How's everybody doing? I'm between you and the break. So I have the bar high. Excited to be speaking here. We heard a lot about how multi-cloud is becoming increasingly a reality. Applications are becoming portable by virtue of all the work that has been done in the Kubernetes and the microservices ecosystem. As a distributed database, we are very excited as to the promise that it brings when it comes to the final frontier around multi-cloud portability for data-centric applications. So with that, let's drive right in. We believe that there is a fundamental need today to reimagine the database architecture, especially now that we're in the multi-cloud era. There are two aspects that are happening here. First is there is a need that is being brought to us from the fine-grained microservices applications that are increasingly being built. Those paradigms are leading us to two critical needs for databases. First is SQL as the API layer for building these applications, because SQL allows us to model relationships, foreign key constraints, joints. And last but not the least, allows us to model distributed transactions. All that allows a developer writing an application to be highly agile, right fast, using all the data modeling constructs that have been battle-hardened over 40 years of SQL. And then secondly, something that the SQL world has never had at its disposal, which is massive horizontal write scalability, ability to start small and grow as big as we like, something that was previously reserved for no SQL databases, but SQL databases never had it. So those are the two that the applications are bringing in. Then there are two additional needs that the composable cloud or multi-cloud, as we call it, are bringing in. First is the need for tolerating failures in the commodity infrastructure world that we live in today. Discs, compute, network, even entire clouds will fail, and as a result, ability to tolerate those failures becomes very important. And secondly, today, if we take all the clouds combined, if last count it was close to 200 different regions or data centers that are literally at our fingertips to deploy and program our applications against. And those data centers give us a lot of flexibility around how we build low latency applications for our users, how do we tolerate complete regional level failures, how do we meet the needs of various governance and compliance requirements like GDPR. So with these four architectural needs in front of us, we believe the time is ripe for an entire database architecture, and we call it distributed SQL because it allows developers to program applications fast. It allows operations engineers to deploy those applications as and where they need to be deployed with all the right efficient constructs built in. And finally, it allows the business to drive home the velocity around competitive advantages. And that's what we have tried to build at UgobyDB. It's a fully open source project which focuses on low latency applications, as well as it allows the applications and the database to be deployed into Kubernetes and as we'll see into cross-play. And on the open source front, I want to point out that we have actually taken the opposite stance of many of the recent database licensing changes. We are 100% open source database, including enterprise-grade features such as distributed backups, encryption at rest, change data capture, asynchronous replication across multiple regions, and so on. Now that I have highlighted what the database architecture for the multi-cloud world looks like, I want to walk you through the multi-cloud maturity model. Most applications today probably are in this monocloud level one, where multiple instances of the database are deployed across multiple availability zones, but in a single cloud. And naturally, it is a single region. It allows us to tolerate region level failures as zone level failures, but region level failures is hard. The nirvana is actually when we can run the same cluster, few instances in cloud one, few instances in cloud two, few instances in cloud three, because it allows us to diversify our risk. It allows us to exploit whatever each of the clouds give us from a compute and storage standpoint. However, this last one is hard because it requires the operations engineering to get to a level where the same cluster can be orchestrated across three clouds. There are intermediate stages where many of our users and many of the community users are going towards, which look like this. First is monocloud monthly region, where you take a single cloud and just start geo-distributing your clusters across multiple regions. And the second one is the starting point of multi-cloud, where you can run app-specific, best of breed clusters in different clouds. You can even use features like asynchronous replication to use a second cloud as your failover cloud. Obviously, you have to ensure that asynchronous replication continues to move the data at a periodic basis so that when you cut over or failover to the new cloud, you are able to see that your data. Otherwise, your application portability that depends on underlying database layer will not be instantaneous. So where does UGBDB and cross-plane fit into this equation? We see that if UGBDB is the multi-cloud database that is ready to be deployed at the cloud of your choice, cross-plane naturally becomes the control plane to orchestrate such a move or such a deployment on day one. So that is going to be my demo. Here is what the demo setup looks like. As Basam pointed out, cross-plane gets deployed onto a Kubernetes cluster. Let's call it the control plane cluster. And then you install various stacks onto cross-plane which extend the Kubernetes objects that are available to you. And then you have the ability to deploy applications in a cloud-neutral manner to any of the three public clouds. Specifically for Kubernetes, you have the GCP stack, the AWS stack, and the Azure stack, which allows you to deploy application to GKE, AKS, and another AKS. And then if you want to deploy stateful applications, then you deploy the Rook stack onto this control plane cluster. With this as the prerequisite, now we are ready to deploy a multi-cloud application onto one of these clusters. And the way we are going to do that is using this Kubernetes application construct from cross-plane. We'll first deploy a stateful Kubernetes application using the Rook operator for UgobyDB. And that will allow us to instantiate a PostgreSQL instance because UgobyDB is PostgreSQL compatible. And then we'll instantiate another stateless Kubernetes application, which is an e-commerce application, a bookstore. And then through claims, this recently instantiated application can now interact with this Postgres installation instance that had been just provisioned. With that, let me dive into the demo. I am starting off at a point where we have instantiated the control plane cluster. We've instantiated the underlying cloud provider actual clusters where the database is going to be deployed. And now I'm going to simply go ahead and install my Rook operator for UgobyDB. It's as simple as kubectl apply Rook operator. And then I can go and introspect that Kubernetes application and see that I have been scheduled onto the remote cluster, which in this case is the GKE cluster. And I can actually also see the underlying, the various underlying Kubernetes constructs that were installed as a result of this operator now being installed onto the cluster. And there are the namespace, the cluster role, the role binding, all the stuff that the glue code that you would need to start managing your cluster on GKE. Now, all we have to do is claim a Postgres instance out of this operator so that we can power our actual e-commerce application. And that's what we're doing here. Now, a real UgobyDB cluster has been instantiated onto GKE. And that's what we'll see. Let's keep going. And once this Postgres SQL instance is alive, now we're ready to bring up our application. And that application does not know what, whether it is previously, as we saw in other Jared's demo, they were all using managed services of the same cloud provider. In this case, you get an actually an in-cluster alternative, fully open source, a highly scalable Postgres database sitting next to your application so that you don't have to, during all your development testing and even production, you don't have to rely on an expensive proprietary managed service. Now that the database cluster is up and running, I'm ready to instantiate my actual application. And there you go. My application has now been scheduled. I will now find out the UI endpoint of that application by introspecting, I'll introspect the resources first and see all the resources, deployment, namespace, and service naturally. And then finally, I will see what the IP address of the application is. And I get an IP address. And all I have to do is open up that IP address on the particular port that the application is running on. That's it. I now have my database powering this application all inside a single Kubernetes cluster without relying on any external managed service as part of the multi-cloud deployment. Now, if I want to change this cluster over to Amazon's Kubernetes service or Azure's Kubernetes service, all I have to do is go, apply the same command again, and the workload will start moving over onto the next cluster. So without doing any expensive operations engineering and using the common constructs that various open source projects like Crossplane have brought forward, we are able to ensure that a stateful application is getting portable across multiple clouds. So as Basam pointed out, all these open source projects take a village to develop. We would love for all of you to join our community, the Slack channel, the GitHub pages, give us feedback. We're working hand in hand with the Crossplane team to make more of the multi-cloud scenarios documented, demonstrated so that users like you can actually use those as starting points and build your applications from there on. Last but not the least, we're at KubeCon tomorrow at the sponsor showcase. Visit us over at Booth. Thank you so much.


