfits cute wearing a top shorts and sandals We're both wearing sand from my tops from a six Persian bunnies cover. Yeah, just wear my top We're both wearing sandals because we want to get pedicures I'm literally just wearing a wardrobe jacket from top shop on my latest haul This is one forever 21 and these jeans are my favorite Zara jeans and sandals And that's the car Don't talk about car washers. My car is a mess literally like I've given up Without my sunglasses to be honest you guys watch my Wild weekend vlog Oh my god the bags under my eyes. I had like emptied my whole Kiehl's eye cream It's really good by the way. I really recommend it the Kiehl's creamy eye cream. Yes, so yeah, I love it But I've literally emptied the whole thing under my eyes. It was a nightmare. Okay Let's get some food I'm so excited for food. We just bumped into one of our friends I'm not gonna show him because he's too special But if he sees this So Sine and I both got white toes for our pedicure Um, I haven't really decided what I want to do tonight part of me feels like it's Saturday night By the way part of me feels like I just want to sit at home and relax or maybe like maximum I'll just go and have like a dinner with one of my friends It's like one of you say that things get dangerous Everyone in the world when you turn around and you say tonight. I'm gonna have a relaxing night No, that happened to me in the blog two weeks ago. I'm not gonna make a fool of myself twice in our Watch for the end of this book and see what happens and what she does tonight Look who is that? What you did all ever since you got back. She got back like three hours ago. Tell them what you did Tell them what you did because I say it in every blog that you're gonna do this same. Yes Just I tied you up Tidy up is an understatement. She has like she's like I can't wait for the key But real talks guys if your Persian I can only has seen and you're like from London Did your parents even go to Iran if they don't come back with new Iranian appliances? Polar pass, you know So Polar pass a Polar pass is a rice cooker So yeah, they literally Others two on the other side apparently so they've come out with like eight. What are you gonna do with four rice cookers? So be there But so be there lives at home with yourself. Um, but yeah, the house is so clean now that she's here You guys like as in I couldn't even vlog in the house My face looks super shiny cuz I do my makeup in the morning I couldn't even vlog in the house because it was so I see dad I'm gonna film a Q&A with my dad because everyone has so many questions that they want to ask him So put your questions down below Did you guys miss my dad and the vlogs everyone says that they prefer our family vlogs so, you know The main man is back looking but my mom is also cooked food. I'm gonna show you guys I haven't had like Persian home cooked food since before I went away to Turkey So if you guys have my travel vlogs turkey was vlog number like four of like nine So I haven't had home cooked food in Basically We all flew back with and he's moaning saying What are you like I Don't think that their flights are worth I just be honest with you. Yeah, I don't think Business class is Worth paying for I feel like when I've traveled business class with them like the economy service was better Okay So please don't please ignore this really fresh you like tablecloth like literally all of them are messy because I haven't done any Like housework or anything as you guys know from all the other logs, but look at this food. Wow. Yummy. Thanks, mom I cannot even explain to you guys how difficult it was to wake up this morning I feel like commuting for two hours each way well it varies but like One and a half to two hours each way is really starting to take its toll on me so We've been doing woodhounds that are like six hours long So like from 9 a.m. to about three and you don't really get a break at all until it's done so I think I just need to start carrying around like a water bottle or something. I guess I'm just gonna be very Dehydrated and they really don't want to wear makeup.  Literally if I don't Not like what Today is that a Wednesday and I feel like I've caught a bit of a cold like not a proper cold Because I don't have a temperature or anything, but my tongue feels weird. Ah I feel like I've got swirling tonsils and Yeah, I'm just I'm not feeling a hundred percent myself basically But not anything bad enough where I feel sick. So I went to the gym today with Andy and that was really nice I went to uni. I'm doing another Project. So if you guys have been watching my vlogs for some time, you'll know I did a project over summer in the Neonatal unit at my uni. So I am doing another one with the same consultant So hopefully that means he was happy. Oh my god, you guys I need to stop moving this and this and this Did you enjoy the most this time about going to Iran? But you are from Mashhad, so what did you enjoy I enjoyed the Everything food whether fruit Okay, and be honest because you've just come from Iran Right now one pound is 17 to man 17 point 17 point what? Okay The people are struggling Lot I just wanted to give that insight because when people watch my Tehran vlog People were very quick to say we are out of touch With Iran first of all my family don't live in Iran. We go there for vacation I feel like this isn't focused we go there for vacation and yeah, we have a life over there, but we don't live over there, so People are very quick to jump to conclusions. I love the family of my mom has a lovely family so does my dad But people very quick to jump to conclusions that we're very out of touch because of the lifestyle that we live in Iran Although we do nothing to help people or whatever. We're not out of touch We do know what's going on and we do do things about it But maybe that's not what I want to show of Iran in the vlog because I did get the response that I wanted in that Those people were like, oh, I thought that Iran was nothing like that I just wanted to show you guys my what I get up to when I go to Iran and Not talking about politics not talking about anything controversial because I don't like talking about stuff like that and That's just me personally So I just wanted to tell you guys from out my family to you all of you guys who we love so much We're not out of touch. We do know what is going on in Iran We're not oblivious to it and we like I said have relatives over there as well who live there So we know people who are suffering from this situation So that's what I wanted to say And we do love the country. We do love We love it. We're Iranians. We love it. I wouldn't be Persian bunny if I didn't love Iran is what I'm trying to say so I literally got home two hours ago and It's not gonna be a sepi vlog It's not gonna be a Persian bunny vlog if you don't hear me with a croaky voice like then I'd be lying to you So I got home two hours ago. Oh my god. Why do my eyes look like this? They've been so itchy all day I got him two hours ago and I was just dead like I just It catches up with you if you don't sleep and for me commuting as you can see is just taking it's tall I mean my eyes. I don't know why they're itchy, but I'm just tired So it's not actually the work that I do on the wards that makes me tired but more like the commuting so if you can live out I recommend it I Couldn't live out because My parents for this placement specifically because my parents weren't back yet So yeah, it just didn't really make it possible for me But now that they're back. I think for my next few placements and definitely gonna be living Out if it's further than my uni because I just I can't I can take an hour each way commute like that's completely fine But like one hour 45 like as in I'm just I did work on the way there on the way back. I was like So if you ever catch me on a tube It's like literally sleeping like feel free to wake me up And say hey Because you're probably not gonna catch me awake in peak hours. I'm always so exhausted So my plan for the rest of the day is probably study for a couple of hours take a shower and then at about Nine o'clock. I'm gonna go see my friend Christina But yeah, I'm just gonna relax because it's a Thursday night So there's back tomorrow, and I certainly you guys comment on my under my blog saying that you miss her She's back tomorrow sign is back today So you guys will see them both hopefully in the next vlog, but I'm gonna end this vlog here I hope that you guys enjoyed catching up with my parents if you guys have watched any of my holiday vlogs Then they play such a big part in them. So I'm a big part in my life That was so silly me and if there's any funny videos or any videos at all that you think of that you want to see Me film with my parents then let me know and I'll try and convince them to But yeah, love you guys so much Don't forget to check out my socials my Instagram is Persian bunny My twister is the Persian bunny and my snap is sepi Samai Love you guys so much, and I'll see you in my next vlog. Bye


165 pounds, we got two cups, leaps and doors, and that's another Gillespie. Josh White from VMI, gets warmed up from that number six. 530, let's play with us back here by 430, so we can get this rolling. No, no, no, please believe I was. My wife chewing my ear off on the phone. Watch flow wrestling. Good thing she doesn't watch flow wrestling, or isn't a Hofstra Citadel fan. No sir. Telling kids from Boston, you had to take that. Yeah. Quickest sit turn in the history of wrestling. I didn't even get a chance to shrug it was so quick. 2-2, minute 30, second period, no riding time, sirs and madams. Nobody saw that coming. Seconds left in the second period, TK. Might have gotten a little dirty there. 15 ticks, nice snap down, put some in, whoa. Put them in the chairs. 8 choosers, neutral and the third. Little chop, snap. Rezal, Dale Rezal, it's a smash. Look for TK. Let's be up in his feet. Got PJ and TK. Let's be going under hook, trying to drop. Single. 31 seconds, 4-3 lead for TK. Your Citadel wrestler. Pull back to that under hook. Nice shot for Gillespie on the edge. First start. 165, be able to get third.


