We take word of mouth for granted in every business. We just figure hey if we run a good business people will talk about us But that's not the way people behave Hello intelligent beings of this marvellous planet. Welcome to the 42 courses podcast and thanks for listening Jay bear is a marketing customer experience and customer service keynote speaker He's a New York Times best-selling author of six books an internet pioneer a seventh generation entrepreneur and the founder of five multimillion-dollar companies He's funny factual and fantastic. That's why in 27 years of marketing expertise Jay has worked with more than 700 companies including 36 of the fortune 500 absolutely delighted to speak today to Jay bear welcome Jay So much fantastic to be here. It's a real pleasure for me to speak to you because I'm just a huge fan of your books and yeah It's really great So Jay for people who are not aware of what you do Tell us tell us what you do with your company convinced and convert. I'm the founder of Convince a converge is a boutique strategy consultancy that works with leading brands across the world on digital marketing Social media content marketing customer experience word of mouth It's a really fantastic organization. We're in our 13th year. I've actually been in digital since the very beginning since 1993 so I've seen lots and lots of things since the very beginning I'm the co-host of a podcast called social pros have written six books And I love tequila and plaid suits Now I've seen you on on stage on YouTube I mean some of those screens that you come out in front of J It's bigger than the Rolling Stones. I mean Use the keynotes that you do. Oh, you know some of those big events It is amazing what they spend on AV, right? You know like whatever they pay me is what like the cost is for butter, you know Like that the actual staging cost could be in the millions of dollars It is it is really something you're right. And is there obviously that's being closed on I presume for COVID Is there any of that coming again in the future? Yeah, actually, yeah, absolutely as we chat I have two in-person events coming up in the next week or so Both happen to be in in Florida. And so it's starting to trickle back in in the States. You have Events here or there. It's still a little a little challenging on on scheduling especially for the big events Where people are coming from multiple countries with multiple scenarios with regards to the pandemic, etc So I've spoken a lot to my agent and and and we feel like Come the fall right you get into sort of September October Time frame things will start to loosen up and get a little bit closer back to normal But I don't think whatever Personally, I don't think we'll ever have as many events for business as we had pre pandemic because some of the smaller events I think we realize like, you know, why we could just do it on zoom and it'll be fine Yeah Well, I hope to see you live in person one day need to so maybe Europe even yeah, I would love to come but I know you through your books really and There's a there's a theme a running theme. I think through them and that's empathy and caring It's a massive thing in your books And I wanted to ask is it that you are just a big softy teddy bear underneath your digital marketing experience Maybe maybe no, you know what? I think it is. I'm a seventh generation Entrepreneur my son's an eighth generation entrepreneur my family's been self-employed since the early 1800s and The number of times that I had a conversation with my father or my grandfather About the need to treat customers with dignity and respect and kindness and humanity Literally zero times never once because I am old enough to remember that that used to be the default setting Right that that's just how you did it. There wasn't even a name for you You know one walked around talking about empathy and business 30 years ago because of course you would be empathetic to customers They're giving you money but somewhere along the way I think we kind of lost our way and We find ourselves where we have been in the last decade or so which is in an era of empathy deficit Where it's no longer the default setting. It's not even commonplace anymore to treat customers with kindness and dignity and respect and humanity and That kind of makes me sad actually a little bit as a as a consumer myself But I will tell you and I talk about this in my books It is a tremendous business opportunity because when you treat customers Better than they expect and they expect very little right now if you treat them better than they expect that has Manifest economic wins for your organization, right? This isn't just wow. It feels good to treat customers. Well, yeah, it does But I wouldn't write a book about that. I'm a business consultant. I'm not a pastor, right? So so yeah, it feels good to treat customers Well, but it makes financial sense to treat customers well and and all of customer experience is about Expectation management right if you if you meet or fall short of the expectations You've lost if you exceed the expectations you have one that could be the whole book right there It's one page. Yeah, and As you say it makes financial sense and the examples in your books like yeah, of course Why wouldn't everybody do that? But um, how does how does this empathy thing as you say generations past? It wasn't really there the empathy. How does it play in the States now where dollar is king more so than perhaps in Europe? How does it play when you're selling this to big corporations like do you get pushback? Sure, of course because there there are scenarios where it takes more time-money effort to treat customers Well, then it does to treat them shabbily And and so if you start thinking about that on a per customer basis You have to prove out the business case that says all right Well, if we go to the trouble of treating them well that will impact their Net promoter score or or or lifetime value or some other kind of metric that the company cares about And if you scale that out across the enterprise Then it's not a cost. It's an investment and ultimately I talk about this in my book One of the biggest challenges we have in business today is that even now in 2021 customer service Is still treated most often as a cost not as an investment And and that's just like a fundamental challenge with how business thinks about that part of the relationship So Jay that leads very nicely on to my first Interaction with you, which was tort triggers, which is I absolutely love this book. It's a quake book for me split the ground open fantastic examples of how to do business and marketing Now I think I saw it first in an airport because I saw the llamas on the cover its own tort trigger It's so well researched. There's so many great examples. How long did it take you to write this book? It's it I wrote it with my good friend Daniel lemon who used to lead the strategy team at Convince and convert so it definitely is a joint project that made it a lot easier to have both of us working on it And we kind of split up Sections of the book and research and things like that. I actually had coined the term talk triggers several years before in a series of blog posts that I wrote for the convincing convert site And and then sort of fleshed it out into a into a full book. So once Daniel and I decided to all right, we should write this book And then we wrote and it was probably six months. Maybe a little less To to kind of put it all together, but You're right when I when I create books to me Obviously you got to have a point to the book and sort of a what advice are you giving and why does anybody care? But but to me it's all about the examples, right? It's all about the case studies and and one of the things I really work hard on in fact You might appreciate this I literally have a grid that I use And it says okay big company small company b2b b2c us global Right and I sort of try to play bingo and and and check all those boxes because I don't want a reader to say well I've already heard this one. It's about starbucks or apple or some other kind of globally famous company or This one isn't relevant because I don't live in america or this one isn't relevant because I'm a small company I never want a reader to be able to say that so I literally have to throw out some good stories to to pull in other stories from Sort of a different dynamic so that nobody feels like the book isn't for them Yeah and Actually, I was speaking to two other authors Recently on this podcast and speaking about how they actually started the process and interestingly Simon Lancaster was saying that the the really important thing is to get the title And the subtitle and the back cover. That's how he starts it and approaches the publishers. Is that what is that your method? um No, not really For me, I I start with A speech actually I Write books quite a bit differently than most people so I will first write A keynote speech a 60 minute speech Um in talk triggers case about word of mouth and the power of word of mouth And then I'll go out and I will deliver that speech 40 times to an audience And each time I'm including new examples and then I see what the audience reaction is to different examples I'm changing the structure of the talk a little bit Working on the mental model the framework the mnemonics things like that Uh, and then after I've done it 40 times or so Then if it goes well, then I turn it into a book So I always start with a speech and then make it a book Which is why it's a little faster to do that for Daniel and I to take talk triggers, which is already Uh, you know a speech that I've been giving and turn it into a book as opposed to doing it from scratch I find that you end up with a book that has a really strong narrative flow Because it was born from a narrative, right? It was born from a speech that has a beginning a middle and an end So that's just the way I do it Well, it's very very successful Now the Favorite examples in the book. I mean, it's difficult to name some favorites because there are so many and they're so great Some some of mine are the dentist surgeon who calls before because that's just a Glenn Gorham And he's never been, uh, sued litigated. I mean that's just incredible, isn't it because uh, so many people are In the medical industry, uh, of victims of uh, you know litigation and stuff Holiday world which I know is close to your heart because it's close to your home And uh with their free drinks, which is so counter-intuitive and so brave and um And I think skips burger with the Joker in the pack, which is just amazing Would