7 Reasons People Dislike You For No Reason Why do people choose to dislike a person for no reason? I mean, what on earth can be responsible for that? Well, we have the same question on our minds. James Redfield, an American author, lecturer and screenwriter, his explanation for why people dislike people is because they feel threatened by that person. According to him, when we dislike someone or feel threatened by someone, the natural tendency is to focus on something we dislike about the person, something that irritates us. Unfortunately, when we do this, instead of seeing the deeper beauty of the person and giving them energy, we take away and do them harm. All they know is that they suddenly feel less beautiful and less confident and it is because we snapped their energy. So, the question now is if people dislike us for no reason because they feel threatened by us, what makes them feel threatened in the first place? In this video, we will be sharing with you 7 reasons people dislike you for no reason. If you're new here, consider subscribing so that you would miss other interesting videos like this. 1. You remind them of their failures Imagine if you once had a problem of overeating, excessive drinking, toxic relationships and the likes. Eventually, you choose to become responsible for yourself and everything that happens to you.  People might dislike you for it, you're wondering why, right? Look at it this way, you both wear the same shoes originally and then you are able to overcome that challenge, leaving them to deal endlessly with their errors. Because they have tried several and failed, they realize how difficult it can be. So seeing you every time or just thinking about you constantly reminds them of their failure, their result in disliking you instead of learning from you. 2. You have reason above them Let's say you used to be on the same level with someone and then you moved higher, say you got promoted or you pushed yourself hard enough to achieve a course, now because the people you left behind start feeling left out and trapped at their level of experience, they may begin to dislike you for it. They want you to remain at the same level because it is difficult to accept your new improvement. However, remember Zigg Ziggler is saying that don't be distracted by criticism, remember the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you. 3. They have nothing better to do with their lives Besides surfing the internet, flipping through their social media fields from one app to another, doing nothing but stalking people on social media and dropping hateful comments on blogs and YouTube videos, they do not have anything else to spend their time on. Doing these things give them that momentary sense of purpose and achievement in life. For instance, when you come across certain comments on a person's YouTube page, you'll be shocked at how people leave hateful comments for someone they don't even know. I once saw a person's comment on YouTube saying, when a person asks for a thumb up on their video, I give them a thumbs down instead. Now, imagine such a statement, perhaps they don't even dislike you because it is you, but because hating people has become a lifestyle for them, all you can do is to wish them the best in life and move on to a good place in your life instead of wandering and disturbing yourself about why they dislike you. 4. You have something that they don't have When some people realize that life can be unfair and some people may have certain things while others won't, they become jealous of those people that have the nice things in life and if you are one of those, they'll dislike you for no reason. Maybe they even want the things you have and don't quite know how they can achieve those things, they'll begin to dislike you for it. In some other case, when they can't figure out why they lack the things they lack or how they can get the things they lack, it makes them angry and to help them cope with frustration, they resort to hate because they think the only way they can deal with their fillies of inferiority, low self-worth and inadequacies is to dislike you for having something that they want but don't know how to get. 5. You remind them of themselves One of the best defense mechanisms the mind uses to help people deny their flaws is to blame someone else for them so they project their flaws on you to make them look flawless. 6.  Say your career, your family and friends, your fame and the likes and think that you don't deserve those good things. Most times they see things only from the surface level. They don't care about your hard work, sacrifices and the struggles you go through to achieve the things you now have. They don't even care about how you dealt with your fears and worries as well. All they care about is that, why do you have those good things when they don't even have them? 7. You need to put someone down to feel good about themselves Some people's self-esteem is so low that they feel the need to put others down so that they can either shield them or feel good about the fact that they are not alone. Ridiculous! I know. As surprising as some of these reasons might sound, they are true. So the next time you can't seem to understand why a person dislikes you, you should probably watch this video again to find out why. Thank you very much for watching our videos. We'll like to give you another interesting video for you to enjoy next. But before then, our team will be very happy if you can like this video and share it with your friends on social media. If you're new here, don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss other interesting videos like this. Look at your screen now to see two other videos we handpicked for you to enjoy next. We love you!


Good evening to everyone. I'm Laura Cavalli. Thanks for the introduction. I'm an economist and I'm a senior researcher at Fundazione Enrico Mattei in Bayesian Milan. At the same time I'm manager of SDSN in Italy. I work on sustainable issues especially because I have a daughter and a husband and I probably you know what I mean. But above all I'm here to present these beautiful and interesting solutions which is logistic of the future in sustainable smart port. So this is an example of how partnership can really help catalyzing the localization of the SDGs of the agenda 2030. So before starting let's do a little setback. So keep in mind the first keyword I really would like you to bring home localization. So yes scaling down we know that is a really difficult task and it's really difficult trying to understand what we should do to reach this sustainability. Last year in Fundazione Enri we developed a quite successful tool so called SDSN Italia SDG City Index. It was meant to be a tool for policymakers. We really would like them to understand the state of the art of sustainability in their area. Actually in their city. Then we create this great tool. Wow fantastic. But we localize it. Really did we do? Are we sure about that? So now I was struggling about a really really hard topic which is we live in Italy a really heterogeneous country from the social economic and demographic perspective. So probably was not enough. At the same time I was struggling on this problem. I received a call from a colleague of mine. The head of sustainability and corporate responsibility at Ericsson. She read the report. At the same time she was talking about the same issues. And exactly in that moment she was working together with the Voronoporta authority with Telecom Italia Mobile and the consortium of the University for Telecommunication on an innovative framework to assist cargo port handing their upcoming and future capacity. So actually these two things are connected. Localization means developing frameworks to work with. So we started reasoning together. But you all know that things are complex and this is the second keyword I really would like you to remember. That's why we start reasoning together on one single aim. One goal. Localize. Complex because we were five five different shareholders. No profit international research center public authority private company. And there was really complexity in the way we would like and we used to solve problem complexity because the issue we wanted to disentangle.  Here's some numbers. You know that 169 are the targets of the agenda 2030. And we had to match this target with the 38 activities of the harbor process for the port city sustainability. Other numbers 74 percent of goods entering or leaving Europe go by sea. One point five million workers are employed in European ports and one hundred four seven million tons of CO2 equivalent is the impact is the impact of a maritime transportation in European Union in 2018. So last year complexity because of the sixty five five G benefits identified for the port era related to the 2030 agenda. Also able to help cities and the communities to reach the sustainable development and have a potential impact of 50 percent of savings in CO2 emission. Was there a way to lighten this complexity. Yes. Working together. So sharing ideas sharing doubts solutions help us really to overcome the existing obstacles. So the twist and turn of the project occurred at the time when we all make our knowledge of a label to the others. So they joined half at another really interesting advantage. So our initial hypothesis we had with brainstorming. Well concerned. We had that we're confirmed by the results. But what would you obtain at the end of the journey. So we developed a model with a set of innovative KPIs for the port which consider the digital transformation enabled by the five G as the main driver the main lever for both the port performance and valuation and to pursue sustainable development. We did that by scaling down the agenda 2030 linking its content with a strategic decision to promote the sustainability within the port city area. We therefore provided a deep analysis of the enabling power of the five G technologies in order to evolve port process in the direction of international agenda. And finally we applied a model to the Livorno port. Thanks to the data we had highlighting the five G positive impacts for four main SDGs. SDG eight competitiveness and more safety for workers. SDG 11 sustainable growth for the port city. SDG 12 responsible business in logistics and SDG 13. So estimated environmental impact was equal to eight point two percent. Saving of CO2. It means almost one hundred forty eight thousand kilos of CO2. Oh. What's that. That's not only for the birthday first birthday of the agenda 2030 that is exactly today. But it's just to remind us that the same CO2 emission means exactly not more or less thirty seven million seven hundred forty seven thousand five hundred thirty eight party balloons full of CO2. That's a quite huge number isn't it. So let me add another key point. The relevance not only to consider the agenda 2030 made only of environmental social and economic side which is a unicorn to be considered but also to ensure a strong institutional commitment as well as TD public endorsement. As a researcher we develop models but they must be useful at policy level and publicly recognize for population. Let me be more clear. Put yourself for a moment in the shoes of the Livorno port. So this was the initial issue. Should the port invest in new technology. It firmly believed that a model was needed. The public private research we did discussed and developed the framework with a subsequent application of the model and we offered the port authority the tool for developing a plan and make a final decision about a possible investment. A responsible investment. That's the last key word I want to stress. So agenda 2030 local priorities innovation technologies environmental social economic issue responsible investment. These are all key words to bring home as Papa Francesco said we still have the possibility and the ability to solve the problems of our times and this by working together for our common home. Our solutions seem to be a pretty good uptime to welcome the challenge. Thank you.