This study aimed to understand how human embryonic stem cells differentiate into cartilage cells. They used a directed differentiation method to create two types of cartilage cells, articular and growth plate condrocytes, from human embryonic stem cells. By comparing the transcriptomes of these cells to those of fetal epifysiole and growth plate condrocytes, they identified genes that are important for cartilage development. Using ATACSEC, they also identified specific regions of the genome that are more or less accessible in each type of cell. Finally, they found that two TFS, RILA and IUNX2, interact with their target genes in a way that is specific to each type of cell. Overall, this study provides a detailed map of the regulatory landscape of human cartilage development and offers insight into the mechanisms behind its formation. This article was authored by Daniel Richard, Stephen Pregeiser, Divya Venkutsa Bromoneon and others.


Your Coca-Cola bottler presents Claudia based on the famous play and novels by Rose Franken Brought to you transcribed Monday through Friday by your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola Relax and while you're listening refresh yourself. Have a coke and now Claudia are you thirsty David? What's that? I said are you thirsty? No? Why should I be thirsty? Well, I don't know. You look thirsty. I don't feel thirsty What are you doing? I'm trying to read my newspaper. Oh Is reading such an effort for you only since I've been married. That is something else about men What is something else about men? Everything is since they've been married. They can't read since they've been married. They can't eat since they've been married They can't go out with rubber since they've been married Awful isn't it since they've been married. Who said anything about it being awful? I beat you to the draw David.  Well, I don't think I'm that thirsty then don't get something to drink just for that I will get something to drink Mary Mary quite contrary Anything is better than having to sit still isn't it? I don't think you realize that my getting something to drink is pure Sacrifices you want me to be able to read in peace. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate heavens. No I am trying to keep up with our milk supply No first could quench that David. Do you realize how much milk we have? I certainly do and have you been in the icebox late. No, I have no desire to be in the icebox lately I go get yourself a glass of milk or whatever it is you want and leave me to my newspaper. I Really think the only solution is to have another baby David do you hear what I said the only solution is to have another baby. I'm ignoring you after all It's a crime to waste perfectly good milk and babies is the best thing for using it up We'll save money in the long run your ideas as to how to save money should be passed on to the treasury department. Oh Have a look at this refrigerator. I Wish you'd come in and look at this refrigerator. I prefer to know how to save money Well, that's perfectly simple one saves money when one doesn't waste things Even we have a baby in order not to waste milk. We're saving milk Therefore the baby is that much cheaper though. We save money. You follow me David Well, I wish you'd also manage to come in here and look at something you heard me All right, don't budge I'll be right back in the living room He you know certainly a good thing. We bought a refrigerator this size. That's all I can say Would have been a ruinous thing if we hadn't bought a refrigerator big enough for a call Honest we bought that refrigerator. I had no idea a car be such a much. Did you did I what? Did you think a car be so much of a much? No, I must say I never thought of it any in exactly those terms Claudia is that for me? I told you I wasn't thirsty. I don't care what you're thirsty. You're not it's milk. You have to drink it you drink it The other glasses for me. Well drink drink both of them. I will not I am floating in milk already Well then float a little more now listen David Magistrate half your car has nothing to do with the least you can do is to drink half her Claudia did will you take that glass of milk from under my nose or else? I'm going to what? No frighten me take that glass of milk off one of my nose, and I'm stuffed with dinner Wow, milk will wash it down. Oh, Claudia take it away. Oh, all right Yeah, I'll put it on the table next to you and you get thirsty and drink it I will never get thirsty again either will I but I'm drinking You see, I'm just that kind of a good sport Well, congratulations. Thanks and We would waste less milk if two of us were good sports. I look darling. I I Drank milk at dinner remember. Hmm. I drank milk at breakfast, right? I will drink a glass of milk before going to bed But and I repeat but I will not drink a glass of milk now But I'll still just leave it here on the table. Give me your newspaper What for I want to put it under the glass so I won't say in the table Can't you use a coaster for that? Coasters are on the other side of the room the papers in your lap the newspaper is not made to go under a glass of milk Whenever I say anything you don't like you call me stuffy, but it's all right. It's all right. I don't mind. It's all right No, I Never really liked milk till mama stopped telling me it was good for me. I Think that's the psychology to use You don't really like things that are good for you ever Here I am drinking a glass of milk without a thought of how good it is for my bones Don't really mind it what oh? David go on have a sip not for your bones just for me if I did have a sip It would be for my bones, you know, I had no idea majesty's milk production would be so high Did you David Matthew Warren said she was his finest milker when we bought her from him. I didn't believe him At least I just didn't believe that one cowl could give so much milk about 20 quarts a day 20 quarts. Oh No wonder it feels like so much David there is no question about it. It's either a feast or a famine with a cow right now. It's a feast Well, I'm not complaining not drinking either Yep Three weeks ago was a famine. It was not a famine The cow was dry. Well, it was a draught same thing and majesty had a cast and all of a sudden Milk milk and warm milk coming out of her ears.  I'm doing my fair share I I take cereal for breakfast just so I can use some milk in it.  Nobody throws away milk these days. I didn't mean to throw it away exactly But don't expect me to take more of it. I must say I certainly never expected things to turn out like this She's a fine cow to find a cow You know, she's really not a one-family cow. Who wants a one-family cow when you have a cow you have the best Listening to you is like listening to a record that got stuck in one groove Do you realize David the kitchen starting to smell like a dairy smell the smell of a dairy is a good smell in a dairy Not all over the house David the refrigerator looks as if we're in business Bottles of milk bottles of cream bars of butter skim milk butter Do you think the calf would like a little more skim milk? Maybe no After all majesty is the calf's own mother. You think the calf to be a little more possessive about the skim milk The calf is too old to live on milk alone. She's being weaned Shouldn't have started weaning her so soon. That was our first mistake Anyway, David, I do want to take a look at the refrigerator. You must know I saw it when I came home I was thirsty. Did you have a glass of milk? No, I had a glass of Coca-Cola. David There is actually no room for anything else And all this day turning and separating and pasteurizing Majesty is a very superior cause she's too superior. Do you want to give her back? No, I don't her and the calf the spitting image of majesty. I Just don't he wish she'd dry up a little Or we could have another baby or she'd have another calf David no, no what is she gonna have another calf when now who said anything about her having another cat Claudia now, please I did not David if that calf turns out to be a call and she starts giving milk And the calf we have now gives milk and and majesty keeps on giving milk at the rate. She's giving milk David we will be a dairy farm. We're a dairy farm now. So we are Life is pretty rugged on a farm all this milk. Hmm. What about the baby? Is he drinking his share?  You know, I've been thinking we ought to raise some milk fed chickens and save his money Oh, sure. It's save a lot. We have to get all sorts of chicken equipped incubators wire netting chicken feed Then when we're all set The cow would go dry. That is life. It's not as if we had enough milk for us to go into business Do you mean do you mean sell it? Well, what's the matter? Yes? I mean sell it. You mean our milk sell it to somebody else You wouldn't part with an ounce of it, I suppose. Well, I just want to be sure that somebody appreciates it Why it's the best milk for miles around and you should see how much cream there is in it David I've seen that says he's never seen anything like it and you'll have to admit that it is delicious Yes, it was the first 30 quarts. I drank were fine. Maybe I ought to learn to make cheese. Oh No, we have no room the icebox for cheese Listen, maybe we ought to get a deep freeze and start storing butter. Mm-hmm, and when will we use it on a rainy day? Darling, no matter how many schemes you cook up. We'll never catch up with majesty. She's that kind of a cow She certainly makes me feel inadequate You'd never know to look at it that so much was going on behind her eyes One week she has a calf beautiful calf so full brown eyes and the next week the damn breaks and milk milk All out of the same little cow For all that she never looks that she's making any effort at all. She isn't hmm. What a business You know, I wonder if man will ever be able to invent anything as practical as a cow. I doubt it Too bad for us too good for us. Mm-hmm now that we have milk the subject dry Will you let me go back to my newspaper? All right on one condition darling. All right I'll promise anything. Thank you glass of milk. I knew it. I knew it. All right anything Claudia hmm, Claudia this This isn't milk. Well, of course it is you certainly don't think I give you anything else at this crisis Do you this is not pure milk David? Now don't shout it is pure milk. It's more than pure milk Well, what is it? It's half milk and half cream. No No Have you been up and at it since early this morning with beds dishes cleaning and countless household chores to do? Then why not pause to refresh with ice-cold Coca-Cola? Folks in offices and factories know the value of working refreshed Coke can bring you the same refreshment if you keep your home refrigerator well stocked Remember to carry home a carton of coke next time you're at the market or drugstore. Hey, Joe I brought you a little present. Well presents are always welcome. Mm-hmm. Well here have this one have a glass of milk Oh, well, uh Will you see David? Oh, no, no, no, no go right on take it. No will be shy It's not shyness. It's loyalty and preference that makes me refuse. I'm strictly a Coca-Cola man Well, I can't say I blame you for that Say Joe, can you tell me how long is this milk flood going to last cheer up David today the flood tomorrow the drought? Well, that's encouraging. I'll drink this last glass of milk with the less accusing eye. Good night, Joe night Every day Monday through Friday, Claudia comes to you transcribed with the best wishes of your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola So listen again tomorrow at the same time And now this is Joe King saying or of war and remember Whoever you are whatever you do Wherever you may be when you think of refreshment think of Coca-Cola For Coca-Cola makes any pause the pause that refreshes and ice-cold Coca-Cola is everywhere This broadcast of Claudia was supervised and directed by William Brown Maloney and now here's a word from your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola


Tissue engineering, also called regenerative medicine, refers to the attempt to create functional human tissue from cells in a laboratory. Its ultimate goal is to be a cure, not merely a treatment, by repairing or replacing tissues and organs that fail due to disease, genetic errors, congenital abnormalities, or traumatic injury. Tissue engineering relies on four important factors. The right cells to do the job, the right environment, such as a scaffold, to support the cells, the right biomolecules, like growth factors to make those cells healthy and productive, and physical and mechanical forces to influence the development of the cells. The cells can be directly harvested from the target organ, developed from precursor, or stem cells, or taken from lines grown in the lab, all ideally from the patient as that limits problems with rejection. The supporting structures can be derived from donor tissue, or from natural or synthetic polymers made to order for their strength or endurance. Biomolecules can be added directly, or coaxed from the cells that take up residence on the scaffold. Sometimes the scaffolds dissolve over time, but others remain to provide support to the organ. Some examples of tissues and organs that have already been successfully tissue engineered and implanted in humans include bladders, small arteries, skin grafts, cartilage, and even a full trachea.