you would you like to talk about any of those or even you're happy to I can I can touch on all of those You know, you know, we talk about empathy being important and I think dr. Gorab is a good example of that He's uh, I just met him. I gave I talked about this idea of doing the speech first So I did the talk trigger speech to a dentist's conference And he came up to me afterwards and hey, I think I already have a talk trigger I'm like, well, that would be amazing and somewhat unprecedented because you're a dentist Uh, and he told me the story. I was like, yeah, that's amazing and then I ended up including it in the book and so he, um operates in in sort of in new york, uh, new jersey, connecticut that sort of part of the us where it's very, um densely populated There's 400 or so Other dental surgeons that do the exact same thing, right? It's not like somebody's got a secret sauce Like he does the exact same thing. They all do the exact same thing. They all charge basically the same amount of money Uh, there really is no advantage other than I guess Proximity, I mean most people pick an oral surgeon based on how far is it to my house Or how far is it to my place of business because I don't want to drive especially in in the traffic in that part of the us Well, he's got a totally different thing going on So every friday his office staff gives him a list of names and phone numbers and on saturday He just calls them from his cell phone. He's just like around the house or on a walk Hi, this is glenn. I'm your oral surgeon. I understand that you're coming to the office for the very first time next week Before you get here. Do you have any questions that I might answer? And people are dumbfounded, right? They're they're flabbergasted You know, if you've had an oral surgery procedure, right? You've had a wisdom tooth out or a root canal or something like that Um, it's possible that if you have a good surgeon, they'll call you afterwards Grant, how's it going? How's the pain man? Are you bleeding to death?  It's just it's simply not done But it should be done because glenn reports that that almost every patient Mentioned the phone call when they're in the chair. He's in their mouth I'm going for a call. I'm right And then every day somebody calls into the office to make an appointment and they say something along the lines of I have to drive way out of my way I have to pass up a bunch of other oral surgeons that are closer to my home But I want you to be my surgeon because you're the one who called my friend Shirley Before she ever came to the office. It's such a simple way To to turn something that people don't talk about like dental surgery Into something they do talk about and and that's the the key here, right? Is that is that we take word of mouth for granted in every business? We just figure hey if we run a good business people will talk about us But that's not the way people behave that is not how it works competency is important if you're not competent, you're not going to have a business But competency doesn't create conversations. We don't talk about things that are good We don't talk about things that meet our expectations. We only talk about things That are outside our frame of expectations and that's why being called by the dentist before you ever meet the dentist Is so outside your frame of reference that you're almost forced to tell other friends about it Yeah, and it's that it's that non-conformity that makes volunteer marketers out of your customs, isn't it? It is it is but I think it's important Brenda point out that this is not This is not about stunt, right? So there's a there's a there's a fine but incredibly important line between a word of mouth strategy Like dr. Gorab implies which which which pays benefits to his business every single day versus Kind of shock and awe and and kind of public relations stunts like let's go rent an elephant and put a logo on its flank That's not what we're talking about here and and people conflate those a lot They think that word of mouth equals a big spike in conversations And that's not what we're doing certainly not in the talk triggers book or the or the work that we do for clients It's about building a sustained level of conversation where your customers do become volunteer marketers And that doesn't require some sort of random silliness, right? It's it's just having a good strategy and staying with it And that's that great framework that you put in the book I'm not going to give it away because I want people to read the book but the four five six framework and Yeah, talk triggers calm. There's tons of free resources there including the framework So obviously Daniel and I would love for folks to buy the book But if you go to talk triggers calm, there's a tremendous amount of resources there, please they're yours for the taking And but the first things that in that framework is the remarkable relevant reasonable repeatable And that's what is so fantastically illustrated by holiday world by you, right?  They're a a amusement park theme park Has a combination water park and Kind of regular right, so they've got roller coasters and like water coasters. It's sort of a hybrid They've been around for decades and decades and decades family owned As you probably know, especially in the theme park business One of the ways they make a lot of money is on food and beverage Yeah, you'll charge you for a ticket for admittance, but you know, it's a 13 dollar, you know soda and and and you know $8 bottle of water and you know, it's it's expensive.  I don't know why you'd want to drink coffee in holiday world that you can I believe And it's completely free and and it saves Their customers so much money, but again, it is so Outside the frame of reference for what you would expect from a theme park That their guests talk about it all the time, right? If you if you look at the reviews for holiday world On trip advisor or google or anywhere else that you might find reviews for that kind of place They invariably mentioned the free drinks because it's of course you would say that and what's hilarious is They've spent, you know, I don't know Half a billion dollars on rides And the thing that people talk about is a free soft drink that actually has a cost To them Of like five cents, right that the actual cost Is not significant They forgo a lot of profit because they're not charging $13 for a drink But their estimation is we make it back and then some in the free word of mouth And and that's again, you've got to think about this as an investment Not as a cost Yeah, and the and skips bird and that one is so brave And and you speak in the book about like The reactions to that from oh, they hate everybody in the theme park industry hates holiday world Then you go to you go to disney or you know name your theme park And they're like, well, wait a second.  So well, these guys give away drinks and so they yeah, they're they're not they're not well liked By their theme park peers. That's for sure Skips is a really interesting story. Um So skip wall and his wife used to run A a regional chain of fast casual restaurants in northern california Decided they want to do their own thing entrepreneurial dream going to open our own restaurant. So they did And they it's a pretty simple concept, right? It's it's mostly burgers really good burgers But mostly burgers and it's counter service So no waiters or waitresses you order off a menu board and then they bring your food out to you When it is finished being prepared Well, they wanted uh people to to be able to do something while they were in line Because that kind of business always has a line at the front because you got to wait to order off the board Um, and so they wanted something to give you know something to do during the during the line And they thought about having televisions and other things as you know So he just decided on a whim.  It's not just wouldn't on tuesdays when it's slow It's every person every time now on average Skip told me that about four people ish for approximately a day win this game, but when they win They go nuts, right? They're calling their mom. They're crying. They're putting you know posts on instagram Like it's a whole thing right confetti cannon, whatever And and it propels so much word of mouth For the business and in fact they have this giant neon sign out front that says skips kitchen. It's the name of the restaurant But nobody in sacramento, california where it's based. They don't call it skips kitchen. Everybody calls it that joker restaurant Yeah, that's a pretty powerful word of mouth statement when nobody even knows the name It's the only know the name of your talk trigger It's just so clever and it's it's gamified and it's not even digital You know, everyone's so obsessed right fine digital experiences. So true So it's so simple and and it's one of the it's one of the examples and I have hundreds of examples now In fact, my talk triggers show my youtube show that The details talk triggers ideas has a bunch of different ones that aren't in the book And I've got lots more even since I stopped doing that show So I have literally hundreds of examples But but the one about skips when we just talked about is one that that I include in almost every presentation Because it's just so easy to see like why it works how it works.  