Hey, good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here. I'm with Liz Trotter our guest today is Stephanie Nesseth and this is smart business moves Hi, good to see you Steph Husker stuff my butt Could definitely be way worse, right? I'm glad you're fully clothed in that. Oh, yeah, me too Panel a little bit to the left or right. What are we missing? What are we missing? Well, I'm not missing anything be be glad Tom that you're seeing all that you're seeing I'm thinking we don't really want to be seeing a whole heck of a lot more Don't be getting greedy Tom This is September and September is Employee retention month. That's kind of what we're talking about and that's what we're going to be talking about today, right? Yeah, absolutely Okay And that's important before Yeah, we'll talk about some other things as well Let's just jump right into it There you want to talk about the news. Oh, okay. You are yeah, we're gonna do that Okay We were talking earlier about some changes to the Love program I'm gonna go ahead and take a link and drop it in the comments. Hey Linda's here So we got more money the second time around Tom. You got to address that piece well They were capped at a hundred and fifty thousand dollars They raised the cap to five hundred thousand dollars Few months ago. I guess back in April. I believe they raised a while to fire was in April to five hundred thousand And they just came out with an announcement saying they're gonna raise the cap to two million dollars but more interestingly is what the money can be used for and Somewhere in here it explains that you could pay Pre-payments on your debt, which means if you've got a loan With your business for automobiles or an office or whatever if you're paying more than 3.75% it would be economically rational to Take more idle money pay that loan off and then start paying on the money that Federal government gave you or loaned you You know, I'm seeing on here federal debt Tom and I have three customers that have Some IRS debt that they are paying off you think that would be covered. I Don't know but it would sure looks like it on definitely Yeah What interest boy any idea what type of interest you probably more than three point seven five, huh? Oh Yeah, I can't remember exactly what and I don't know that they both are playing the same the interest in penalties is Ridiculous on our IRS stuff though. So if they could eliminate Just getting it paid off. I think the money that you would save in penalties would be worth it. Yeah So It's hard it's hard to say what all might fall under that so yeah I just heard about this earlier today So I don't have all the details when we'll do a little more research and maybe have a little more that we can share on Wednesday, but If you have any debt on your balance sheet This might be worth taking a look at because the other thing which is kind of generous is that it's a 30-year amortization so I'm not suggesting you take you know a five-year note and turn it into a 30-year note But if you ever run into a pinch where you're a little short on cash You could make very modest payments for that amount of time plus it I think it says that you can allow You can defer any payments for 24 months if you The only thing you really need to be Seriously concerned about depending on how much money you take is if you're looking at selling You cannot sell well under this Well, I think you can because I know a company that just sold Tomorrow is their closing they had taken it at all good up to 300,000 I think but the larger amounts. I'm not sure about I heard that you could not over 500,000. Oh I don't know because until today there was no Anything above 500,000. Yeah, Biden announced this during his speech Awesome. Okay. Well, I have no idea about that, but I do know you can sell if you have an idol, but you will have to Make you'll have to pay that off, right? The the idol loan itself can't attach with the sale Yeah, you can't keep the 30-year note if you're selling Well, you'll get to keep it. You don't get to pass it on Not as fun. Yeah, right Yeah, what? Good info So we'll do a little more legwork on that and have some more details on Wednesday Cool, I Especially want to hear about anything having to do with that IRS stuff I think my clients would be like head over heels in love with me if I could get that taken off So you're you're asking for a friend, that's right Oh, yeah, it's a it's a yeah asking for a friend All right, well So Tom, do you want to you know stuff, you know why I wanted to bring stuff on for this For this month. Yeah, I know we didn't have a conversation about it, but I believe it has something to do with some of the programs that Stephanie supports within her business, which creates, you know, I guess a higher purpose for being part of a Organization than just getting a paycheck Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of that has changed over the last 18 months We're not able to really get into the homes like we were or Ronald McDonald house because of COVID So that whole purpose driven based on our programs before some of them. We've really had to pivot So part of how we're retaining it really it's nothing different that we haven't ever done before But when you're talking about retaining employees, especially in an environment like this, it's really important I believe that you talk about and Understand that it's about how you make people feel when they stick around with you. It's about understanding who they are and how they think and what Intrinsically motivates them. So we do personality tests like Liz does that is a huge huge Tool for us, but we also have to understand that if we're not taking care of their needs First over their wants then it doesn't matter what kind of purpose driven programs You have if you're not meeting their needs first so that's really where we focus and During the last 18 months, I think and especially the Durecho when that hit we that's the only time that we shut down was for four days But during that time we had people who lost their homes We had people whose cars were crushed by trees You couldn't get food you couldn't get gas And so when you have a group of people who are Really close to living paycheck to paycheck already and then you slam that on there my staff my office staff worked on Our clients and I worked on the needs of our staff during that time and I think when you focus on that Everything else just kinds kind of follows they there is a trust that starts to develop when they understand that you really have their back and trust is the key to all retention and a lot of these employees who come to us come from Employers who who never really cared about them probably the way that we do or the way that we show and so it takes a little bit of time for them To start to trust us when we're doing that. So sometimes we're banging our head against the law for a little bit like no, really Yeah, we're really really bringing you food today. We're really really collecting diapers and wipes for your family We're really bringing you gas, you know during Durecho. Some people were just You know flower gassed it by that but you have to get to their needs You can't expect them to not be able to feed their families and yet take care of all your clients that have lost their homes Just like we are not our clients. We are in our staff So yeah, that for me is really important for all of our office staff to understand and we don't think that way We are not them our life experiences are not the same There is no two people who have the same life experiences So you really have to get to know deeply Who they are and not all of them are going to trust you with that And so there's a lot of tools that we have to use in order to get to that place If that explains that a little bit Yeah, absolutely it does One of the things that I was looking at just I don't know maybe Maybe a month ago six weeks ago or something was Maslow's hierarchy of needs we talk about that a lot Yeah, and I was just curious if anything has changed because Unprecedented event over here, right? These are unprecedented times. So I was just curious if the the Model holds up during this time and really it does, you know Come to you. Can you pull up? You're pretty good at doing this. Can you pull up Maslow's hierarchy needs? Real quick. I can I can effort. I know you can you'll succeed too. I've seen you and So, um To to those of you that are like what exactly is stuff talking about she's basically talking about this Abraham Maslow Many years ago. Don't know how many he designed this hierarchy of needs and the point is that you can't move up the Up this triangle until you get these base needs met first the basic needs First is the physiological which is stuff is talking about bringing people food literally bringing people food Right, right and then right after that another basic needs is safety needs They need to feel secure and safe and your situation people didn't feel secure and safe Yeah, and right now we're dealing with that with COVID y'all, right? That people don't feel safe That's part of why we're having all this churn in the country Might not be because of something that you specifically are doing wrong or that it's not working or your bad people People are not feeling secure and safe. So there is that that need is not being met So they're they're struggling right, but this is this is something that I always thought was great about what you do stuff is your You know, I preach a lot on matter meaning measure and some autonomy in there But you've always been really really good at bringing the meaning well the matter to Making people feel like they matter in your company But also bringing meaning to the work that people do so that they feel like like you said it's about the emotion They feel like you're doing more So you said you haven't been able to do a lot of the things that used to do in the last 18 months What have you been doing for for that meaning piece? It's really interesting because The pivot is within the safety mechanism that they need to feel so in They have kids that are being schooled, you know through zoom Daycare is a challenge, you know all these different things and in a service job It's really hard to you can't work from home. I Not able to home school your kids You know all those different things that a lot of people are able to do in order to continue to feel safe And so part of our pivot is we're giving them a week off every quarter so that is huge for us and in the Meaning part where we were cleaning for time to bother going through on the McDonald house now It's every home. We don't know who has COVID We don't honestly know whether illnesses are going on and if we're truly cleaning for safety then every single home now Has meaning and so that is truly our meaningful pivot is that every single Is is a safety risk and so the only Challenge to a lot of this is when you talk about the hierarchy and you talk about esteem and needs many of these people are the generation of trophies and So when there is no pat on the back when there's no client that is coming out of there saying great job We have to cover that we have to take care of that and so, you know, maybe it's Monday morning meetings We're covering breakfast or we're not even doing the breakfast in-house anymore We've kind of pivoted