Hey Psych2Goers, and welcome back to another video. Before we begin, we would like to give you a huge thanks for all of the love and support that you've given us. Psych2Go's mission is to make psychology and mental health more accessible to everyone. Now, let's begin. Do you have people in your life that you can rely on? It's always nice to have a few good, trustworthy friends in your corner. But sometimes it can be difficult to gauge someone's level of trustworthiness. You might want to trust them, but how can you be sure? Here are seven signs that someone is trustworthy. One, they're consistent across the board. They feel that this person remains true to themselves. Their character stays true with different people and one in different situations and circumstances. They don't put up a mask, nor do they feel pressured to change their stance or personality just to suit a different crowd. What this person says matches up with what you hear from others. Two, they care about you. Do they seem naturally caring and respectful of you? When someone is trustworthy, they don't want to use you or take advantage of you.  They don't want to impose their will on you and they don't feel the need to control others around them. Three, you're relaxed around them. Do you find that you feel generally more relaxed and calm when you're around this person? If both of you feel mutually comfortable around each other, then you can engage in an open conversation. You don't feel that they're trying to hide things from you or that they're trying to manipulate you. In turn, you feel like you don't have to hide anything from them. With a mutual sense of established trust, you have the opportunity to be vulnerable with them. Four, they treat others well. Do you think this person holds additional traits such as compassion and humility? They think well of others and don't consider themselves to be more important than them. They are more outwardly focused and have a desire not only to help you but are available to help others as well. They're good listeners and want to be supportive. Number five, they always tell the truth. When someone is honest with you, they're comfortable enough to tell you how they truly feel. They have your best interest in mind when they tell you the truth. They choose to give you constructive criticism and want you to better yourself, over being mean and trying to tear you down. A trustworthy person doesn't need to lie to you or hide from you when you ask for their opinion. Six, they hold themselves accountable. Accountability is very important. A trustworthy person can admit when they're wrong. They don't try to justify their wrongdoings or push the blame onto others. Rather, they accept responsibility for their actions and face the consequences that result from their decisions. They're not only accountable around you but with others as well. And seven, they follow through with their actions. Do you have faith that they'll do what they say? When you make plans with this person, they won't flake on you and they'll hold themselves accountable for any situation that they don't happen to follow through with. Their word is important to them and they hold themselves to it. Which signs do you think are important when it comes to trusting someone? Are there any signs that we missed? Let us know in the comments below. If you enjoyed watching this video, give us a thumbs up and share it with someone who might find it helpful too. The studies and references used in this video are listed in the description below. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button for more Psych2Go content. And as always, thanks for watching. We'll see you soon.


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Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here, and I am wanting to start doing what I said I was gonna do at the beginning of the year and Show you guys some of the stuff that viewers have sent to me This is stuff that you have sent to me now I would like to do a video at the end of each month where I actually open up the stuff and show it to you Actually do unboxings of everything that you guys sent to me and going forward I will probably do it that way, but just to get things started These are things that I have already opened, but I still wanted to show them to you And I wanted to start with by showing you more of the modern GI Joe stuff that was sent to me by Larry Laura, I hope I'm pronouncing his name right Larry Larry sent this stuff to me Just earlier actually at the end of the year And it was a huge donation of modern figures and vehicles and vehicles It was so big that I actually came it was wheeled into my office in two huge boxes One of the boxes I couldn't even fit in my car. I had to break it down into smaller boxes just to get it home But this is the stuff that Larry sent me It's pretty awesome Going forward as I do as I review the vintage figures for some of these modern figures I will do I'll try to remember to do some comparisons with the modern figures So I know that's something some of you guys have said you wanted to see so I'll try to do that But let me show you all the stuff that he sent. I mean, there's just so much here Like I said, this is not all of it I will there are some things that I'm not going to show you today because I may review it in the future Or for other reasons, I want it to be a surprise. I don't want you to know everything yet Some things in the future. I want to be a surprise But this is most of it. This is most of it all of this stuff And so I mean starting with I mean these things which are really cool These boxed sets This is the yeah, this is Duke and Scarlett and snake eyes and roadblock I don't think you can see that necessarily very well But these are the ones that have like the plays the theme song if you push the button Except that one batteries dead on that one But I got this one Which is the Cobra one? And I'm pretty sure this one still works. Let's see Yeah See that still works This is pretty cool. I Probably won't open these but some of the other stuff I'm definitely gonna open some of the other stuff I have already opened because I just couldn't help myself It's too amazing so Yeah, box sets that play the theme song. That's pretty cool So those are nice and then now these are a lot of the carded figures but I also have a few a couple of the comic book two packs If you can see that there, I've got a whole bunch of others of those too the comic two packs That's just a couple of them, but let me pull out some of these carded Modern GI Joe figures just to show you what's in here. I mean There's there's a modern version of snake eyes version two with his with timber and there's that's the Cobra elite infantry and then Let's see I might let's actually let me zoom the camera in a little bit so you can see these a little bit better All right Okay, let's see. Who's this there's Duke with his great big American flag. There's spirit and freedom And what else we're going out here. There's there's two layers of these in the box I packed them as tightly as I could without damaging them, but there's so many of them. There's hawk and Rock and roll Very nice. I mean the vintage versions of these figures. They're just some of my favorite figures now. They've got some Other versions these are slightly earlier versions of Spirit and then major barrage And I am I do have some familiarity with modern GI Joe figures Although they I don't typically collect them and I don't typically review them, but some of these are a Little bit new to me. So I'll have to do a little bit of research on them We've got a couple two packs with Cobra commander and chameleon basically the Baroness and then Destro and what's that Cobra fast blast viper, you know, whatever, okay But anyway, check that out And then I gotta make some room here That really is a lot of it. All right. What's this one? That's Crock master we got a saw viper and and a snow serpent more barrel roll and Grand slam and a Cobra trooper It's interesting to see these Cobra troopers from different eras and how they interpret them in different ways we've got a Zartan and mutt Yeah, mutt and junkyard. I won't go through all of these But I do want to go. I want to show you a lot of them there's There's major blood an old favorite There's a Destro iron credit here's Destro actually I already have this one But it's cool to have a second one the one that I have is off the card, but this is still on the card I'll probably leave it that way Roblox airborne Pretty pretty nice version of airborne there. We've got scrap iron Pretty different from our version one scrap iron. We've got a Baroness, but in her blue costume actually It's kind of like that blue All right, just just a couple more handfuls and I'll put these away and I'll show you some of the other stuff Let's see. This is a range viper Oh, we've got a crimson guard Excellent still have not reviewed the vintage crimson guard yet because I don't have it complete and I don't have all the file Card variations and accessory variations still working on it Let's see a snow job. Oh This is I really like this one this arctic trooper snake eyes looks like he did in Issue number two of the comic book excellent really nice very cool. He even has The weasel skull necklace that he would have gotten from Quinn very nice I like that a lot, you know, I still am partial to vintage figures But there are a few good things that they've done with the modern figures I have to say a few things that very much impressed me. We've got a firefly We've got battle Android trooper. We've got blowtorch We've got a different crimson guard. We've got a battle armor Cobra commander And we've got a storm shadow this one with his version two gray urban camouflage Okay, one more handful. All right, there's still there's still more in here than I could possibly Pull out and show to you, but one more handful one more handful. We have Don't worry, it's undamaged. We've got a mediviper. We've got stuff that's falling. We have low light We have barbecue Oh, don't fall It's just piled up here. We have torpedo All right, this is the last one. I'll show you for now We've got flash and then I Don't know like 30 more of them in there in the box Okay, I'm gonna put these away just for a second. I don't even find what there is I've got these just in a huge pile here. I'm gonna put these away. I'll show you some of this other stuff Okay in this box. We have some comic book two and three packs We've got a comic book two pack here with some dreadlocks Torch and ripper. Oh, let's do sorry. Let's zoom that in so you can see what I'm talking about here There there we go comic book two pack with torch and ripper Just a bunch of these which one's this one Yeah, this is a comic book two pack with With Nemesis and Forcer or I guess they calling him nemesis immortal and lieutenant falcon if for those of you who like the 1986 movie we got a three pack here. It's our tan cobra commander and Xerana That's a single card back. We're trying to find Comic book packs here got another three pack with buzzer thrasher and ripper Now these these are all ring figures They are basically reused the molds of the vintage figures But they gave them different heads and different paint jobs Some of them are some some of them are improvements on the original on other aspects I think I prefer the vintage figure over these repaints, but some of them are not bad Okay, we've got ace and wild weasel never hurts to have ace although ace's eyes are a bit wonky I have to happen to notice So a wonky eyed ace What's this I've got a crimson guard And a cobra trooper. Oh, yeah scarface Check that out. Now as you may recall one of the friends of the channel Jeff Adams sent me