I actually lead a lot of presentations with that one Because it it's just so so simple for the audience to understand What I mean and also what I don't mean. So I like that one a lot and These are ones that we've spoken about here just now are like small enterprises But there are there are other examples of the bigger corporates Absolutely. Yeah, there's definitely there's there's lots of big company examples. Although I will say That it is typically easier for small and medium-sized businesses to execute on a talk trigger because it does require some degree of bravery and courage and and big companies Feel like well, we don't need to do that. We can just win by spending more money on ads or or, you know Having a lower price or some other kind of weaponry And and so there's no doubt that that some of the best examples tend to skew smaller because it's just easier for them to do it Yeah and We're just conscious of time. I want to move on to even though I love talk triggers and could talk about it all day I want to move on to hug your haters as well, which is another book Absolutely filled with empathy like how to turn your Customer service into a competitor advantage is is kind of what it's about, right? Would you do you want to speak about the The disparity between companies who think that they have great customer service Who's you actually that was some research from bain that came out? and that said that that 80 percent of companies When you ask them say that they deliver superior customer service 8 percent of their customers agree and I think that really says it all about the state of customer service like You know businesses are like, well, what's the problem? Right and and customers are like, are you kidding me? It's nothing but problems Uh, and I'm having a couple of customer service challenges right now with some businesses and it's like man Too bad these guys don't know I wrote a whole book about this They'd probably be calling me back. They might be in the next book. Uh, it says It's kind of funny in that way You know and and one of the things I see all the time as a consultant is is companies will say well Jay, you know, this doesn't really apply to us because we don't get that many complaints And what I always have to remind them is nobody gets that many complaints, right? The the data show That for every 100 dissatisfied customers, okay They're already unhappy 100 unhappy customers only five will actually complain Five out of 100 the rest just stop giving you money and they and they talk about you behind your back So this idea that well, we don't get that many complaints. Therefore, everything is fine. It actually doesn't hold water Mathematically, you know, even the best companies and even the worst companies don't get that many complaints As a as a share of total customer volume So it's not a reliable metric to gauge how well you're actually doing and the fundamental premise of the talk figure's book is that Um, it's shocking even today How often customers have a question comment challenge complaint and they are ignored And this has happened to almost everybody at some point in their life, right? They have tried to communicate with a business and they've heard nothing but silence I'm experiencing this right now as I mentioned In 100 of the cases that makes you feel worse about the company not better Right, it's not like well. I'm sure glad they ignored me. I can't wait to give them more money Said nobody ever so this idea that that businesses should somehow Pick and choose or or let's only answer the most unhappy customers or or somehow try and sort customer contact by You know by any mechanism is is wrong And we did a tremendous amount of research in that book and found quite clearly that if you reply to a customer Even if you can't solve the problem, right?  So as a consultant, we find all the time circumstances where businesses said well What percentage of your customers do you actually reply to? 32 percent So the other 68 percent you're just like well, I guess they're gone We'll replace them with new customers through more advertising It's just a flawed way to run a business and and It's interesting that that book and the principles in that book, which is essentially Customer service is marketing. Yeah, I'd really hope that by now Would no longer be relevant and sadly it's as relevant as it's ever been And yeah, you say that so like that that overt five out of a hundred who are actually complaining This this is the the point that you're making that customer service is the new marketing because it's a spectator sport now Absolutely and more now than more in the last year than ever, right that that's so often our interactions with customers take place in public Whether it's twitter or facebook or instagram or or google reviews or any number of other places, you know, it used to be in the day Um customer had a complaint. It was phone or face to face or even a letter I remember writing complaint letters when I was younger. Uh, nobody does that anymore and so the the economic consequences of your customer service approach Transcend the economic value of the customer with whom you're interacting Because if you've got dozens or hundreds or maybe even thousands of other customers or prospective customers watching This play out, uh in social media or review site It's not just, you know, how much money are we going to win or lose from brand? It's how much money we're going to win or lose from brand and all of his friends, right? Which could be significant and so, uh, you are you are on stage In customer service in a way that you didn't used to be in Yet, um companies haven't fully I think still today in most cases funded customer service As if that were the case Yeah, you said you're saying the book when you respond you're actually not responding just to the person you're responding to The whole of the earth pretty much. Yeah, at least in theory You know, you don't know who's who's tuning into your twitter exchange or whatever the circumstances are Yeah, now like in tort triggers where you've got the uh, the great 456 in in hug your haters You've got these great mnemonics the the hours and the fears again I don't want to give those away, but just just because you you spoke about social media just now or review sites I think there's a really really interesting one for people to hear about which is the are in There's hours and fears and the are in fears is reply only twice Tell us the secret of that one.  Sorry. Um, what's wrong? It doesn't matter. What's wrong.  We'd love to talk to you about that phone email, etc They come back.  They've already expressed their intentions They don't want to interact Too often I find businesses Look at that kind of exchange wrong. They think they're gonna somehow turn this customer around or or win the engagement And they're not Again understanding that this is on record in many cases. It's public. It's on a public website You just want to demonstrate your values not necessarily to that customer because they may be too far gone But to everybody else who's watching this interaction, right?    Uh, what what's next for you in terms of book writing? Is there something in the album? You know, I I'm not certain. I've got a Uh a speech as I said, I always start with a speech that I've been giving for the last year or so Uh called the coveted customer experience Um, which is all about what customers care about disproportionately And the fact that customer experience doesn't actually exist It's just a nickname that that we've adopted that actually Is used to describe hundreds of different decisions that you make in your business every day So I've been I've been working on that and and that may become a book if I decided to write another one And then your future would probably be on that topic because it's it's sort of at that point where I've got it Polished and ready. Uh, I'm just not certain. I want to dive into the book writing phase. It's uh It takes a lot of time and a lot of energy and and you know, a lot of my friends who write books Kind of shut things down. They're like, all right, I'm gonna take three months and basically just write a book And I can't do that. I have too many other things to do. Uh, and so I end up writing books only nights and weekends and that's uh, that's a commitment For me and for my family that I'm not quite ready to make again just yet, but one of these days for sure Okay, well, I will certainly be reading it if it comes out. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that Can we can we finish with some uh a little bit left field questions some of course on questions? Um If marketing were a food What would that be for you? If marketing Were a food What food would it be? um probably Popcorn I would say uh, it is um Uh It's it can be fun Uh, it can be, uh noisy But it's not terribly nutritional And if marketing were a song If marketing were a I like these questions if marketing were a song um, I would go with um Don't stand so close to me by the police. Um, I sort of feel like Marketing gets harder and harder because audience attention becomes more and more fragmented And instead of trying to increase relevancy marketers tend to increase Volume and and I'm not sure that's a sound strategy. In fact, one of the most harrowing statistics I've discovered recently Uh, I believe this was it's either Gartner or Forrester apologies to them for not having it correct. Uh, found that in 2021 Projected a 40 percent increase in the total volume of marketing mentions Wow 40 percent.  It'd be great if I could get 40 more marketing messages That would be awesome. So Don't stand so close to me by the police. That's my answer. Okay Now I have to uh, give credit where credit's due I got these questions actually from Rob Stevenson Who is on the previous podcast who's a mental health campaign and has some great questions like this? Rob Stevenson from form score great guy And final question that I ask everybody. Um, you have to fight between a horse-sized duck Or 100 duck-sized horses, which you choose to fight and why? Okay, so it's a horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses Um, I always feel like Numbers gives you more strategic avenues, right? You can you can You know align your resources in different ways you can outflank A giant duck etc.  I'm gonna say 100 uh, duck-sized horses Okay Well, I mean if you just look at me just watch any nature documentary, right? And you see, you know a swarm of ants taking down a bird or something, right? I think I think the answer exists in nature Very good. Very good jay. Thank you so much for your time. I know you're super busy. Happy to do it. Take care yourself. Thanks jay. Bye What a voice he has right If you go to jbear.com, that's j a y and bear is spelled b A for alpha e for echo r for romeo dot com not like the bear in the woods You can sign up to his bi-weekly newsletter His consulting company you can find at convince and convert dot com and check out jay on his social pros podcast The talk triggers video show and the standing ovation podcast Thanks for listening. Until next time