to here's a pizza take it home your family because the need isn't with us and the satisfaction We don't need to see it. We just want them to feel it and for us right now. It's realizing that it's with their family So we're giving them things to take home to their family. So the safety is there Yeah, I I like that. I haven't heard anybody really speak to that piece and I haven't really thought a lot about that piece either that they are feeling Just unsafe out in the world in the place where they need to feel safe is at home with their families I like that. Hey Liz. Good to see you here What does Liz say? Daycare co-op for the employees to help one another with daycare in school time for work in school and time with kids Takes a village weekly veggies box from local farmers farm to table Yeah, are these all things that you're doing Liz that sounds awesome Yeah, I love that too Yeah, really really great, you know and a lot of times people think this stuff doesn't matter or That that people don't care or that you're gonna create people that are entitled It will be okay. That's stuff that your programs that you're working on awesome Yeah, and that especially that entitled piece, you know, I hear that a lot now That they they'll they'll start expecting it and then they they don't appreciate it And I wanted to speak to that just a little bit because I know you and I are on the same page So at after 90 days of seeing in policy they get a week, so they're still earning it So they can earn four weeks in addition to holidays that we pay but the extra week We still expect them to show up and do a great job And is that is that paid time off or is that unpaid time off? It's paid That's paid. Woof that that that's big. I can see that and that's every quarter So they're actually getting four quarters on top of holidays. I mean four weeks on top of holidays Yes, so they're they're basically getting five weeks per year for We're spending trying to find people, you know stuck in the previous world. It's it'll pay for itself easily Yeah, how long have you been using this program and what are you finding so far? Two months and we're getting we're getting closer to being fully staffed again Nice. All right, so People are starting to to get the the feeling again. Yeah, so Yeah, and so, you know, it always does come back there to you know, the feelings the only thing the only caveat to Showing people self-esteem and this is it shouldn't be a bad thing But sometimes my office stuff is like oh it happened again But when you build self-esteem with people and you show them that you care They start to learn to do it on their own or they see where they're missing out in life Or they have no time for their family and they understand so they might leave you For bigger and better things, but that's okay. That's kind of what we want We I feel very proud when they do that and our HR manager We greatly walked across the United States for our nonprofit this year and when they came to Myrtle Beach we went and we took our office staff with us and She had never been on vacation before ever and so it kind of just really opened her eyes up and she felt worthy for the first time and She quit a month later Kind of a mid-life crisis sort of thing But she was doing exactly what she wants and I'm so proud of her and we talk all the time and you know I send her, you know, I hope you're doing great things and my office was kind of like what just happened But I'm like, no, that's good. That's what we want. That means we we actually Succeeded and we brought them up into another level. That's what we want but I'm sure that While you want them to yes grow and and and gain the Self-esteem you don't expect that every time you do something nice for people that they're gonna churn in a month You're saying right? Oh, she's been employee for, you know, over three years great, you know Long devotee and it was just kind of an eye-opening experience that she had never had an opportunity to be a part of it before When you give people those experiences, you know, they're not always there sometimes they realize, you know What their real dreams are and that's a good thing And you know when that happens it'd be very easy to react negatively and say well, you know See if we ever take anybody else, you know on a trip, but by reacting in a positive way I assume everybody else from your organization sees that Yeah, absolutely if they come back they talk about it, you know, so it's it's a great word-of-mouth experience as well One of the other things that we did last year when all swimming pools were shut down Nobody's family could you know take their kid out our country club The pool was still open So we completely shut down our business and shut down the club so that they could bring Their families in and experience that so it's mostly experiences They they still want everything that we want. They still want freedom. They still want, you know To be able to do things that maybe we can do, you know, because we Have, you know spent 30 years getting to this level So showing them that it is possible and it is Something that we want them to experience too Really starts to build the trust as well Yeah, I love that Hey, hey Steph talk about I know you said that you are not able to do time in a bottle right now But can you talk a little bit about time in a bottle? I know a lot of people were like super intrigued by that Yeah, we we had we do some of it. Um, there are some people who feel comfortable with us And you know we explain and we understand that you know We know what we're doing in regards to covet and cleaning and safety and all of that So we're doing some of it, but just not to the level that we used to Um, we clean for families that are undergoing a life threatening illness for free We give them five cleans and we also have cleaned the Ronald McDonald house in the past, but it's not really an active Um thing right now. There's not really a whole lot of families.  Gracie walking across America was the pivot for this year Because we just Talk a little bit more about that because people don't even know who grace is right? Grace is my daughter, uh, and she has worked for us since she was, you know, three years old from folding towels to graduating from university in Nebraska and finally running our social media and public relations part so the walk across America was waiting awareness and continue raising funds without, um Making people sick or you know being in their face or you know, it was just a social media she would go live and talk and people would bin mo or New stations would broadcast them. It was a pretty fun experience And so Tell us what did she do? How far did she walk? It was more detail 300 miles, I believe they went from, uh, Huntington beach to myral beach california all the way And who is who you said they they her fiance. Yeah, they they walked all the way across. Um, and they Had so much fun and had such a great feeling doing it and really affected so many people that they're now Um converting a bus and they're going to do the same thing across the entire united states They're going to spend 30 days in each state and they're going to do the same thing for small nonprofits in each state Oh Wow. Yeah, so yeah Yeah, that's kind of a big undertaking right there too. Yeah, that's that's exciting. Yeah Well for the people that are on here so stuff you have a tendency to do things in a really big way Right, you don't tend to do stuff small Okay But but for the people that are you know on smart business moves a lot of times Uh, that they're feeling well not just the people on smart business moves a lot of people now are just feeling overwhelmed like I don't know what to do. I've got no Like I need I don't even know right. They're lost So hearing all of the things that you do while it's all like amazing Also, I think it sounds overwhelming for people. Do you have any ideas of smaller things that people might be able to do? Um, I feel overwhelmed as well. Don't don't You know get the smile it's all right there. We're all overwhelmed. There's a lot going on in the world Um, and you just have to take little bites at a time, you know every single day little little bits um Because everybody is so overwhelmed our staff if they miss a day and they're out of policy We will let them get that day back by going and providing service to someone. It doesn't matter They can go To the library and put in an hour somebody signs a form bring it back to us They can an hour back. Um, we just are trying to foster service. Um, we feel like service hearts is the meat of Who we are and it's what creates an awesome employee. And so we're constantly fostering service um Bringing food to a food bank if they have leftovers, you know, just send us a Take a selfie with the food bank person. Um, that's all we ask. Um, just little things like that um, we Stopped trying really hard to keep up with our clientele when we were under staff And we just shrunk it back and we kept our base And we didn't work till seven o'clock. We didn't Try and force anybody to work extra hours to keep up. Um, you know, we have these nice EIDL loans and such that we can use to keep us You know above water while we're allowing them a little bit of space Um, I I've never been in debt in my life Here I am Don't like it But it's also allowing me to give them a little bit of space And keep going because it'll it'll come around eventually. So just a little bit You don't ask your staff anymore than you would ask of yourself which Isn't said a lot because I asked myself to do far more than I would ever ask anybody to do. So yeah, so you're really careful with that You have to understand that you are not your employees Um, probably ask them to do about half of what you would do yourself Um, and just really kind of scale back and remember your why and find out what their why is That's really imperative So I do feel like that is a missing piece for a lot of people I think over the course of the last maybe five years We've gotten the message through to cleaning business owners that You really need to know what your core values are. You really need to have a mission statement Really need to be thinking about these things And now we've got everybody kind of on board with that now. It's like the next level is now You have to start thinking about what their core values are and what they care about and what's important to them At the same you won't work well together at all Yeah, you're just constantly button heads Yeah, or going in opposite directions, which is exactly the same thing, right? Yeah All right. So let me check in that. I just heard what you said because I think I love this idea So what you I think what you said is somebody misses a day of work That they're out or they miss a day of work. They miss eight hours of work that they can Go do something else that is not related to cleaning Something that maybe they feel passionate about some type of giving thing and they can still get paid for those hours That's what I paid for them. Um, they are getting their they're back in policy So let's say we have Six days off, you know in a quarter that they can miss without excuse and I think it's four six is high Um, and and they still want to earn that night that week of vacation that they get in 90 days But life through them some loop COVID, you know, whatever Whatever they can go volunteer hours Working at a dog park or you know, whatever it whatever makes them. Yeah, they can get that time back So they're not really punished for life being thrown in their way Men yet. So what? Because to be able to get the week off every quarter you have to be in compliance With your attendance policy, right? Okay. I missed that the first time around now. I got it Yeah, you have to hope so Yeah Okay, I get it. So they get to I was wondering I was gonna ask you about the financial aspect of how that work. I'm like As your idol Especially for someone who's never been in debt before Yeah So if I I'm allowed four days, but I miss a fifth day I can do some Volunteer work and get that fifth day back. Yes. No, it's still qualified So do I do like eight hours of uh, like Whatever amount of time that you missed on that day So if you missed a half a day, then maybe it's you know, four hours at reading books to kids in school or You know visiting a nursing home or you know, whatever in our community where the volunteer work is there's always lots Cool. Yeah You're muted, Liz So you guys can't hear me coughing, but you're talking either, right? It's a benefit, tom. It's a benefit I'm gonna guess how do they prove what they did to volunteer? A selfie a piece of paper or something signed by a supervisor at the area so basically what she's saying is that However, you want to they're really flexible and they're just throwing it out there. That's what they want Yeah, we're building trust I said we're building trust too.  