a scarface a Couple years ago actually and that was that one was pretty special to me I have a personal story about scarface from when I was a kid. We've got Tomax and Zemont and we've got Who's that? Cobra commander and tripwire for some reason But there you go. Okay, so that's that box now Yeah, I've got a ton of modern era figures and some more recent O-ring figures and I'll try to work these into my reviews as I'm able to but he also Larry also sent me some vehicles vehicles Vehicles of various sizes Some of them even quite large and again, this isn't all of them. Some of them. I'd like to keep as a surprise, but Yeah, so extremely generous donation by Larry. Thank you Larry I very much appreciate it and I'm gonna try to put it to as good a use as possible But it's just really a very touching to me and a thrill that you would be able or that you'd be willing to send those to me So thank you. Thank you very much So that was that box and there's just so much here I'm gonna clear some of this out of the way so I can show you a few more things Okay, and I'm sorry if you're getting some noise in the background. That's just the noise from my house I'm trying to shoot this while people are trying to do other things. So sorry about that Sorry if there's any noise bleed into the video So the next thing I want to show you is something that was sent to me by Lawson Allen Lawson has sent several things to me Recently has been a really big help to the channel. This is a figure that I didn't have before Something that I had mentioned a couple of times But I didn't actually have the figure to show you so Lawson was kind enough to send that to me And that figure is none other than Slaughter's marauders Sgt. Slaughter The one version of Sgt. Slaughter that I didn't have and as you also may be aware This is kind of an important figure this year because Sgt. Slaughter's marauders or I should say Slaughter's marauders is One of the themes of Joakon this year. So at the very least I will be able to show you the Sgt. Slaughter figure. It doesn't have a file card And it doesn't have his swagger stick But the figure is intact and that's saying something for these slaughter's marauders figures because it seems like the plastic They these were made out of was a little more brittle than the standard figure of plastic You will find a lot of these with broken thumbs and other broken parts But this guy is intact and that is awesome. So thank you very much Lawson for that So that will go to some good use And the next thing I wanted to show you is not something that a Viewer sent to me, but it's something that I Won in a Facebook auction It's something that I've been trying to get my hands on for some time now, and I finally was able to It is the watchtower This thing It doesn't seem like it should be that difficult to find But I'm surprised that how difficult this has been to find at a decent price I was not aware of this being a rare Rare piece this kind of battlefield accessory thing But I think that it might the prices on it might reflect the fact that it is kind of fragile It's got several easily broken parts on it And and there goes the ladder that hooks on there. Anyway, but yeah I actually wanted to pick up one of these at Joe con Last year, and I couldn't find one. I couldn't find one at any price No, it's nobody had one So I was able to pick one up in a Facebook option auction and I was very happy to get it at a really good price So finally finally have the watchtower, and this is one that I'd like to review at some point And I'd like to compare with the checkpoint alpha Since that that piece and this one seemed to like they would go together So watchtower is a recent acquisition and finally The last thing and it's not something even for me. It's something that someone got for Susan Sparkster also known as Chris God for Susan A larky pillow Which she liked very much and she has on display now well not right now I have it right now, but when she gets it back she will have it on display again So she was very happy to get this. It was a very nice surprise. Thank you Chris for this And that is all right now So thank you to everyone who has sent things to me and donated things to the channel I have done my best to put those things to good use and absolutely to show my appreciation for it Nobody should feel like they need to give me anything You're not obligated to send anything to me at all But if you do I definitely appreciate it. It definitely helps the channel And from now on when you send something to me I want to try to do a video like this where I show everyone what you sent me So you'll actually get your stuff into a video I think you you know you deserve that if you go through the trouble of sending something to me I kind of regret not doing that before Because people have sent lots of things to me before and you know I should have got all that stuff in front of a camera But in the future, I'm gonna do that. So Thanks for all of this. Thank you everyone for watching You don't have to send anything to me for me to appreciate you I'm just glad you're here and I'm glad you're watching the video We got a I feel like we've got a great thing going here on this channel. We've got a great community Lots of great folks show up every week to watch the reviews and so thank you I'm very grateful of that and I'm very happy to have gotten to know some of you as well So that's it for now. I should have a full GI Joe toy review coming up for you soon This is just a little in-between video and Once a month assuming I get things from you guys I'll try to do this again every month Show you guys all the cool stuff that was sent to me. Thanks everyone. I will talk to you soon


Personal finance powerpoint presentation, whole life insurance. Prepare to get financially fit by practicing personal finance. Insurance is part of our long-term risk mitigation strategy where we follow the adage of measure twice, cut once, put in a formal process in place, look in something like set the goals, develop a plan to reach them, put the plan in action, review the results and repeat the process periodically. Most of this information can be found at Investopedia, Whole Life Insurance, which can be found online. Take a look at the references, resources, continue your research from there. This is by Julia Kagan, updated March 3, 2022. In prior presentations, we've been looking at insurance in general, moving then to the life insurance, noting there's two major categories of life insurance. We think about one being the term or pure life insurance, the other being permanent life insurance, and now we're thinking about whole life insurance, which is in the category of the permanent life insurance. Also note that whenever you're thinking about different formats or kinds of life insurance, you would probably want to harken back to the pure life insurance, the term life insurance, because that's the most straightforward kind of life insurance, keeping the adage in our mind of why don't I just buy the cheaper term life insurance and then invest the difference. So you want to keep that adage in mind so that when you have more complex strategies, you got to think about what is by goal of these more complex strategies, and I would try to argue against or try to think of a rationale over and above why I shouldn't be just purchasing the term insurance, the cheaper insurance, and then investing the difference. Okay, so what is whole life insurance? Whole life insurance, also known as traditional life insurance, provides permanent death benefit coverage for the life of the insured. In addition to paying a death benefit, whole life insurance also continues a savings component in which cash value may accumulate. So that's kind of like the savings component, which you could think about like kind of an investment component, which you want to be thinking and comparing to the pure life insurance, saying, why don't I buy just the pure life insurance, which is cheaper and invest the difference in a savings account, or in an IRA or something like that. And there could be reasons for it, but you want to know what your strategy is to be picking up save something a little bit more complex than save your life insurance. There might be tax benefits, there might be benefits for estate planning, for example. So interest accrues at a fixed rate and on a tax deferred basis, whole life insurance policies are one type of permanent life insurance. So now the major categories, the term versus the permanent, we're on the permanent life insurance side of things, universal life, indexed universal life and variable universal life are others. So whole life insurance is the original life insurance policy, but whole life does not equal permanent life insurance as there are many types of permanent life. Understanding whole life insurance, whole life insurance guarantees payment of a death benefit to beneficiaries in exchange for level regularly due premium payment. So obviously we're going to be putting in paying the premium payments in order to get primarily the life insurance component being the death benefit, which means that if we were to die prematurely, which is the point, we're safeguarding the people that are being dependent on us in some way and having the death benefit, which would be paid out at that time. The policy includes a savings portion called the cash value. This is kind of like the investment component of it alongside the death benefit and the savings component interest may accumulate on a tax deferred basis. So you got kind of a tax benefit item going on here, which might be one of your rationals to be putting money into it. But as you do, you might be thinking the old adage of why don't I just buy the cheaper term and invest the difference? If you could invest the difference in say like an IRA or in a 401k plan, then you might get, you know, a similar kind of a tax benefit there in the growth of the funds and a deferral kind of in that situation as well. So maybe those things, maybe those tools are capped out or maybe you have some other kind of conjoining reason for putting the money into the life insurance, which has that kind of saving component. But those are the things to keep in mind. Growing cash value is an essential component of whole life insurance to build cash value as policyholder can remit payments more than the schedule premium known as paid up additions or PUA. Policy dividends can also be reinvested into the cash value and earn interest. The cash value offers a living benefit to the policyholder. So in other words, if you buy normal, pure life insurance, term life insurance, you don't really have a living benefit to you at that point of time because there's no investment point. You're just safeguarding against you dying, which is when the life insurance would pay out in the event that that happens. So over time, the dividends and interest earned on the policy's cash value will often provide a positive return to investors growing larger than the total amount of premiums paid into the policy. In essence, it serves as a source of equity. So in so to access cash reserves, the policyholder requests a withdrawal of funds or a loan. So in other words, now you can have this cash reserve component to it. And then there could be some restrictions now that so you might be saying, well, why why would I put it there? Why don't I just have by the by the term life insurance and then put the money into a savings account because it's usually going to be a little bit easier for me to access the money. You would think to a savings accounts, you might have more restrictions if it's under the life insurance. But there might be tax planning purposes for that estate planning purposes for