One of the things that traditional Chinese medicine is world famous for is dealing with infertility and dysmenorrhea. Now Chinese medicine has a very long history of treating infertility, dysmenorrhea, all very successfully and it has one of the longest histories of treating these kinds of conditions. Now when you think about it, compared to in vitro, when I worked for an acupuncturist we had many female patients in their later 30s and they'd spent upwards of six figures on in vitro, multiple rounds of in vitro. And honestly the success rate compared to a lot of the studies done on Chinese medicine is much lower, which is very surprising to me because if that were the case wouldn't this be front page news? Now in this video I want to share some of the key patterns we typically see that show up in infertility. So maybe if this is something on your mind you can begin saying yeah that really resonates or that is that's exactly what I have going on or it isn't. Hey guys I'm Alex Hine author of the book Master of the Day, current doctoral student in classical or traditional Chinese medicine. Now in this video I want to share a couple of these key patterns that we tend to see in infertility. So there's not just one infertility in Chinese medicine and that's really what I think the hallmark of traditional Chinese medicine is, that this is the original functional or individualized medicine. So there can be four women, five women, all with infertility and yet the physician will diagnose them each as having a different unique cause of their infertility and their inability to conceive. So I'm going to break down some of these patterns now. So generally there are four or five key patterns that tend to show up with infertility. The first one is what's called a kidney deficiency pattern. The second one is what's called a blood deficiency pattern. The third is called retention of cold in the uterus pattern. And the fourth is called a phlegm or blood stagnation pattern. Now in the kidney deficiency pattern the key symptoms that are different are generally that there's irregular or scant menstruation with dark color, soreness of the back, weak legs or your knee pain, dizziness, tinnitus and the pulse is going to be very different from what you'd expect in other patterns as well. So if the kidney pattern is going to be most likely more urinary symptoms, more lower body symptoms including pain, more sexual or discharge related issues, so that's going to be a very distinct pattern of infertility. Now another one is what's called blood deficiency. And in this one there's very scant and light menstruation. The menstrual cycle is delayed, the complexion is very pale, overall pale, brittle nails, dry skin, dry hair, very weak brittle hair that breaks easily, overall weakness and fatigue, difficulty thinking or remembering things, dizziness and possibly palpitations. And this one again is more of like, it looks like a very classic thyroid picture in one sense. The third pattern is what's called retention of cold in the uterus. And this pattern shows delayed menstruation with very scanty and dark menses, cold pain in the lower abdomen, so it's called cold pain in Chinese medicine, but essentially pain in the abdomen, especially around the menstrual cycle. Cold body and limbs and overall preference for warmth, sometimes there's also soreness of the back and weakness of the legs. And generally urination is clear as opposed to being strong and being yellow. And the fourth pattern that's come in here is what's called phlegm and blood stagnation. Now what this looks like is having a late period with lots of clots and lots of mucus, that's very different from the other patterns, fullness in the chest and the hypochondrium, so around the ribs in the chest, fullness, stuffiness, symptoms like that, restlessness and irritability, even obesity, dizziness, palpation, thick lucaria, so thick sticky discharge. Again, this is a very different pattern from some of the other ones. And this is more related to phlegm or damp as well as a blood stagnation pattern. So all of these patterns are going to have very different treatment approaches. So for example, with the kidney deficiency pattern, you're probably going to be giving an herbal formula more related to treating that kidney deficiency as it's termed in Chinese medicine.  In the cold pattern, there's going to be lots of herbs that are warming and help the blood flow as well. And then in the final phlegm and blood pattern, there's going to be a lot more dealt with dealing with that phlegm. So each of these are very distinct and they all may result in infertility and there's obviously enumerous variations of these patterns. These are like the big picture overall patterns we tend to see quite a lot. So I hope that helps provide a little bit of insight on how infertility occurs in Chinese medicine. It's very different for each woman and that's not something you typically get from your normal physician. So depending on the skill and the training of the acupuncturist or Chinese medicine practitioner, they'd be able to parse out these symptoms for you and hopefully ask the right questions to figure out, okay, which of these patterns is it? And maybe it's a mixed pattern or there's something else going on. So I hope that helps. Before you go, I want you to leave a comment there below.  Comment there below. Now the best way to stay in touch is to grab my free guide on my website alexhine.com.com. It's how to add 10 years to your life with classical or traditional Chinese medicine. So if you want to learn more about herbs and natural healing and that kind of thing, that is the best way to stay in touch and you can also check out my last two videos right here and right here.


Live from San Francisco, celebrating 10 years of high tech coverage, it's theCUBE. Covering VMworld 2019, brought to you by VMware and it's ecosystem partners. Welcome back, we're here at VMworld 2019. You're watching theCUBE, it's our 10th year of coverage at the event. I'm Stu Miniman, my co-host this afternoon is Justin Warren and happy to welcome back to the program Bob Gaffari, who's the general manager of the Enterprise and Cloud Networking Division at Intel. Bob, welcome back. Great, great to be here, thank you. So it's interesting, I think back last year felt like every single show that I went to, there was an Intel executive up on the stage. We talked about the TikTok of the industry is something that drove things. So last year, a lot going on. Haven't seen Intel quite as much, but we know that means that you and your team aren't really busy, a lot of things going on here at VMworld, why don't you give us the updates since last we spoke? Well, so I think we have to just go back a little bit in terms of how Intel has been involved, in terms of really driving just hold this whole network transformation. I want to say it started about a decade ago when we were really focused on trying to go drive. A lot of the capabilities onto more of a standard architecture, right? In the past, people were encumbered by challenging architectures, using proprietary kind of network processors. We were able to bring this together Intel architecture. We open source DPDK, which is really this fast packet processing library that we basically enabled the industry on. And with that, there's basically been this, I want to say this revolution in terms of how networking has come together. And so what we've seen since last year is how NSX, VMworld NSX itself has really grown up and be able to sort of get to these newer, interesting usage models. And so for us, what really gets us excited is being really involved with enabling hybrid cloud, multi-cloud from a network perspective. And that's just what really gets me out of bed every day. Yeah, and SDN has, I think, gone from that early days where it was all a bit scary and new and people weren't quite sure that they wanted to have that. Whereas now SDN is a thing. It's people are quite happy and comfortable to use it. It's now a very accepted way of doing networking. What have you noticed about that change where people have gone, well actually it's accepted now. What is that enabling customers to do with SDN? You know, I think what SDN really does, it gives a lot of the enterprise customers and cloud customers and a lot of others really the flexibility to be able to do what you really need to do much better. So if you can imagine, the first stage, we had to go get a lot of the functions virtualized, right? So we did that over the last 10 years, getting the functions virtualized, getting them optimized and making sure that the performance is there as a virtual function. The next step here is really trying to make sure that we can enable customers to be able to do what they need to in their micro services and be able to sort of do this in a micro segmented kind of view. And so, and also being in a scenario where you don't have to trombone the traffic off to be there, be it inspected or load balance and bringing that capability in a way in a distributed fashion to where the workloads need to happen. Yeah, well you mentioned micro segmentation there and that's something which has been spoken about again for quite a while. What's the state of play with micro segmentation? Because some customers have been trying to use it and found it a little bit tricky and so we're seeing lots of vendors who come in and say we'll help you manage that. What's the state of play with micro segmentation from your perspective? You know, I would say the way I would categorize it is micro segmentation has definitely become a very important usage model in terms of how to really contain policies within certain segments. So one, you're able to sort of get to a better way of managing your environments and you're also getting to a better way of containing any kind of threats.  