Yeah might Okay, um, I I like that giving people a way to earn back their time I think that is an idea that a lot of people have tried and and not done well But I think the building Trust factor tied to it can can be like a game changer right there. Absolutely. Time is the currency this year Yeah, oh boy. Yeah time is that's that's a good good saying right there Time is their currency, right? Yeah and how are things there in iowa stuff with um Minimum wage and that type of stuff. Are you guys dealing with any of the struggles that? Well, I I you know when this happened a long time ago. I kind of had it got feeling on where we were going to end up. Um, and so When it became in my mind something that wasn't going to ever go away We just pivoted right away. Um, we are one of the few people that have And so in that regards, you know, we're getting more applicants We're getting applicants of people that just blows my mind Just because you know people are still stuck. There are businesses who are absolutely Being super stubborn about it, which I don't quite understand where their long-term thinking is in that aspect um, and so It's working really well for us We certainly had to raise our prices significantly Our clients didn't like it at all, but now it's nobody even It's not a big deal at all The other thing that we're running right now is the biggest thing and the biggest draw that is sending employees to us is the vaccine mandates And they don't Want to be vaccinated. Uh, some of these people and so we have nurses. We have ca's we have Housekeepers at hospitals. Um, we have a lot of people from hospitals applying So, yeah, we're we're getting that as well. We we have had medical medical people Yeah, yeah, not something they want. Um, but You know, it is what it is right now yeah Steph can you talk a little bit about You said you had to raise prices significantly and I know a lot of people are afraid of that but part of what we're all running into right now is We're having to pay more, right? We're having to pay more money And so we have to charge more. How much have you raised prices over what time frame? Can you talk about that? We did it right away. Um, we are almost 57 dollars per man hour Um, and we just went through our client list and we cleaned out anybody and everybody right away that wasn't profitable Um clients that didn't want to pay it went away, but There are so many businesses that don't exist anymore that we're not even advertising it. We really we can't keep up with the demand for service So we're not taking many one-time cleans right now. We're really just we're trying to just You know maintain our current clients right now. Um when Those one-time cleans that we were taking Uh, we're filling those in with new ongoing services. We're just trying to build our base right now because we feel like that is Our safety mechanism for the future um, so One-time cleans are only if somebody cancels we have a waiting list for those. Um, but we're we're just really working on our base our core Yeah, I I know everybody has pretty much a waiting list these days Yeah, we're by about 20 employees. So Um, you know, we used to do a pretty significant amount of one-time cleans, you know, so I miss I miss that revenue but Um, as long as we you know are still here next year or right now. I'm okay. So We'll get there So it sounds like even you are struggling to bring on new employees even with these very generous Uh terms, right? I mean gosh five paid weeks We we have we have a company here locally not a cleaning company, but um another company here locally and I just saw their ad yesterday tim was reading it to me and they Earned four weeks paid vacation and they they begin earning it 30 days in They get a $1,500 signing bonus signing bonus So $1,500 to sign and month in they Are eligible for their first week of paid vacation What else? Uh, I I can't remember those are the two that really there were a bunch of things though Those are the two that really stood out to me with like Apply for a job and It's in the ad that if you apply for a job You will be hired on the spot.  You won't have to wait for Someone to get back to you and do all these different tests and stuff. I was like, wow Like my staff are not intrinsically motivated by money Uh, and we offered them $1,500 per new employee You know, we wanted them to word of mouth and not one not one So they're they're just not motivated by money. So we're we're trying other things It's not common in this industry to have people that are motivated by money. That's just I mean if they're motivated by money, there's lots better jobs to get So, uh, it's not not difficult to find people who are motivated by money Looks like robin has a couple of questions here Do you have an hr person on staff or do you use a consultant for hr activities? Both I use ethos hr online Is a company and so there's a dedicated person our staff take during orientation Lots of tests and we've you know filter them in throughout the year as they see fit I have an hr person that makes sure that all that is implemented On staff and she's in charge of our hiring and our teams And you have been using them for I mean that is like a blast from the past hearing you say that At least a decade, right? At least a decade. Yeah, you've been using them. Yeah Yeah, yeah What's eap? That's what I'm wondering. I was hoping you would know I don't My brain is Oh, no, I was thinking of a pe. Oh I was like, oh, maybe that's what he means And he earned something potential Again ethos employee assistant programs No, um programs, so Well, nothing formal Yeah Employee assistant program Is my guess when I google it. That's what yeah, it is in our and he wrote But it's really nothing formal if it's something that they are going to use To help in our company will certainly help them with those things. Absolutely Do you have an example of an employee assistant program? Uh robin, were you looking at one or Any details there? Just i'm just curious Uh, well, what else can you talk to us about that mean you've had a long history? uh pertaining employees and you were a An a and absentee owner long before Anybody was talking about absentee owners in this industry Well, I started the company because my son had cancer and so it it was started by design so that I could be absent So and then, you know, I have a lot of autoimmune issues now So it's kind of funny how they say that I thought I started it for my son, but really it's It's very helpful for me now.  Yeah, uh robin. Are you talking about things like telemedicine teledoc those types of things? I know that they deal with that I'm just curious What kind of employee assistant programs you might be talking about Um, if I was Has a dedicated line where any employee can call in if they have any issues That is an assistance that we have with them So they will then reach out to us and let us know that we have an issue that we need to talk about Drugs family issues depression. Absolutely. Um, that is definitely something that we foster My mom is a nurse practitioner and lots of You know connections in in that world and so we tend to know what resources to use and who to connect them with um, so Making sure that they are mentally strong is something that we really absolutely focus on and if we sense that or See it, you know, we'll privately reach out and give them resources that we're aware of So that's one way that we do help and that is something that we absolutely have offered throughout this last 18 months It's been a hard year for many staff Yeah, yeah, yeah, it has really been a hard year. Yeah And people are still struggling. Uh, I know we are struggling with people. Um, sending the kids back to school Yeah, they're like they've had the kids home all this time now and now they're nervous about Sending them off to school again. Two of our schools never shut down. Um, all of our private schools didn't shut down So, um for us, that's not a big deal. Um, there's only two schools that offer a split You could do in in class for some and at home for some so that really hasn't been a big thing. Most of our Staff are cheering that kids are back in school I know I am Going back to school It's making everything a lot easier for the employees for sure Like at least for being able to come to work Well, it's such a huge thing for us to um, you know, when the drill hit, you know, a couple of them just weren't able to function We didn't have electricity for four weeks and you know, buildings were destroyed everywhere So it's it's been a little bit more challenging just than just the covid for us here in cedar happens And when did that happen? Last august we're still rebuilding We lost our building You lost your building? Yep I didn't know that Yep, hope all of us didn't know that On friday, I had this weird gut feeling that I just I told amy. I said our staff is tired Um, I think we should take monday off. I'm being there's something whispering in my ear telling us to shut down So we did we were closed on monday and we lost our roof It would have been a really scary horrible thing for us so Wow, how crazy Yeah, trust you guys. Oh, wow Yeah, I hadn't heard of that or heard about that. That's crazy What time of day did that strike it was on a monday like during normally? Yeah, it felt like a block and it lasted for almost an hour 40 190 mile we had cat cat four in some places inland hurricane With no warning Yeah, all of our teams would have been on the road. It would have been horrible Yeah, oh my gosh. So, yeah, it's scary. Wow crazy. Talk about feeling blessed right there, huh? Oh, totally. And yeah, amy was upset with me because she had to reschedule those houses last minute. You know how that goes She's like you're crazy Um, but Monday she was like, thank you. Thank you You know, she went home over the weekend and told her whole family that I don't know what is wrong with stuff. She's crazy And then on monday, they're like, wow Yeah Yeah, I think Yeah, no kidding All right, what do we got here? Liz co-op homeschooling set up a classroom at the office get local day care providers To set it at the office and get a college student or a teacher for the off classroom You know, um my former career. I was a director of a preschool with 86 kids Um, I be careful what you wish for there So I did a co-op here Uh, I don't know how many years ago many many years ago now um lasted 10 months And I would not do it again. I would not recommend it. It was Oh another level It was and the legalities and the insurance is really expensive And just uh, the gist was ridiculous Yeah, the logistics were crazy depending on their age. Uh, you have to feed them certain foods There's just there's a lot that goes into running that kind of thing. So And we were trying to do we were trying to do it kind of under the Under the Yeah under the radar and just we're having like anybody with kids Could could join the co-op and then you had to work in the co-op.  