the life insurance. But once it's in there, like with an IRA, for example, there might be limitations or some limitations in terms of how to access it. You might be able to withdraw the cash value of the funds or you can possibly borrow against it, which is kind of a funny option because normally if you're not allowed to pull the money out, you can't really take a loan and use it as collateral because that's kind of the same thing as pulling the money out. But if it's a loan, then you'll have to pay interest on it. So that could be like a safety net type of thing that you can have in the event that you really need cash that you have the ability to possibly take the money out and or take a loan against it. So interest is charged on the loans with rates varying per insurer. Also the owner may withdraw funds tax-free up to the value of the total premiums paid. So unpaid loans will reduce the death benefit by the outstanding amount. Withdrawals and unpaid policy loans reduce the cash value of the policy. Depending on the policy type and the size of its remaining cash value, a withdrawal could moreover chip away at the death benefit or even wipe it out altogether. So while some policies are reduced on a dollar for dollar basis with each withdrawal, others such as some traditional whole life policies may reduce the death benefit by an amount greater than what is withdrawn. So in other words, if one of the ways it might be set up is if you pull the money out of the cash value of the life insurance, it could have an impact then on the death benefit, which is the benefit that the recipients would be receiving at the point of your death, which is kind of the point of the life insurance. So you can see how that the pendulum swings as you start to mess with the cash value. So special considerations, the death benefit is typically a set amount of the policy contract. Some policies are eligible for dividend payments and the policyholder may elect to have the dividends purchase additional death benefits, which will increase the amount paid at the time of death. Death proceeds are non-taxable to the beneficiary and are therefore not part of taxable gross income, meaning if you were to die, the policy pays out to your beneficiary, then typically that money to them, do they have to record it in income? Generally the answer would be no because it's part of the insurance, the insurance so on. So the death benefit can also be affected by certain policy provisions or events. For example, unpaid policy loans, including accrued interest, reduce the death benefit dollar for dollar. Alternatively, many insurers offer voluntary riders. So we got the riders that can come into play for a fee that secure or guarantee coverage, including the stated death benefit. For example, two of the most common are the accelerated death benefit and waiver of premium riders, which protect the death benefit if the insured becomes disabled or critically or terminally ill and are unable to remit premiums. So many policies allow the policyholder to designate that the funds from the policy be held in an account and distributed in allotments rather than as a lump sum. So interest earned on the holding account will be taxable and should be reported by the beneficiary also. So now you've got in the event, usually the death benefit that if it goes out to someone would be something that they wouldn't have to report possibly, but if you give it to them in distributions and the benefits are then earning money after the point in time of the death, for example, then the interest that would be accrued you would think might have a taxable component to it. Also, if the insurance policy was sold before the death of the insured, there may be taxes issued on the proceeds from that sale. So as is the case with many kinds of permanent policy, it's important to thoroughly research all insurers being considered to ensure that they're among the best whole life insurance companies currently operating. So clearly when you think about insurance, you want to be thinking I would compare everything back to the term the pure insurance and have a rationale in your mind as to why you wouldn't do the old adage of just buying insurance, straight term insurance, which would be cheaper generally, and then invest the difference and possibly investing in tax advantage ways, possibly in iris and so on 401k plans if you have the capacity. And then try to think about, you know, is there some reason over above that that I'm putting the money into the whole life policy, which is possibly a more complex tax strategy and or some other way to hedge that I think would be worthwhile with the whole life or possibly a state planning purposes, so that when you talk to someone in a company who's basically a salesperson that they're more likely to possibly edge you, I would say to a whole life policy or something like that, because they're more expensive. And if they're making a commission on it, then they might make a higher commission for that. So you want to that doesn't mean they're not good at what they're telling you or what they're telling you isn't true, but it does mean that they seem to have at least an appearance of financial bias. And therefore you want to do your research before going in. So you have a good idea of what's going on. So examples of whole life insurance for insurers, the accumulation of cash value writers, their net income of risk. For example, ABC insurance issues a 25,000 life insurance policy to S Smith, the policy owner and insured. So Smith then owns the policy and is the one that is insured. So then over time, the cash value accumulates to $10,000 upon Mr Smith death, ABC insurance will pay the full the full death benefit of 25,000. However, the company will only realize a loss of 15,000 due to the 10,000 accumulated cash value. The net amount of risk at issue was 25,000. But at the death of the insured, it was 15,000 because of that accumulation of the cash value. So history of the whole life insurance from the end of World War Two through the late 1960s whole life insurance was the most popular insurance product policies secured income for families in the event of the untimely death of the insured and help subsidize retirement plans. So obviously, so after the process after the passing of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, the TEFRA in 1982, many banks and insurance companies became more interest sensitive. Individuals weighed the benefits of purchasing whole life insurance again, against investing in the stock market were annualized return rates for the S and P 500 were were adjusted for inflation 14.76% in 1982 and 17.27% in 1983. So in other words, if you if you're putting your money into the into the whole life at a point in time, when you have interest rates that are relatively high interest rates and interest rates were higher, like in the 70s, for example, and you might be coming out still being, you know, after the war people were kind of more conservative after the depression people were more conservative on their on their on their investing possibly. And so the interest the interest rates you might be getting could be thought of possibly as more reasonable return. And current times the interest rates are have been a lot lower. So you would think that if you were to invest somewhere else, in other words, if you were to buy just normal term insurance and which would might be cheaper and invest somewhere else, then you you might be able to get a much higher return if you were to invest in the stock market, although investing in the stock market also comes along with more risk involved as well. You could though put money just into other things that could basically be generating generating interest or different like bonds or something like that, or just in a savings account or CD account, and possibly getting higher interest rates than you would be getting from maybe the the life insurance. So those are just things to consider on like the investment side of thing. So the majority of individuals then began investing in the stock market and term life insurance rather than whole life insurance at that point. So what is the difference between whole life and term life insurance, as its name suggests term life insurance provides a death benefit for a specific period. So it's just purely life insurance. This type of life insurance unlike whole life policy does not have a savings component to it. So you're not dealing with that savings components just life insurance. At the end of the term the policy terminates. Some insurers allow the policy holder to convert to convert their term policy to whole life or renew for a longer term. Whole life insurance is a type of permanent life insurance that provides coverage for the life of the insured. A whole life insurance policy holder can also build cash value in the saving component of the policy. What is the difference between universal and whole life insurance? Universal life insurance and whole life insurance are both permanent life insurance types that offer guaranteed death benefits for the life of the insured. However, a universal life policy allows the policy holder to adjust the death benefit as well as the premiums. As one might expect higher death benefits require higher premiums. Universal life policy holders can also use their accumulated cash value to pay premiums provided the balance is sufficient to cover the minimum due. Whole life insurance alternatively does not allow for changes to the death benefit or premiums which are set upon issue. How much is whole life insurance? The cost of whole life insurance varies and is based on several factors such as age, occupation and health history that as you would think and we've talked about this a bit in prior presentations kind of general health factors and those kind of things you would think would be in the actuarial calculations to help them calculate the premiums. Older applicants typically have higher rates than younger applicants insured insured with a stellar health history typically have better rates than those with history of health challenges. The face amount of coverage also determines how much a policy holder will pay the higher the face amount the higher the premium. Interestingly, certain companies have higher rates than others independent of the applicant and their risk profile. It's also worth noting that for the same amount of coverage whole life insurance is more expensive than term life insurance term life insurance is the cheaper one because it's just life insurance generally that's the baseline that you want to be comparing to in my perspective variable whole life insurance is based on what type of premium variable life insurance premiums can be fixed or variable allowing the policy holder to remit a premium payment of no less than what is required to cover fees and expenses e.g mortality and expenses. So a cash value builds as cash value builds through the remittance of premiums and accumulation of interest the net risk to the insurer decreases as a result associated fees and expenses may decrease reducing the minimum premium needed to cover such charges. Alternatively, some insurers outfit their policies with a lapse protection feature which prevents the policy from lapsing due to insufficient cash value as long as certain level premiums are paid over a specific period. What is modified whole life insurance then what's modified whole life modified whole life insurance is permanent life insurance in which premiums increase after a specific period usually after five or 10 years the premiums increase but remain constant thereafter. Traditional whole life insurance premiums in contrast remain the same throughout the life of the policy.