To some extent it simplifies how you look at your environment, but you want to be able to do it in a fashion that helps ultimately the enterprises manage what they got on their environments. So Bob, one of the things that really struck me last year was the messaging that VMware had around networking, specifically around multi-cloud. It really harkened back to what I had heard from NYSERA pre-acquisition. And of course now VMware extending that with the VMware cloud in all of AWS, the partnerships they have also extended with Azure, with Google and on-premises with Dell EMC and others. And a big piece of that message is we're going to be able to have the same stack on both sides. You could kind of explain where does Intel fit in there? How does Intel's networking multi-cloud story dovetail with what we're hearing from VMware? Right, so I think the first thing is that Intel has been very involved in terms of being into any on-prem or public clouds. We get really involved there. What we really try to do and my team does is really focusing on the networking aspects. And so for us is to not only make sure that if you're running something on-prem, you get the best experience on-prem, but also the consistency of having a lot of the key instruction sets in any cloud and being able to sort of manage that holistically, especially when you're looking at the hybrid cloud environment, where you're basically trying to communicate between a certain cloud, it could be on-prem to another cloud that might be somewhere else, having the consistent way of managing through encrypted tunnels and making sure you're getting the kind of performance that you need to be able to go address that. I think these are the kind of things that we really focus on. And I think that for us, it's not only really bring this out and improving our instructions at architecture, so most recently what we did is we launched our second generation Xeon scalable processors that really came out in April. And so for us, that really takes it to the next level. We get some really interesting new instruction sets, things like AVX 512, we get also other kind of, more of like inference, analytic inference capabilities with things like deal boost that really brings things together so you can be more effective and efficient in terms of how you look at your workloads and what you need to do with them, making sure they're secure, but also giving you the insights that you need to be able to make the kind of decisions you want from an enterprise perspective. Steve, it always amuses me how much Intel is involved in all of this cloud stuff when it would support, we don't care about hardware anymore, it's a little terribly abstracted. Come on Justin, there is no cloud, it's just someone else's computer and there's a reasonable chance there's an Intel component or two in there, right? There's an Intel inside and the fact that Intel comes out and is continuing to talk to customers and coming to these kinds of events and showing that it's still relevant and that the technology that you're creating exactly how that ties into what's happening in cloud and in networking, I think it's an amazing credit to Intel's ability to adapt. Yeah, no, it's definitely been very exciting and so not only have we really been focused on how do we really expand our processor franchise, really getting the key capabilities we need so anytime, anywhere you're doing any kind of compute we want to make sure we're doing the best for our customers as possible. But in addition to that, what we've really done is we've been able to sort of round out our platform capabilities from a solution perspective to really bring out not only what has historically been a very strong franchise for us with what we call our foundational NICs or network interface cards, but we've been able to sort of expand that to be able to bring better capabilities no matter what you're trying to do. So let's say, for example, you are a customer that wants to be able to do something unique and you want to be able to sort of accelerate your own specific networking kind of functions or virtual switches. Well, we have the ability to do that and so with our Intel FPGA N3000 card as an example you get that capability to be able to expand what you would traditionally do from a platform level perspective. I want to talk about the edge but before we go there, there's a topic that's hot conversation here but one I've been talking to Intel for a lot of years that containerization in general and Kubernetes more specifically, where does that fit into your group? I mentioned it just because the last time Intel Developer Forum happened, a friend of mine gave a presentation that was working for Intel and just talking about how much was going on in that space and I made a comment back there this few years ago, we just spent over a decade fixing all the networking and storage issues with virtualization. Aren't we going to have to do that and again in containerization? Of course we know, we are having to solve some of those things again. So, we're working on the position. And for us, as you guys probably know, Intel has been really involved and one of the biggest things that sometimes is kept as a secret is that we're probably one of the bigger employers of software engineers and so Intel was really, really involved. We have a lot of people that started off with open source Linux and being involved there and of course containers is sort of an evolution to that and for us, really trying to be involved and making sure that we can sort of bring the capabilities that's needed from our instruction set architectures to be able to do containers, Kubernetes and being able to do this efficiently and effectively is definitely key to what we want to get done. All right, so that was a setup I wanted for edge computing because in a lot of these we have different architectures we're going to be doing when we're getting to the edge. Starting here at a little bit at that show, that this show, but it's an overall piece of that multi-cloud architecture that we're starting to build out. Where's your play? Well, so for us, I mean, the way that we look at it is we think it starts obviously with the network. So, when you are really trying to do things, oftentimes the edge is the closest to where the data is being realized. And so for us, making sure that we have the right kind of platform level capabilities that can take this data and then you have to do something with this data so there's a compute aspect to it and then you have this to be able to really ship it somewhere else, right? And so it's basically going to be to another cloud and might be to another microservice somewhere else. And so for us, what really sets the foundation is having a scalable set of platforms sort of this thick to thin kind of concept that sort of says, depending on what you're trying to do, you need to have something that can go and sort of mold into that. And so for us, having a scalable platform that can go from our bigger Xeons down to an atom processor is really important. And then also what we've been doing is working with the ecosystem to make sure that the network functions and software defined when and that we think sets a foundation to how you want to go and live in this multi-cloud world. But starting off at the edge, we want to make sure that that is really effective, efficient. We can basically provide this in a very efficient capability because there's some areas where this is going to be very price sensitive. So we think we have this awesome capability here with our atom processors. In fact, yesterday was really interesting. We had Tom Burns and Tom Gillis basically get on this stage and talk about how Dell and VMware are collaborating on this and this basically revolves around platforms that are based on the atom processor and that can scale up to our Xeon D processors and above that. So it depends on what you're trying to do and we've been working with our partners to make sure that these functions that start off with network are optimized and you can do as much compute or as little compute as you want on that edge. So of the customers who are starting to use Edge because it's kind of new, but it's also kind of not. It's been around for a while, we just used to call it other things like Robo. For the customers who are using Edge at the moment, what's the most surprising thing that you've seen them do with your technology? You know, what is interesting is we sometimes get surprised by this ourselves and so one of the things that some customers say, well, we really need low cost because all we really care about is just low level. We want to be able to deploy this into a cafe and we don't think you're going to be able to hit the price spots because they automatically think that all Intel does is big zions and we do a great job with that, but what is really interesting is that with our atom processors, we get to these very interesting solutions that are cost effective and yet it gives you the scalability of what you might want to do. And so for example, we've seen customers that say, yeah, we want to start off with this but networking is it, but you know what, we have this plan and this plan is like this, maybe it's a 90 day plan or it could be up to a two year plan in terms of how they want to bring more capabilities at that branch and want to be able to do more, they want to be able to compute more, they want to make decisions more, they want to be able to give their customers at that place a much better experience and we think we have a really good position here with our platforms and giving you this mix and match capability but easily be able to scale up and do what our customers want. Great, Bob, when I think about this space in general, we haven't talked about 5G yet and 5G, Wi-Fi 6, expected to have a significant impact on networking, we were talking a little bit about edge, it's going to play into that environment. What are you hearing from your customers? How much is that involved with the activities you're working through? You know, it's definitely really interesting. So 5G is definitely getting a lot of hype. We are very, very involved. We've been working on this for a while Intel is on the forefront of enabling 5G, especially as it relates to network infrastructure, one of the key focus areas for us and so the way that we sort of look at this on the edge is that a lot of enterprises, some of them are going to be leading, especially for cases where latency is really important. You want to be able to make decisions rather quickly, you want to be able to process it right there, 5G is going to be one of these interesting technologies that starts and we're already starting to see it and enable these newer use cases and so we're definitely really excited about that. We're already starting to see this end stadium experience being enabled by 5G, what we're doing on the edge, there's experiences like that that we really get excited when we're part of and we're really able to provide this model of enabling these new usage models. So for us, the connectivity aspects, 5G is important. Of course, we're going to see a lot of workloads used 4G as basically a predominant option and of course the standard wired connectivity of IP, MPLS and other things. Bob, I want to give you the final word. Obviously Intel, long partnership, as we know, current CEO, Pat Gelsinger spent a good part of his early part of his career at Intel. Give us the takeaway, Intel VMware from VMworld 2019.  We definitely value the partnership for us to start off with virtualized servers a while back. Now we've been working on networking and so for us, the partnership has been incredible. We continue to be able to work together. Of course, we continue to see challenges as we go into hybrid cloud, multi-cloud. We are very excited in terms of how we can take this to the next level and we're very happy to be great partners with them. All right, well, Bob Gaffari, thank you for giving us the Intel networking update.  For Justin Warren, I'm Stu Miniman. We'll be back for our continuing coverage of VMworld 2019. Thanks for watching theCUBE.