So you were donating your time I thought it was a great idea and actually it did it didn't work at all for the first two months Worked great for like the next six months. And then wow Well, I guess we ran it for a little bit longer than that and then it was just a A train a just a suck of energy and time and resources I would not Not the way we did it anyway So is this a co-op that was for for everybody that worked in in in your cleaning company or was it the broader community? No, just in our cleaning company It's just the people that worked for us They're like, you know, they had they had kids and Uh, you think that you can get some drama between your employees every once in a while I find out that one of you one of your employees told another one of your employees kids That you just need to be quiet. That was that was bad enough y'all It did it did not go well Don't recommend that so That's why you get a local daycare provider to set up shop at your office their insurance their license I definitely like that a lot better And they have the experience they know how to manage a lot of that so Oh, oh, yeah, absolutely. I think that Times change list no no argument there And I have done so many things that I would never do again But I've done lots of things that I stopped started doing again. Tom. We we were just talking about that last week with um, you know, uh in-home estimates Like everybody did in-home estimates and then it was like That made no sense. Sorry guys. Somebody keeps trying to call me. I keep ignoring them. They don't care Um, I see robin's version here. Uh, you mentioned meeting the staff needs first before the programs are effective Um, am I talking specifically about compensation? Um, I can explain a little bit more about that You know talking about needs you have to first meet Any needs that they have uh, do they have kids who have autism? Do they need to pick up there? Did they need to get their kids on the bus at 9 a.m. Instead of having somebody else? Are they concerned about that? Do they need to pick them up at 3 o'clock? Um, how many kids are they picking up if you have them work past 5 30 in the daycare closes at 5 30 You need to make sure that you have them off in time to pick up their former. That's what matters most So needs i'm talking more about deep basic needs Knowing who their family is knowing Who their kids are knowing what obstacles that they are dealing with within their own lives and trying to set up your Staffing needs so that you can accommodate those things. So people always used to just assume that my business was massive Years ago always used to make me smile. Um, just because The first question is always how many employees you have and based on that people make assumptions without asking other things Well, we always try and stay way over saft so that we can accommodate these sorts of things. So if we have You know, there are so many needs that kids have these days And that's always going to be their first need is that they have to take care of the family And you have to understand where I came from and I started this business so that I could be home and I could be free with my kids and then my next employee had A child with autism and there wasn't a single job that would let them off in order to pick them up and go when it was needed And so if you're massively over staff, which I know it's hard to do right now Which is kind of why we are, you know, still scaling back because we still want to offer the same Situation even though we're under staff and so we can't take on we can't be as big as we were before Until we can accommodate that because we're not changing Taking care of the needs of our staff just because we're suffering that is our problem is not their problem And that makes sense And so we have to make sure that we can accommodate those things always and so you may have to Scale yourself down in order to take care of those kinds of needs. It's not a compensation thing It's a deep need for them to be able to take care of their family for us And so the the compensation Needs to go to that that question is you got to meet their base needs Um, based on masal's hierarchy of needs again there Robin I think you need to make sure that their basic needs can be met that they have food water a home a place to Dock rest security safety, right? They need to have enough money for that But they don't need to have More money than that once you get past this now they start needing more psychological needs now some people will still want money and will be motivated by money, but not Most of our employees some of them of course Right, but not most of our employees most of them It's it's not a compensation issue after that. So that's where the now Yes, they're a huge help and understanding what their why is We'll do dream meetings where we talk about it. And sometimes you have people who Won't put hardly anything on their dream board. They don't even know what to dream It you know, if your needs aren't met you can't get beyond food on the table And so it's something you know that you you can foster and teach but until you meet those needs They they don't know how to there's no dream yet They're still still focused on the basics Yeah, that's so true. You don't have time for Dreaming if you're still trying to figure out how to feed your kid, right? If you don't have food for tomorrow Covered today, right you're not you're not thinking past that And I work solos. I work both. I work teams and solos and we really do Um solos for the people who need to necessarily, you know start at nine get off at three solos really are our employees who need Something different than a regular schedule We'll accommodate that That's flexibility. Yeah, explain the dream further um Let's say you want to take your family to disney world And you're still making 15 dollars an hour. Um, you can dream about it, but there's no action that you can take To make that dream come true. And so you put that dream aside And it's something that you probably never will get to if you don't See yourself as someone who can work towards that. Um, so when we're talking about making sure that our staff can dream Uh, when we do meetings like we have a staff meeting coming up October 7th, and we bring in public speakers Um, the next meeting is uh, she's coming in talking about boundaries um, and so Explaining these sorts of things to them sometimes opens up their minds so that they can see that there is a possibility And I do have the potential and I can get to that But until you show them that a dream has to have action and that they are capable of the action Without taking care of the basic needs first. You can't get to them. Does that make sense? Does to me and tom I'm guessing it does to robin as well that robin. Yeah Yeah, so they It really is a matter of getting people to a place where um, their dreams can become reality So that it just doesn't have to remain all dream and they never feel like they can get to where they want, right? Dream is just a dream without a plan Yeah, he wants to know if the dreaming that you're talking about is an organized activity Yes We are way to keep it simple and succinct there Yeah, that's right there well And it's different every time depending on who your staff is, you know, you have to Be very aware of who they are and self aware So that activity can change based on who your staff is at the moment And we are Getting close to the top of the hour here. We have another couple of minutes. I'll share Oh boy, that's the middle of being redone. Do not judge right now. That's Okay, but you want to know more about Stephanie's company drop the Website in the uh in the chat And uh check out her facebook page too. You can be one of the 6,727 people to like Like that. That's a huge number And that's definitely a lot in social media Not a lot more than you used to yeah But number you used to do a ton in social media You're very creative. You always have fresh ideas So you're you're fun to Watch and I don't know. I think you're a great resource for the industry just because You do look at Common problems that everybody says Oh, this is terrible and this can't be addressed and this can't be fixed and you don't understand you're like Yeah, well, let's just think on that a little bit more There's always an answer there. There's an answer there. Yeah You do always talk about how there's always a way Is there anything else Stephanie you'd like for us to share with the audience today any other Websites are hanging there. We're going to get through this guys. You can one step at a time. Never ever ever Stop taking applicants interview daily Interview daily Seriously, yeah, stop. Yeah. Yeah always be recruiting Yeah, it's a muscle you want to keep uh keep exercising even when you don't think you need to Because you think you don't need to you're wrong That's exactly when The weight is going to feel it's heaviest Is when you think you don't need to exercise anymore. I promise you probably should double it. You think you don't need to 45 more pounds I need sorry y'all Yeah, yeah, thank you for having me guys. It was fun Well, thank you so much. I mean as always. I mean you've got, you know, wonderful information You got an awesome business you're You know you're giving us useful information to make our businesses more successful And to make a difference in people's lives at the same time. It really doesn't get any better than that, right? Well, I hope so I do hope that you guys heard that Steph really brings the heart To to her company and that that is a legitimate strategy For keeping people is bringing bringing your heart to theirs. Well, and you can't fake it You have to really care.  Um Thank you, sir. Bye. Bye. Bye all