Kauai business on a think tech Kauai. My name is Kathleen Lee and I am your host for this program. Today I am excited to welcome back to the show Michelle Carmack. When she was last here she was talking about oak and pine and now she has another business venture. So I'll let her go into that Michelle. Welcome back to the chef post. Hi. Thanks for having me. So happy to be here. And when you say that she has another business I was just like oh my gosh. It does sound like a lot but I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to talk more about all the ventures that we have going on under our belt. Wonderful. So let's start with you first. Tell our viewers again a little bit about yourself. Yeah yourself. I appreciate that. Yeah so I'm an entrepreneur. I have my big passion is to support women. And I find that the businesses that I grow and lean more towards is around community support, human connection, finding ways for people to get in front of each other and build those relationships again. And I think you know I've always had this bug in me to get people in the same room. But I really found this passion after COVID. I think after a while of being isolated and then alone it's easy. You know it's safe to say that we're looking for that in-person connection and that community aspect of it. And I'm just happy to be able to take the skill sets that I have to be able to you know build that type of container for us all. That I think is wonderful. Let's start off with oak and pine first and delve into how gather evolved from that if I'm saying that correctly. So let's tell our viewers briefly about oak and pine and how you got into gather and what gather is. Yeah you know what's interesting is the long-term vision has always been gather. Like when I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur that I wanted to build a community that I wanted to have this container for us to all share and be in gather was the vision the concept. But when I first launched my business back in 2018 I didn't know how to get there and I felt very overwhelmed because I didn't have the resources I didn't have the connection. I really didn't know what my first step was. So I had to really take a step back and reflect well how am I eventually going to get to this space and create it for us because as we know having a brick and mortar is very expensive. There's a lot of overhead. There's a lot of learning that comes with having a physical space. So being able to say well my first step doesn't need to be opening the space but rather if I know that I want to have a community let's just start there. So that's where oak and pine really blooms from is is that concept of getting like-minded people together and for me as I mentioned my passion is to support women. I was in this new chapter in my life of I want to be considered an entrepreneur. I want to grow into this role. So how can I find other people and other women who are doing the same who are looking to design life on their terms through entrepreneurship? So that's where oak and pine was born. Back in 2018 I hosted my first event. It was a room full of my closest friends and family and past colleagues. They were there to support me. We had 25 people. I was able to like take really great photos and then sell the next event which was two months after that and that room was filled with 25 wonderful supported people but outside of my network and I started to realize like okay this is actually happening. This is growing and then after that we did 50 for a bigger conference and it just kept growing and growing and it wasn't until COVID hit where I had to really pivot because I had to cancel all my events. It wasn't an option to be able to have in-person events. I didn't know anything or much about online events at that time either. So I had to pivot to be a hybrid community until we can open the doors. So that's when I opened and launched the Oak and Pine Society membership and then we just grew during the pandemic from seven to a hundred members and that was true validation that we are looking for a community especially when you're a new entrepreneur and then that was kind of our trajectory. That's how we grew. That's how I personally find myself as a member of this community because if it weren't for this society I know I wouldn't have had the confidence or the resources or the network to be able to achieve my end goal which was gather and opening up this physical space for us all. I love hearing about that and I believe it went to one of your first events a while back. It was at a beautiful hotel in Waikiki and I thought it was very well organized and you were helping people out with. You had a couple of guests too, notable women from the community and you were helping your guests out with goal setting and I thought at that time that was pretty amazing since I hadn't ran into a network like that where it was focused on women. So let's go into that.  Why is that so important for you? It takes some soul searching for me because when you decide that you want to be an entrepreneur it can be overwhelming. All possibilities are available to you. Everything is at your fingertips and it's up to you to decide what you want to niche down to who you want to support. So at that time I started to reflect back on my own lineage of like well why do I want to be an entrepreneur? Why is this important to me? And it gave me a chance to reflect back on my own childhood and the lineage that I have. So if it weren't for my grandma and my mom being the strong brave women that they are to be able to uproot the Philippines and Wuzukua'i and I'm happy they picked Oahu, my life would look so different as a first generation American and I think about that all the time. I was like they gave me a head start in life because they chose to take the risk to do something different and to do something for themselves so that their future can have a better life and I think about that and I hear the stories of the women in my circle now doing the same for their family and for me it's like because I had that in my network and I see and I get to read the benefits of it I want to support other women who are on that trajectory as well who want that for themselves who want that for their family and you know the best way I think we can do that is through community. So when you meet these women who come to you as a resource what are some topics or challenges that they ran into that you've identified are there common ones why do they reach out for the network that you provide? Yeah it's so interesting because you do see common stories but everyone's situation is so different so the common thing I hear is that I don't know where to start I'm looking for community I want to be able to do this thing and I want to be able to have the resources so when it comes to the struggles I would say for women in particular it's like I feel like I have no time because I'm taking care of my kids I'm worrying about packing their lunch the night before it's dropping them off now I have a sick kid and I have to you know go pick them up or my mom I have to take her to her eye doctor appointment so caregiving caretaking being a mom really does take a lot of time but yet they still have this desire to be able to provide it for their family financially they have this passion that they want to launch a business and they feel that you know and being able to find a way to do both is really hard and because everyone's situation is so different being able to create a container where they can say like here's my struggles right now I don't know where to start what have you done and that story talk that conversation can be very encouraging and empowering but then also the free flowing dialogue allows them to really find and pick and choose what what feedback and topics are relevant to them at that point in time right so yeah so I would say the common thread is time like how do you even have the time to build a career how do you even have time to build a business while you have all of these other responsibilities at home and speaking of time and doing all these things I want to commend you and I want to let our viewers know that you are actually running an event right now will be interviewed and I'm so grateful it's a testament to you doing it all and making time for you know commitments and things and I absolutely love you for that so thank you Michelle let's delve into that so events you are right now at gather yes what is so gather is an event venue it's a space where you can host your panel discussions your workshops if it's a wellness workshop if it's an educational workshop it's also a great space for companies to do their leadership off-site sales trainings company meetings and what's funny is I keep finding myself back in the event space and when I launched my business back in 2018 I didn't identify myself as an event planner until two years later and I said oh I put together these conferences I put together these meetups for our members I become an event planner and I had like this whole like oh my gosh this epiphany of like I just realized what I am who I am as an entrepreneur what industry I'm in and I and I like called a meeting with our members like share this big thing and I was like I know who I am as a career person I'm an event planner and they're just like yeah yes we knew that Michelle and it was it was just such a funny moment for me of recognizing and having like that aha moment that clicked for me but it was so obvious to everyone else and I think when we think about the entrepreneurial journey or even when you're in your career that that moment of aha is like priceless so all that to say I thought I was going to be opening a co-working space it after having six months under our belt I'm realizing that it's more of an event venue and I'm actually very relieved in that because I know that industry I know events and it's less co-working although we do have you know days where people come here to work remotely so it's it's pretty interesting how the business is taking shape of itself yeah and and I would love for you to go more into that as an entrepreneur how important is it to have the flexibility and the open mind business for change oh it was hard for me to be honest to let go of what I thought this business was going to be because I had this set vision right and when you put co-work inside of the name it really limits you of what you are and what you do so it was a moment of like okay well let's just figure it out and be flexible and as soon as I kind of let go of the expectation that's when opportunity starts to come up that's when I can speak about the business a lot more clearly um that's when I could get like direct feedback from the people who are using the product the way we have that it's growing into so I think as an entrepreneur and even as a career person really it's neutrality that helps you grow because once you let go of expectations you start to see all of the different types of opportunities that are available to us in this moment and that will leave you down a path that is exciting of fun and just kind of going with it you know at in and that's wonderful that you talk about that so tell us a little bit about what's going on right now at gather yeah so I you know what's funny