question. How much do you think an endangered bird should be? So I said no more than 4k. She said 10. So in Africa there's this bird called the weaver bird and a male builds a nest and the female comes and she tries to tear it apart, sometimes taking 10 minutes to rip it apart. She wants to see if he can provision her and pickier weaver birds have done better the females so we're just like birds man women want to see how much you can provision so welcome to the game.


Everybody forced here ripping 2022 immaculate baseball hobby and first off the line two box number 11 random team style You can always find the results right here late in sports cards calm. Thanks for joining. Good luck Not gonna be recapping into this one because it's a two box immaculate break. It's 12 cards Here we go hobby first it is terrible good referees have always decided like there's always been calls like that That's just part of it Batra like blue J's boba Shet 11 of 49 Everyone's gonna make mistakes just like players make players coach make mistakes Got Batra like now red Joey vato 16 out of 25. I don't think so Lane. I think we would have seen one by now somewhere I black rookie patch auto Mets Thomas Shabaki fit Shabuki Shabaki 15 of 37 Yeah, we have soccer and stock for personal.  So we'll have group breaks next week. We're getting you a link right now for personal soccer boxes Which would rip late late tonight probably like 1 a.m. Eastern time ish probably later than that right now Actually RPA Lars new bar 25 out of 25 acid a this is a sick card Cardinals If you order a box now guys is probably gonna go after 1 a.m. Eastern We're like pretty well after 1 a.m. So if you're looking for a personalized order pretty soon We are behind you got a few orders in there already to so Fodal time first off the line So pink first line patch Cubs Jason Hayward three of ten The game warren Jason Hayward Braves Jersey Ozzy Albie's 20 of 49 Player worn all these pink Patch auto rookie the first off the line here Louise heel Yankees look at that patch man That's gorgeous nice hit Yankees eight of eight Diamondbacks Ruby RPA drew LS 34 of 49 for color patch We're diamond back soft corner the bottom right there red Sox Jersey Auto Dustin Padrella 39 of 49 That is game warren. That's from for sure a st. Patrick's Day spring training Jersey 39 of 49 red Sox And on the back Braves patch auto Ian Anderson to have ten Braves with a nice box there player warrant Ian Anderson patch. That's gonna do it. Thanks again everybody We've got luminaries coming up


Item number SCP-068, Object Class, Safe. Special Containment Procedures. SCP-068 is to be kept away from any metals in an electrically resistant box, preferably made of polytetrafluoroethylene or Teflon and rubber. Set box is to be stored in Security Locker 26 at Site-11. Key is kept with Dr. R. R. and he requests for testing are to be redirected to him. Description. SCP-068 is a wire stick figure, 9.8 cm tall, made of an unknown metal. The figure is composed of a single wire looping back to the center. The wire itself appears to have been bent numerous times in multiple places. When an electric current is introduced to SCP-068, it becomes animate, moving about on its own. SCP-068's joints are where normal human beings would be. Once activated, SCP-068 begins to search for any metallic material. Once metal has been found, SCP-068 will begin to need it and pull a thin strip of metal off. SCP-068 will then construct another figure similar to itself. The newly created figure will begin to need the remaining metal alongside the original, creating new figures, which in turn produce more replicas. SCP-068 will move on to its next stage after one of two requirements are met. The first is when there are no more metals in range with enough mass to produce another figure. The other is when an upper limit of 102 replicas are created. When either of these events occur, all figures will converge at one location and begin forming themselves into as big a figure as possible. With a maximum of 102 mini-figures, the resulting figure reaches two meters in height. SCP-068 situates itself in the intersection of the torso, arms, and head. Gamma, beta, and theta waves begin emanating from SCP-068 after this union. SCP-068 will then begin to search for metals again, attempting to create more figures, only scaled up to whatever size 068 is currently at. These replicas do not emanate brainwaves like 068 does. If 068 is not at the maximum size limit after this, it will continue to create, and add more figures to itself, until the limit is reached. Once it has reached the second stage and there are no metals available from which to construct figures, SCP-068 returns to its dormant state after 4 minutes and 32 seconds of activity. Material surrounding the original figure must be melted away in order to retrieve 068. SCP-068 is capable of needing and manipulating any metal presented to it, regardless of properties. It also appears to be impervious to any attempts to damage or destroy it. Copies of SCP-068, however, have the same properties and vulnerabilities as whatever metal they were constructed from. SCP-068 can detect metals hidden from view through an as of yet unknown process. While 068 will not attempt to reach metals that are too difficult to get to, it will tear through anything that is soft enough for its limbs to penetrate. What it considers soft enough changes depending on what 068 is shaped from at the time. Addendum 068-A. A proposal has been made to use SCP-068 to dispose of dangerous metal-based SCPs. Addendum 068-B. The proposal to use 068 for disposal of dangerous metal-based SCPs has been denied. Seeing as how many, if not all, of our dangerous metal-based SCPs are also invincible, the only thing we would have is a bunch of invulnerable wire figures running about. Honestly, who even thought this up? Dr. W... Lesson complete. If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-067, the artist's pen, right now. Or for the complete course, watch this playlist.