Welcome back. It's sort of breakfast and plus if you have care and set for our first major conversation this morning on the structure and systems of the Nigerian Federalism I'm glad to say we have joining us for the second time in a couple of days You know as we're still in the celebratory mode of Nigeria's independent anniversary Olu Darae Arlene Laja. He is a CEO as a chief executive officer of Olu Darae Akin Laja Research and Devolving Company. I'm sorry Olu Darae Akin Laja. Thank you very much for joining us this morning on the breakfast and good morning to you Olu Darae Akin Laja Thank you. It's good to be here. It's good to be here again. It's good to see you again today. Fantastic. Fantastic. All right, when you hear, you know, structure and systems of Nigerian Federalism, what comes to mind? Basically, it's just how we are designed as a nation to function. So every time you hear the word structure or system it just simply means that a nation where a group of people, different ethnicities, different languages, different ideologies different and cultures. Okay, so how have they chosen to exist or cohabit together? How have they chosen to carry out their business, to carry out their individual endeavour, you know, based on their community? How have they chosen to carry that out? So that's what I think about every time I hear structure or systems. All right. And what is your thought on the current structure of Nigeria? I mean, we hear the word being bundled about federal restructuring, rather, especially as it concerns the forthcoming elections, politicians are being asked at you for restructuring or against restructuring. What are your thoughts on the the federation as it currently is structured? Okay, so when I would always like to answer it from my point of comfort, okay, my place of expertise. So if you're a consultant and you go to a business and they tell you the business is not making money, for instance, or the business is not, is not able to produce or is not growing based on their goals. The first question you want to ask is how are you structured? What is your mode of operation? How are you designed to function? So now look at Nigeria, looking at how diverse we are, looking at how complex we are as a country. It's important for different organs of the country, different states, different local governments, different communities, to be able to design how they intend to grow based on their realities. As it is in Nigeria today, we really don't have some form of context with respect to growth. So let's do a quick case study. If you look at a state like Lagos, Lagos is different in its design, different in its structure, different in its administration compared to a state like Enugu, for instance, in the southeast, or Edo in the south-south, or Quara, or Niger state in the north-central. Now, if you have these different forms of communities, different forms of existence, how then do you want to use a lateral strategy or a lateral policy in education, for instance, or in health, or in security, or in infrastructure, okay? You just give one view to lateral policy and you expect these different regions to administrate the same way, okay? Now, it will be difficult for you to administrate the same way because the structure is different, the population is different, the cultural behavior of the people in those communities are different. So all these things are very important in design and structure. So I think Nigeria must begin to see the need to allow each state grow according to its space, allow each state administer resources based on its context. As a development consultant, you must understand context, you must understand how policy must be placed into context based on many factors. So Nigeria is diverse and we must begin to consider how do we administer these resources or our policies based on the context of these different communities? In simple terms, that's what I call restructure. Restructure has nothing to do with greed, or maybe if somebody wanted to have allocation in a state country, no, we're different. How do you want to drive the lateral policy based on our differences? All right, interesting. You've talked about allocation of resources and resource control, let's call it that. But you've also talked about administrative structure. It could be argued that that current state of affairs of the structure of the country really does not stop states from coming up with their policies. I mean, we have state governments, if you're looking at maybe a health policy for instance, we have state ministries of health that are allowed to come up with their policies. Nobody stops them. We have commissioners of health. We have even when we talk about the Center for Disease Control and Epidemic Response, you have states, agencies for that.  If you look at maybe education sector, for instance, basic education, you have the local governments, secondary education, the state governments, they have their calendar, the governors are able to say, oh, this is when, or the governments are able to say, this is when the school session starts and when it ends. They run their own universities as well. I mean, federal government only looks at maybe federal universities and federal universities in the country. So, will it be fair to say that the states are not given ample space administratively to run their affairs? So, now, the question is, how are resources allocated to the state? For a state like Lagos, maybe Lagos is not a perfect example because Lagos is an economic hub. So, Lagos can generate its own resources independent of a federal location, for instance. Lagos state can go ahead to do certain things it needs to do without federal government impute. But the truth is, if you look at it critically, no matter what the state wants to do, who is going to finance it, who is going to finance what the state wants to do. So, on one hand, you say you are giving the state independence to drive its project and to drive its resources and to drive what it wants, but you are still going to allocate resources to that. And in the issue of politicking, you know, politicking will still play with whose party is in power, that determines the amount of access you can have to certain resources, do certain things you want to do. So, at the end of the day, states are still going to be put under the pressure of the federal system because how are we going to get resources to push this project that we want to do, even as states, for instance. The federal government will still have to allocate. And he who pays the bills or who plays the, how does that say, he who plays the Piper will always determine the tune. So, that's what I mean by, yes, by states really on paper, okay, you look like you're the ones allowed to administer it, but you still will have to go back to the federal government or go back to the federal government to get resources to do what you want to do at the state level. So, how much independence do you really have? Okay. So, is there a similarity between what you're talking about and the concept of devolution of powers? Yes, there is. So, this is the, this is the, this is the, will I call it, this is the fear or this is the greed, okay. So, I would then agree with you on this. Now, this is the greed. So, state governments feel they don't have a lot of independence from the federal government, then the state governments then say, why would the local governments not be independent from us when we are not really independent, okay. So, that's, that's where you still have that, that command and control kind of structure that still takes place. So, some state governors still control the local government structure, the one that like local governments have access to funds, they still want to be able to control what local government do and all that. So, we have to devolve power because you really cannot get development until you are able to bring it to its barest minimum. And we need to stop being political about this thing. Nobody's trying to say, oh, that's one person, because the every decision we make in Nigeria is usually political, okay. Someone is afraid of being absorbed, his authority being absorbed for instance. So, if a local government chairman can do things independent from a state governor without having to go to state governor, the state governor starts saying, okay, what if he stops supporting me, you know, all that political control is what is affecting how power can really be devolved. But whether we like it or not, local governments must be able to take charge of certain things, the roles, the schools, how much money do they really have to be able to get these things done. So, whether we like it or not, whether it's a discussion we want to have now or later, we must have to devolve power to the least to the bottom of administration of our country. Local government, words, councils, at every level, we must be able to do that across the world. All right. So, we're talking devolution of powers and restructuring. What in your opinion is a perfect structure for Nigeria to adopt? So, I'm sure scientists are always careful of perfection, or being perfectionist. So, we can reword that. What is the right structure in your opinion for Nigeria to adopt? What is the structure that can create some level of productivity and growth with respect to the way we are now? We should begin to, because I heard a very smart man, I admire a lot. He said something once. He said, how does the federal government want to tie a road in Binyin, for instance? And somebody in Abuja is determining how the road is going to look like. He's determining what kind of decisions to make with regards to that road. You don't understand that road. You might not even be from that area. You might not be able to understand the challenges of that road. So, I'm thinking that more power should be given to the local government, power should be given to states, and federal government should serve as a balance or serve as somebody who makes sure and ensures that these things are being carried out. So, which is the true federalism. And we have these things documented. We have the 1979, we have it documented. But like I said, people are just being political. People are afraid of maybe outliers rising. I don't know what local government you are from now, but maybe your local government begins to become productive. For instance, you begin to do crazy innovations. So much money begins to come to your local government, and your state governor begins to say, do you want to outshine me as a local government chairman? Am I not your governor? So maybe people are afraid of people growing independent of a command and control system. And that's why people do not want to, but we must allow local governments, everyone in the world, look at productive centers. The local governments have the strength going to the state government to administer and also to the federal government. So I think a bottom up approach is going to be a very good structure to be able to drive development because this top down structure we're talking about is really heavy and complex. Because people, so for instance, there's an allocation for a fund, for instance, for let's say environment, and the federal government is giving let's say a billion dollars to administer. How is that fund going to administer? Politics is going to come to play where a particular person is from, where the director of this is from, where the current person is from. So those funds will be disbursed based on some form of interest. So development will not be able to go across board like we intended to do. So we must find a way where we can take this bottom up approach from the local to the state and to the federal government. All