is whenever I need panel discussions like this and gatherings I seriously am like on the verge of crying and and the reason because that is is like I mentioned I'm passionate about supporting women and to be able to see other communities out there who are doing the same in their own way um and empowering women who are gravitating towards them it's just it's just the icing on top so today boom wahine they host an amazing panel discussion for female entrepreneurs um it was about how to get ready for the holiday season and I'm just so so so grateful that Nikki the founder had chose our venue to be able to host this wonderful workshop that is great and congratulations on that by the way for you know people knowing more about your intention and the space that you provide you know how you talked earlier about realizing who you were as far as your direction when it comes to your entrepreneurial journey goes what would you like to tell individuals out there as far as how to find or even start finding clarity when it comes to their purpose kind of a deep question but no I love it I love going into the deep conversations it's it's my bio um but I would say find people that you feel comfortable with to be able to just speak it out loud to say this is what I think I want to do I don't know exactly what it looks like just yet but this is why I'm passionate about it this is why it's been on my mind for so long and here's the story behind it and I think I think as people in general when we before we say it out loud we want it to be perfect right we don't want to say the wrong thing we don't want to wrap ourselves in a box or anything like that but I've found that clarity comes the best from just having conversations with people having just this casual free flowing dialogue and what's interesting about the conversation is you get different perspectives so they have a whole different life that they're living they see what you're explaining in a whole different lens and when you are able to hear what they hear you know what they're experiencing from the conversation it gives you so much it's it gives you a different vantage point um so I would say my my biggest advice is just to talk about it and it doesn't have to be perfect and it's okay to say I don't know I think you know you don't have to always come off at super confident just find that that one safe group whether it's a community that you tap into whether it's your business bestie or whomever find someone to be able to just spit ball with and and have those conversations thank you for that where is gather by the way it is in Hawaii hi same building as Roy's restaurant um and we have this beautiful corner lot that overlooks the ocean um you can see diamond head and if you're looking for a great space to end the day highly recommend it because the sunset here is just phenomenal and aside from well maybe including that you talked about how the venue is it seems like a great physical space what else lend you to choose that particular spot for your business I I'm from Waikai I I live in the area and I've been here basically my whole life and I found that we don't have anything like this in the neighborhood um and to be able to say like we're serving the community by providing a comfortable workspace we're serving the community to give them you know uh another venue option rather than having to go to town but then also encouraging other people who are don't who don't usually come on the side to be able to see the beauty of Waikai and um that and then we have a lot of parking stuff helping definitely on the top of the list is like how much parking do we need this definitely needs a lot as an event venue so uh that was on the top of the list I love about that definitely be an event planner at heart and I'm sure he will appreciate you for that I had oh my god I had another question for you and it completely flipped my mind um okay so we already talked about your passion for it and the challenges let's talk about your vision for uh gather what where do you see this company I don't want to go out too far but I'll just say in the near future where do you see gathered going yeah so in the near future I see gather well even backing up and kind of relating back to what we were saying earlier of letting go of expectations my expectation when we open the door was we were gonna have co-working event venue and programs like those are the three things that I thought we were gonna offer under this roof and I'm finding that it's less co-working and more events and more programs so I really see us like leaning into those two two products um programs are things like oak and pine and I'll give you a little teaser I'd love to come back to talk about this but I'm also developing another program called work tribe which is a maternity transition program for female or for women in the workforce and I know we talked about this off camera my husband told me it stopped building businesses but I was like this is the last one I promise I'm very passionate about it because one of the things that I'm finding is not everybody has the option to be able to grow a business even though they want to so how can we create a more inclusive and supportive environment in the nine to five and I will truly believe that there are companies out there who want to do it they just don't know where to start so this is a program that I can like really help them in so anyway so those are the programs and then the event venues it's a place for leadership off-sides uh paddle discussions like today it's a place for masterminds and workshops so it's very uh it's a very like elevated place for you to grow as an individual both personally and professionally and you already went over this earlier let's let's go back to this where does one start if they wanted to start a business yeah I would say find community because you don't know what you need until you take that first step and there's always going to be people out there who are offering a cookie cutter ways to start your business that might have worked for them but it might not work for you so the way that I have structured Oak and Pine is we have regular meetups for you to expand your network through um these casual settings we have like alhanas we have coffee chats and that's a way for you to just talk and practice speaking about your business um but then we also offer different resources and workshops so that you get a little taste of this is event marketing or this is how to um like have a productive day here's a framework so it gives you a little taste of what could be your next step but a place to experiment and explore so going back to your question where do you start I think it's finding a resource that you can tap into a community and network that you can tap into to be able to discover your first step I've you know I've heard you talk before and again I mentioned back in the day when I went to one of your events and I think you are a very passionate individual which is why I'm so honored to know you with that being said I would love for you to tell our viewers out there or advise or you know share how would you how would one tackle fear of starting especially when it comes to new endeavors or new business um once funny is fear doesn't go away it it's always there and it's always at the same level it seems but you learn how to kind of work through it you know you speak with these great um when you have conversations with people who are on stage pretty often you ask them like how did you get over the fear of public speaking they say I don't I just learn how to process it better so it's the same thing with entrepreneurship it's like right before you get on stage the butterfly feeling of should I run away should I make an excuse that you know I don't feel well like what what do I need to do to get out of the situation I think whenever you feel that emotion find the tools that allow you to break through it so as an entrepreneur what's your ritual you know if you're feeling overwhelmed with the day to day what can you do every single day so that you can get out of the emotional state and really into the action like what what do I need to do what is my next step so so yeah I would say to process fear explore different options right it could be journaling it could be maybe have a wellness practice like you go to sound hearing once a week or you do something that grounds you I like to walk my dog in the morning and leave my phone in the car and not like just stay completely disconnected and I watch my dog you know walk around and have fun so on and so forth so for me that's kind of how I ground myself and I would encourage everyone else to do the same just find something that you can do as a ritual to get you in that mindset regularly I love that and I I do something similar where I have to get out and get some sunlight every morning so that's where I do my workout and similar to you I I mean I have my phone but I don't look at it when I'm doing my workout is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you would like to add in the few minutes that we have yeah um well I would just love to kind of plug the things that we have going on under our roof so I kind of touched on it but with our umbrella we have two things programs and events so if you're looking for a community of local female entrepreneurs and you're looking to see a network in a very comfortable environment I do and invite you to check out our membership we have regular events that you can tap into before you've been committing see for the right fit if there were the right community and if we're not there's so many other great communities locally that you can tap into so that's one and then the other program that I'm slowly starting to develop is to the mission there is to make the workforce more inclusive for women who are having kids so this work tribe is a maternity transition program for local businesses and our goal here is to support women in these middle manager roles so that they can climb the career ladder into leadership roles and executive roles so I'll be talking more about that once once it starts to get some traction and then the second thing that I would love to chat about is you know our event venue as an event planner my whole goal is to make events easy for you so whether it's that you're looking for a space for a company offsite and it's overwhelming for HR team you can just partner with us we'll take care of everything from like finding the food doing the layout you just tell us what technique we'll get it all set up so that way your your team can focus on their core duties which is making sure your employees are happy and we'll provide you the space we'll provide you with the support and that's what we're looking to do at gather wonderful and michelle how do people get in contact with you and Gavin yeah um you can contact me via email which is join j o i and at gather co-working and dot com um I'm most present on instagram and linkedin as well so you'll be able to find me there thank you and again I am so appreciative of you making the time to come on the show today so thank you thank you michelle we had today michelle come back join us on our show founder of oak and pine as well as gather and hopefully you can be back on to talk about that third program in the next year or so I will be keeping an eye out for that so thank you again michelle thanks for having me of course and thank you to the folks at think tick what you for making shows like this possible j fight del hailey and mike thank you for everything that you do for the shows until next time a little book