This week on the anxious truth. We're talking about why everything can become an anxiety or a panic trigger We're back to our foundations of panic series. So let's get to it Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the anxious truth. This is episode number 287 of the podcast We are recording in what are recording in March of 2024 in case you are listening in the future I am Drew lince a lot a creator and host of the anxious truth This is the podcast where we talk about all things anxiety anxiety recovery and anxiety disorders So if you are new to this podcast or this YouTube channel and you've just sort of stumbled into the door Accidentally, I do hope that you find the content here helpful or applicable in some way And of course if you are a returning listener or viewer, welcome back Thank you for your continued support and I will do my best today to be as useful as I can for you For those who do not know me I am a therapist and training specializing in anxiety and anxiety disorders in the state of New York in the US of a I am an author on this topic having written three books on anxiety and anxiety recovery I am an educator and a psycho educator on this topic You can find all of my goodies on my website at the anxious truth calm And I am also a former sufferer of anxiety disorders and depression and even probably diagnosable OCD for many many years of my life on and off Before I managed to find my way through the recovery process which started this whole thing that we call the anxious truth So let's talk about why everything can become an anxiety or panic trigger for some people This is part of the series that I've been calling foundations of panic This is really geared toward people who are kind of new in the community Who are beginning to struggle with panic attacks or recurring panic attacks who didn't do not understand What's happening to them and need some basic guidance. I am certainly happy to provide that so if you are new welcome I hope you find this helpful if you are an older member of the community or if you have been around for quite some time This content might not necessarily be applicable to you Or maybe it's just a bit of a refresher in which case you might want to click out and come back for the next podcast episode But if you do hang around thank you. And again, I hope you get something out of it as well So let's talk about this thing where everything can suddenly become an anxiety trigger because it's real It happens to a lot of people and it can be incredibly confusing Remember that panic disorder we're talking about foundations of panic, but also most anxiety disorders because they're all kind of related to each other are based on developing a fear of the anxious state itself the Symptoms of panic anxious thoughts feelings of doom or danger. Those are the things that we begin to fear We begin to get anxious about being anxious. We begin to be afraid of feeling afraid And when we fear those things we may begin to stay on high alert all the time and by that I mean that you are constantly checking for signs of anxiety and panic When you are afraid of those things it would be natural for you to be on the lookout for them You will begin to go into detection mode all the time That means we start to dial in our focus We pay very very close attention to what our bodies are doing or what thoughts our minds are producing and what emotions We are experiencing that stuff becomes really important to us and Since we're paying very close attention to things that we would normally not be paying any attention to in a normal situation Every sensation every thought every emotion becomes amplified And if you're listening to this you might know what I'm talking about. So here's a few examples If you are in this anxious state and that's why you're listening to this podcast or watching this on YouTube Have you ever noticed that when you are in that state you begin to feel every like itch every twitch Every tingle every little subtle change of temperature in your body You noticed every noise your stomach makes you notice every pain that shoots up your back for just two seconds Everything becomes amplified or how about that thing where maybe you have a slight change in mood And that suddenly turns into an emergency because you've developed the fear that you might become depressed Even though you exhibit no signs of depression right now or that thing where you start to feel really excited because I don't know Maybe you're on a date with a partner that you really like and you're starting to feel excitement And suddenly that becomes an emergency because that sort of starts to feel like anxiety or panic this happens all the time it's actually quite common in our community and When we are in that hypersensitive mode because we're always on the lookout for things that might lead to or look like anxiety or panic any sensation any thought any experience can quickly become interpreted as danger by your overactive lizard brain Suddenly your list of anxiety and panic triggers starts to grow So in a typical example somebody may first have a panic attack say while driving the car and then they form the Association that they should not drive the car because that's where they panicked and then all of a sudden It's not just driving the car It's also maybe walking down the block because you had a panic attack then then maybe it's the supermarket So because you had a panic attack then and now you don't want to do that So over time you start to see that your list of panic triggers or places or big things begins to grow But also your list of little triggers begins to grow Because you're in a hypersensitive state you're in threat detection mode You're keenly focused on things a non anxious person is not even focused on at all and might not even notice But you not only notice them you feel them very intently and your hypersensitive brain on high alert Interprets them as signs of danger or threat And then one day you wake up and you discover that a smell that you didn't expect Or maybe there's a little breeze in the air and it gives you a quick chill Or maybe your partner didn't load the dishwasher correctly and that frustrates you or maybe you watch the sad story on the news Suddenly you find that these things quickly send you into the dreaded sort of anxiety or panic spiral use a turn spiral all the time You at that point will start to feel confused You'll be even more afraid you'll be frustrated and many people are tempted at that point to throw up their hands and Complain and proclaim that everything is now a trigger and they don't know why it's happening or how this happened to them And one of those common things that you hear all the time in the community is I don't know how I became this person I used to be afraid of nothing or very little and now I feel like I'm afraid of everything Because everything becomes a potential anxiety and panic trigger to an anxious person Who's in a disordered state where everything gets interpreted as danger? That is a tough place to wind up and that's why I'm recording this episode because I know it's really hard for people And this is when they start to experience this they start to form the opinion that like oh things are getting really bad now I'm getting worse. This is growing. This feels out of control But guess what? Even this doesn't mean that you're broken or like uniquely worse than everybody else or somehow beyond hope You're not I know it might start to feel this way when your list of panic and anxiety triggers gets longer and longer And suddenly you feel like you're afraid of everything But really you're afraid You're just afraid and you'd rather not be afraid like most human beings So now you become afraid of anything that might make you feel that afraid feeling Which is really kind of mind-blowing. It's quite circular. It's very meta, right? I'm afraid. I'd rather not be afraid. So now I've become afraid of anything that might make me feel afraid That's a tough spot to be in and it can make you feel sort of out of control or like You're being overwhelmed or your life is being taken away It's really hard to deal with that So my job here today is to try and explain why that happens and to let you know that it's actually quite common It's not an unusual situation at all. It's not just you it is not just you If you find that you are in this situation where your brain has now decided that everything and anything is a good reason to panic And go into that fight or flight mode Please know that it is not just you like I wanted to repeat that as often as I could It's actually the logical progression of disorder and anxiety in many many cases in this community And unfortunately it is what leads to a wider and wider range of avoidance And sort of early detection habits that are all designed to stay far away From those horrible triggers and the scary inner experiences they produce And the fact that I call them inner experiences is important because you have to remember this If you're in a situation where you feel like everything is a possible anxiety trigger for you or a panic trigger Remember this it's not the breeze. It's not the scent or the smell It's not the twitch in your left thigh. It's not suddenly feeling cold or getting into an argument with your best friend It's none of those things. It's actually really just one thing Your anxious brain has decided that any feeling that doesn't seem right or feels a bit too big might be air quotes too much And is then caused for alarm So do not worry or focus too much on trying to figure out every trigger or why everything is a trigger I just told you why do not sweat trying to engineer ways to avoid all of them one by one That becomes frustrating and becomes exhausting because it's really hard To start to engineer all of these like regular innocuous things that happen every single day in human life You will start to try to engineer them out of your life Which is a big ask and can lead to frustration and even more feelings of being disheartened or defeated And this is how you wind up stuck in a very small or highly restricted life So we need to remember that It's not all the triggers. It's one thing. I'm afraid of the way I will feel When those triggers appear and I interpret them as danger I am afraid they will start those internal experiences that I I want desperately to never have again It's one thing. It's not a million triggers. It's just a million ways to get to the same fear So if we can recognize that what we fear is the internal state Fear anxiety uncertainty discomfort distress Those are the things that the triggers create inside of you The internal experience is the thing not the event or input that causes it That's why it has nothing to do with avoiding cool breezes or only going out when it's warm enough When you're triggered, then it's time to practice that new reaction and relationship with that uncomfortable experience Rather than focusing on eliminating the triggers or trying to force your body and brain to not react Maybe you're trying to hack your brain or micromanager gut biome And by the way, you're welcome to make those choices But if you've been trying to do that and you're super confused and disheartened because that's not really working for you consistently or at all I urge you to consider that what if the way forward was to take this framework that i'm giving you today And maybe use it to inform a new way to react to how you feel when you're triggered Now let me sort of rephrase that again or repeat that Maybe what you can do is to consider that this sort of framework and explaining that long list of triggers this way Can be useful in helping you form a new way Not to relate to the triggers themselves But to react to how you feel when you encounter Those triggers that are growing in number every day Now we talk all the time in this podcast about learning how to drop safety behaviors and escape behaviors And