right, interesting. You're talking about a bottom top approach from the local government to the state government and to the federal government. It could be argued, and I'm sorry I'm going to play the devil's advocate a bit more, because I'm looking for the perfect structure. So as it is now, you're looking more at the evolution of powers from the center. The current structure, we have the federal government and then the 36 states and the FCT. Do we need to see probably a rearrangement into clearing out some states and then forming, joining states and state to form probably maybe a larger province, or you look at probably the regional arrangement like we had in the past before the Civil War. Some point to the fact that the Civil War was a turning point when after the Civil War, in order to make sure that the regional agitations do not emerge again or erupt again, you know, they had to like do a divide and conquer, divide and rule strategy. So are you looking at getting back to something like that? We have a larger units that can stand on their own, because some have said the reason we need to have more power at the center in the current arrangement where the government handles the national resources on behalf of the states is for equal redistribution. The resources to the states that are not able to stand on two legs if you want to call it that. But the truth is if we want to be sincere with ourselves, there's no state in Nigeria that doesn't have the capacity to produce or generate growth at a level. We are just carried away maybe with the size, if you go to the United States of America for instance, there's no, you can compare the economy of California for instance with the economy of maybe Delaware or the economy of somewhere else. Because each state knows what its strength is and these are the things that drive migration. So if I'm in a particular state and I think that the state is not able to achieve or to be able to meet my ambitions and I go to another state. So I think for too long we have politicized this thing. Whether we like it or not, if you don't allow a person to think, if you don't allow a person to drive his own growth, how do you think the person can perform? You see and we're giving the excuses for things. So for instance, we don't even have to devolve powers because I see people who also argue for state, police and community policing. Now so if we're not even sure whether we can comfortably drive that with respect to trust issues or maybe culture and we're not sure whether people will not take advantage of that, let's even start economically. Let's start doing it economically. Let's allow states to manage a bigger percentage of their resources and send the percentage to the federal government. We can start from there. Then see how we build and grow at it. So I think the regional structure worked and as a consultant, if a strategy worked and brought some level of development, why did we have to change it? But of course, you have said why it was changed. But let's just go back to how it was before and let's monitor growth. And you see, you keep tweaking as we go. What happens in the western world? Sorry to interrupt, but that regional structure, some have argued there was also, it had this form of oppression. You look at some states where some regions where you had a minority tribes where they didn't have any say. Some of these minorities in court were the ones that were having the larger resources in terms of the emerging oil and gas sector at the time. And if you look at the war, especially the clamor for the session in New Republic in the southeast, I mean, I lived in Portugal for many years. I know what the locals feel about the civil war. The the the people are called Sabo by their brothers from the southeast, you know, in the old Eastern region because they took the side of the Nigerian forces and were able to, that I think, dealt a death knell to the agitation of the civil war from the southeast. So the history is well documented that the people from Portugal felt that they were being colonized by their brothers from the southeast, that everything about Portugal has been taken over. In fact, recently the governor of Imocerupu Zodima stared the hornet's nest again by saying that those from the southeast developed Podhakot and made it what it is. And if you go online, you see hundreds, thousands of comments, you know, Podhakot people don't have a very pleasant memory of three years before. You look at the languages in in in in the schools that were thought, most of the language that was thought was from the southeast and part of the country. Native languages were relegated. They felt that there was this takeover mentality they didn't have it say in in in their state. So how do we how do we overcome these these these, you know, challenges? Yes, if we're talking about if we're talking about okay, let's look at the the so-called geopolitical zones, which is actually doesn't exist anywhere in the constitution. It's a creation of political, you know, lingo, you know, people just say, there's nothing in the constitution that says geopolitical. It doesn't exist. We've just created that and now we are we are dividing ourselves by ourselves. If we were to go with those six geopolitical zones, even in the in the southwest or southeast or south-south, how is it going to run? Because disagreements amongst the states, even within states, there's a number north, a number central. Go to cross river state, northern central, district central. They are fighting as to who should be the governor of the state now. GDP has gone to pick Sunday or no. Okay, I'm just going to stop at that for for you. Sorry. So no, so I also think that at some point, we need to grow out of this because it is really something that's very limited. And as a researcher, I always tell people that the culture of the people, the social behavior of the people is more powerful than any development you want to bring, because how people think, how people behave, how people interpret things, you will be shocked. It's a limitation to whatever growth or productivity you want to bring. Now, the reason I went to a regional structure is because that has worked. But if you and I take a poll, for instance, we do some survey or some analysis, and this is where Nigeria must begin to get this. We can't do anything without research. We can't do anything without without understanding our environment. Go and ask how are these people feeling? What are their agitations? What are they are? What was creating this kind of mistrust? And that's what the former government of the Excellency Gologian and did the National Confirm. Now, whether you like it or not, people spoke against that. It was expensive. It was loud. But for the first time in a very long time, a group of people came together and said, the way we coexist does not suit us. This is how we think we should coexist. So I think we need to go back to that document, understudy it and read through it. Most of these things you are talking about might have been stated in those documents because people from most of these communities were represented. Whether they wanted people to represent them or not, people were represented. What were they asking for? Let's bring it up. Let's study it. Let's face our growth and development plan. We have to start to be a country that pays attention to research and data. This is what people spoke. What is the first thing we can implement? What is the second thing we can implement? Because you and I are sitting here and talking about things and you are giving me data. See what you just spoke about and said about Protacott. Many people don't know that this happens. So when you see the agitation and some people say we're not part of the agitation or people get angry, you forget that they are underlining factors today. So we must go back to a policy document. What is the document that we have come together based on an agreement? How do we want to implement this? How are we facing it to implement it? And let's stop politicizing this thing. It's a required agitation. So when I spoke about the region, it's because that's what has worked based on where we were before. But now this you have said now is a new reality. But there is a document and a confer that was done in 2014 that speaks to most of these agitations. Where is that document? The question also to ask is why didn't Jonathan implement it before leaving? I mean he had a golden chance. I'm sure you know. Anyway, some of the school of thought, and this is what I believe too, that if you restructure a country, it might be what is needed, but it will simply be restructuring Nigeria's problems. There are deeper seated issues, issues of this rent-seeking, welfare system, issues of corruption, issues of nepotism, lack of patriotism, and people saying, looking into the interests of their tribes more than to national interests. And you're simply just going to take the larger problems and localize them. So you agree with me that no matter what you think, there will still be problems. There will always be problems. Look at Ukraine and Russia. There will always be those problems of culture and the rest. But what advanced societies do is keep coming up with new ways based on study, based on research. Listen, whether you like it or not, as a consultant, if you have a big business and you're bundled it, it doesn't solve the problem, but it allows you deal with the problem at a smaller level, where you can call it results, where you can generate reference, where you can understand growth. Because what is too complex and too top-down heavy? I spoke about weekend problems. If you're trying to solve one problem and that problem will be created. And I agree with all that. But we have to break them down into smaller units. And we begin to deal with them as smaller units. If you break them down into smaller units, I feel you will be able to deal with them better, understand what the limitations are, understand what the problems are at a smaller unit. See, when you look at it from this helicopter view, it's really, really complex. You have five or one or something languages and four or something ethnic groups. How do you want to look at that from that view? I feel if you break them down into smaller units, the problems will not automatically go away. But what it has done is that it has been able to allow you see how you can deal with them based on the context of the locality where it exists. That way we can create, we can understand feedback, we can measure growth, we can measure the things where, because a lot of things we're talking about now. It's assumption. Because we're looking at it in a much more complex issue. What does that mean? That's the problem in the helicopter. Some people assume that the governors would be power drunk. I mean, if you look at the issue of state policing, for instance. Interesting. All right. We have to leave with that. We could go on and on and on.  Oludari Akinlaja, thank you so much. A very much for your time this morning. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Oludari Akinlaja is the chief executive officer of Oludari Akinlaja Research and Development Company Lagos. We have a discussion on payment gateway services. You want to find out what that is about. We'll be right back after this break. Stay with us.