From the moment you start in the Navy everyone is really hitting home Motivation and dedication and all these core values that you don't really understand at the time But over you know over the course of a career you start to understand really well and taking away my eyesight didn't change Any of that the decision to move forward was easy. It was just a split instant You know, I can do all the things I used to do I just had to do it with my eyes closed now and also, you know, my affiliation with the Paralympics now has shown Me a lot of very inspirational stories a lot of people putting up with adversity and Not making that an excuse and getting out there and and seeking success in other avenues and that's truly inspiring to me It's funny because there are direct parallels. I was a diver for six years and Say 90% of the diving I did was not glamorous diving was in The mucky waters in Norfolk from Virginia Beach down where you can't see anything so I've had to practice tying knots and Dragging up things and finding finding my gear and navigating without being able to see so It's a direct parallel to what it's like now. And so it wasn't that unfamiliar It's the only downside to blindness now as you you know, you can't go up to the surface and start seeing again But at the same time, this was not the first time that I had to navigate blind. So I was prepared pretty well coincidentally


Today is an interesting day because I've chosen to share one of the more interesting stories of my time in Israel here. Clearly I've been using the latest cutting edge identity masking techniques to disguise my identity and we're also recording this in an undisclosed location. All we can say is that the location is a field in the greater Jerusalem Israel or really we can't say that recording this on a field somewhere in Israel. So I thought I'd talk a little bit about one of my alia war stories so to speak. It was about the second year that I was in Israel and I just finished up with the first job, I was between jobs, moving apartments, getting used to the place and all that stuff and I saw this ad on Facebook. The ad was for customer service representatives. It's not the type of thing I typically do as a career, my day job is working in marketing communications but it seemed to me like a fine job as I was looking for a more permanent job. It was advertised as like this call center or something needs customer service reps right to this email address if you're interested. The first red flag and this is either red flags for anyone trying to avoid these kind of operatives is it was a Gmail address. I didn't think too much of it at the time but you know in retrospect that was a bit dodgy. So I went right to this Gmail address and I get in touch with this person. Now what's weird is that the person, the name on the advertisement was let's say it was a woman right? So let's say the name was Sarah, I'm just making up a name. So I get this call but it's at like 2 in the morning. So I'm woken up in bed by a phone call, doesn't happen that frequently and I'm like who's this? So the first, the second thing that didn't really match up was that she gave a different name. It was the job calling me back and I was like you know it's 2 in the morning are you based in Israel? And she's like yeah we're based in Israel. So that was a bit strange that they thought that it was like normal to call up candidates at like the small hours in the morning. Let me cut to the chase of the story. So she calls me and she's like we should set you up for a job interview. So she chooses the following morning and another weird sign is that she wants to meet in a cafe. So at this point I don't know the name of the company. I only know they have a GML address. The recruiter seems to be operating from like two or three different identities and we've decided to meet in a kind of shitty cafe. So it's starting to get a bit more interesting. Anyway roll forwards to the next day and I go to meet in this cafe. So I'm meeting this lady and I'm like oh you're Sarah. She responded that that wasn't her name. So now you have three different names. Anyway she tells me that basically it's a moving company. So finally the details or the faint details of what this operation is about begin to become transparent. And she said that this was like a call center. They help people to move their belongings between different places in the U.S. She tells me there is a training cohort starting on the next day. Red flag four and stuff moves really really quickly. My experience can be a bit of a red flag in its own race. So she tells me there's a training cohort so I agree. We have our coffee. I'm going to go our separate ways. The next day I'm trying to find this training cohort and trying to find their office. It's located in a building in central Jerusalem where there is a bunch of other normal businesses.  So I can't find their office. So I call the number and they're like it's to the left of the travel agent. So I look for a travel agent and to the left is the only door on the floor which doesn't have any signage. There's nothing.   This is weird. So the details are starting to... I'm beginning to get the feeling I'm going into some sort of a scorn business. So anyway I go in there and there's this trainer guy. He's a very very well-spoken guy but immediately begs the question what are you doing? He said he had an advanced scientific degree. What are you doing working in a moving call center?  That's another question. And then I notice on the whiteboard. The office has a whiteboard and it has today's weather in New Jersey. 19 degrees, sunny, you know the symbols. And then there's like tomorrow's weather, high of 20 degrees or whatever that is in Fahrenheit. So I've mentioned before I'm a big fan of Simona Wineblast's reporting in the times of Israel. She's done an amazing job in reporting on the binary forex scum. I tried to get her interested in the story. She says there's not enough details about it. Hence why I'm sitting in a park in an anonymous mask telling the story myself. Okay so we go in there, there's this, the weather forecast is on the door so I'm like what the hell is that about? The other weird thing is that when the training starts there's only one other attendee, right? So they made this big social media push, they're sponsoring odd. And I'm like how is this that in a city of one million people, it's me and this other dude, we are the training cohort. The other guy also it's worth noting seems kind of a bit strange. He mentioned some weird story about being in London and a guy chased him with an off. At this point I'm getting this kind of feeling that I stepped into some sort of a matrix like world where we are the infection or wavy. So the training starts and we're learning to use a CRM. Now people who have worked in the world of sales or marketing probably know a CRM, it's like Salesforce. It's a computer program where you put in the leads of your customers and whatever. The weird thing about this one was that to me it looked very, very custom coded. This was not a Salesforce or a pipe drive. This was something that they made themselves. It's all these crazy calculations. The training consisted of us basically the story they were selling was that there is a moving company. They're based in the US. We're based in Israel. People will get quotes from the website. They'll fill out, I want to move my stuff from Florida to New York and we get the leads. So we get the leads and we have this call with the customers. And he's training us what to do. So the guy says, and I'll never forget this, he says, the first thing you have to say is, in your mind, invite me to your house. Pretend I am in your house. What do you see? Do you see a dining room? Do you see, and it went on like this and this, and I was like, this is odd, right? Eventually it's time for Drake, so I go out to get some like falafel and water and what have you. And at this point, I'm kind of connecting the dots of what this thing is about. So I put into Google Israeli moving squams. The guy led on the name of the company. The company had about four different names because like all these squam operations, it's constantly trying to, it's a game of cat and mouse with the authorities. Another thing that's big in the world of borax and binary is that this whole thing of companies being based in the US, but actually operating from Israel, it makes it very hard to prosecute this kind of white collar crime. So I knew all this when I was searching. The name of the company that they gave in the training session came up and it was hundreds and hundreds of negative reviews on Yelp.com saying this place is a scum. I later found out that Israeli moving companies, there's a lot of Israeli movers in the US and a portion of them are fraudulent operations. I'm not saying they're all fraudulent. When I started digging into the reviews on Yelp about this company, the place whose training center I was just in with no wooden door, it started making sense. They said firstly, the people got changing their names, which definitely matched up with my experience. The second thing is they said they're based in some foreign country, but they seem to know the weather really well. I was like, well, yeah, they have it on their whiteboard. The third thing, and this is really what connected, they said, I got a quote, they came in with a super low ball offer that was very, very inviting. But when my goods arrived on the truck in Florida, wherever the move was to, I got this crazy, crazy invoice. Effectively, what was going on was a form of extortion. The customer, the victim, scum victim in the US, would send in a moving request form to this lead posture website. That would come into these people sitting in Israel. And our job, when we were asked to tell us about your living room, do you have a bed? Does the bed have cushions? Does the bed, does the bed have legs? Does your dining table have legs? All that stuff was because we were being trained to enter every single thing into our custom CMS. So they think, so they're getting a bill for like $500 for your table, $100 times five for each leg, and jacking up the quotes. And then we were effectively holding their goods hostage on a moving truck in the US. Those are the details as I piece them together. That's why the scum is in Israel. I think it's one of the smallest scum industries here. There's probably four or five. I don't know if this was a major operator of the scum or a small operator, but everything I read online meticulously matched the details what I experienced. I came back into the training center and that was my first and last day on shift because I realized it was a scum. And I said I'm going to be looking for other opportunities. That's my story of spending a couple of days in the scum industry in Israel. I've had a couple of interesting experiences. And perhaps I'll come back to this undisclosed location to share a couple of those more.