safe people and crutches So that we can learn to fully face and practice Tolerating and navigating through those scary challenging distressing moments that we would call anxiety spikes or anxiety attacks or panic attacks There's a ton of content about that in the old podcast episodes In episodes of disordered the podcast i do with josh fletcher. That's at disordered.fm if you want to check it out It's all in the books that i've written. It's in my social media feeds There is a ton of content that i've produced that speak to this Thing where we learn to face that fear surrender to it Accept it float through it willfully tolerate tolerate it navigate it. I don't care what word resonates with you There's a ton of content about that So if you're listening to this and you're kind of new to this podcast Are you new to the whole sort of panic and distorted anxiety thing and the question in your head right now is Okay, cool. So how do I overcome? I would urge you to take advantage of all those resources There's a lot of content in here that talks about that But for today and for the purposes of this podcast episode or this, you know, youtube video Let's just try to leave here with a new intent Let's take let's leave here with the intent to take a few minutes or as much time as you need really To try to sit quietly and open yourself up to this way at looking at triggers And why your list of them is getting longer and longer You may be feeling or you may have felt like this was some kind of out of control process that you had no Agency over or no influence in that has slowly been taking over your life and ruining your life and making everything scary But maybe it's not Maybe it's an anxious brain being too overzealous when trying to keep you safe and alive Which in the end is the job that your brain, especially the lower part of your brain was designed to do Remember brains are not designed to keep us happy brains are designed to keep us safe and alive So what if this was all your brain? Just being very Over enthusiastic about that job and going off the rails a little bit because it's sort of learned some Bad habits that we have to correct So what if just take some time to consider that instead of trying to find a thousand different ways to avoid triggers Or engineer your life around them, which is really difficult Or 500 different solutions for micromanaging your body and your brain What if instead you just had to open yourself up to this one concept and work on learning a much simpler But admittedly Very difficult to execute plan And I say it's simpler because we don't target A thousand different triggers and try and fix them or avoid them. We don't try to target 62,000 You know little biochemical processes in our brains with 16 different supplements and and hacks and biohacks We focus on one concept and one fear That is much simpler. That's why I say it's simpler. Why is it difficult? Well, it's difficult because when we talk about turning to face that fear You know allowing stopping the fight allowing without resistance surrendering tolerating Willfully tolerating floating all of the words you hear all the time on this podcast and related content That's difficult because that requires courage and it requires repetition and it requires taking at some point sort of a Brave informed leap of faith. That's why it's a much simpler plan It lets you off the hook, but it is a hard plan to execute Whereas if you try to hang on to sort of a trigger model Of recovery, which is I identify my triggers and I get around them That would seem easier because it's trying to get you away from the thing that you fear But it's much more complicated because the list of triggers gets bigger and bigger and bigger And here's the really nasty part about that If you try to eliminate trigger after trigger after trigger You are training your overzealous brain to keep going and double down on that So it's very easy for somebody who is sort of using the fix the triggers model Or micromanage my body and brain model to become overwhelmed because just when I think I figured out one particular technique for avoiding this triggering Or I figured out one particular supplement or technique for like Getting my my breath to slow down Something else pops up and now I got to learn something else And that becomes super frustrating too and can lead people to believe I'm never going to get better There's no hope for me and that's kind of not true Based on my theoretical orientation to anxiety and anxiety disorders So if you leave this episode of this youtube video With maybe just a little bit more openness to what I'm talking about here and willing to like well Let me try and understand this a little bit more and what it would mean for my plan going forward If you had a simpler plan that let you off the hook Instead of treating yourself like you're broken and having to accommodate brokenness If you leave your get yourself off the hook a little bit and maybe look at it as a much simpler one problem Issue if you will I mean there are multiple problems, but you know the core is kind of this one thing How would your life change? It's going to change because you're going to have to start to do difficult things to move forward But it might change for the better because suddenly this is the only way to look at this I'm not broken. I'm not diseased. I don't have to somehow change my entire life and try to micromanage my body I might have to just recognize why everything's become a trigger Understand the common theme there is that I'm afraid of my own body and mind my internal experience And now I have to learn how to be less afraid of that through experience Not and I'll mention this even though I say it again and again in my books and the podcasts and everything else You cannot hear me say this and then just decide. Oh cool. I just won't be afraid anymore It doesn't work that way if it if it did everybody would get better much faster The change comes through different behaviors changing your behavior changing the way you act changing the way you react behaviorally based on this new framework that I'm giving you today about triggers Right and internal experiences But it's the different behavior, which is difficult because it requires courage and that informed, you know sort of leap of faith That is what makes the change So how would your life change if you took this explanation and tried to incorporate it a little bit? Anyway, that is what 18 and a half minutes on this topic. I think that's probably more than enough I don't want to confuse it too much Again, if you are new to this and the foundations of panic series is helping you then that's great I'm hope i'm able to continue it and I will in two weeks when the next episode comes out We're going to talk about how acceptance is a result not a precursor Think about that a little bit. I'll give you a little teaser come back and listen to that in two weeks If you are digging this podcast and you're listening to it on apple podcast or spotify Or some platform that lets you rate or review then maybe take a minute and leave a five star review Or take another minute and actually write a review because that helps more people find the podcast and then Sort of indirectly you're helping more people get the help that they want and need Of course, if you're listening to this or watching as a youtube video Subscribe to the channel hit the notification bell so you know when I upload new content Like the video. I think I said that and leave a comment. I will respond to you I will do my best to read all of them and respond to as many as I can So just a quick reminder as I do at the end of all of these podcasts that anything you can do today To change the way you are reacting to that triggered feeling No matter how small that change is maybe leaving one little crutch behind for a couple more seconds That counts they all add up. They all matter and in the end they get you where you want to be I know it's hard. I know it's scary, but I know you can do it. Thanks for listening. I'll see you on the next episode. Take care


We're asking callers today to comment on the news about the United States spying on leaders of allied countries, friendly countries, and the controversy about it, and there are reports today that the New York Times says that Obama may ban spying on heads of allied states. The Washington Post quotes officials who say that Obama was unaware that the U.S. spied on allied leaders. The Wall Street Journal says that the Senate is going to review spy programs. So Mohamed, what do you think of this story? I think of this story is a true story of everyone in the world looking for his, I think, looking for his, I don't remember this name. What do you mean like looking out for themselves or their self? Yes, from themselves and protect themselves from others. So I think all the world is spying on each other, all the whole country in the world is spying on each other. So you think then... Yes, themselves. So you think then that this is normal and... But this is a moral way, this is a moral. It's a political issue. And in the political, all saying free. You're saying you think it's immoral, but it's in a political issue, in a political realm, it's acceptable. I think simply that spying someone calling on the phone is not so really nice. Not very nice, you say. But do you think that this is normal in international relations for countries to spy on friends, not just adversaries? Do you think this happens all the time or do you think that countries don't, you know, don't do that? You're asking to me?  You say that someone spying the calls? On friends, not just on enemies. We had a discussion about this on Facebook today and some people thought that the United States should be punished for spying on authorities from other countries. And other people said no, they thought that this was okay and that this is normal. And then actually someone else said, well, who would punish the U.S.? So what do you think? Yeah, I think it's not normal to spy someone calling, so I think they should be punished. I know that the United States are really, really competitive and are really good when it comes to spying and technology. We can consider them when the first trench of technologic people in the world. This is what it calls the first country in the world. I don't see it as normal thing, but it should be banned from all over the countries, all countries. Because if a country starts doing this, all the countries are going to follow. And if this happens, we are going to live in such a disorganized and no trust in the world. I think we should all avoid these problems of spying and talk about privacy of people. It should be avoided, I think. I heard about that story that they have been spying different countries. What do you think of that? Were you surprised by the news or do you think it's wrong or is it right? What's your opinion? Sir, in my opinion it's wrong because it's their personal conversation and they are interfering with it. So it's not good to interfere in someone's personal matters conversation. So in my opinion it's not good and it's not fair. No, I am not surprised first of all. I think nowadays almost all people encounter a variety of problems in their daily lives. But humans can use these problems for their needs such as spying. Recently we heard a news, an American alliance like this phone spying. Recently we heard that they are phone spying in the German Chancellor and Marco. So it's a very harmful for us, it's a very sad news for us because I don't support personally the phone spying or something like that. It's kind of news personally. It's really embracing for us and also it's embracing for America as well. Germany is also a friendly country of America. They also spying on Marco's phone. In the European Union they also say in this brief they also think they are embracing about these situations. So personally I don't support these things.