Hey everyone, I'm Bianca Renee and you're watching Bianca Renee Today and today I made my very own DIY flaxseed hair gel. You guys, you're gonna love it. Believe it or not, the only thing that I have in my hair right now is this gel. Now I got today's recipe from Natural 85. You guys have to follow her channel if you don't already especially if you have type 4 hair. She has amazing natural hair videos that I know you guys are gonna love and she made a foolproof video on how to make this flaxseed gel. So I'll also put her video down below. So I tried her method and I'm happy to say that just like she promised, it came out perfect on the first try. The best thing about this DIY flaxseed gel besides the fact that it works amazing is that it's so easy to make. You literally only need a bag of flaxseeds. I got this at Ralph's. It was about four or five dollars and you want to just get the normal whole flaxseed. Now like ground, not roasted, not with any other flavors, just the straight up normal flaxseeds. And once you have your seeds, you just literally boil it in water and that's basically it. It's so easy. Alrighty, let's get started. So first we're going to get a small pan and add about two and a half cups of water or 600 milliliters of water. And then we're going to grab our flaxseed and we're going to use about one fourth cup. Pour that in there. Like so. And now we're going to turn the stove on medium heat and then just let that sizzle. Just to bubble up like this. Lift it and look for almost like a snot like consistency from the videos that I've seen. So this is still way too watery. So we're going to keep on letting it boil. Bubble bubble toilet trouble. So now after about 15 minutes, you'll see that it is a little bit thicker now. So what we're looking for is that drip right there. That's going to let us know that it's ready. Once your gel looks just about right, we're going to let it sit on the stove for about 40 minutes to an hour just so that it can cool down before we extract all the gel. Now at this point, it is good to use a nylon or pantyhose. In everyone else's videos on YouTube, everyone said it was so easy to find pantyhose for like 50 cents. I don't know where they went. I went to like five different stores could not find any pantyhose and when I did, it was like five, six dollars and I didn't want to buy six dollar tights to cut it up and then just use it as a strainer for my seeds. So I put on my thinking cap and actually went to Marshall. You can go to any shoe store and I just took those little like nylon socks, those little temporary socks that you put on when you try shoes and that worked just fine. I mean, it's not stealing. It's free.  And these little socks were free. My favorite press. So it's going to grab your nylon, whatever you decide to use, you're going to put it over your measuring cup and then pour all of the gel inside. Once you put all of your concoction inside the nylon, you're then going to squeeze out all of the gel. Yes, this does look really gross and slimy, but hey, do you want beautiful curls or not? The best part about this method is that we actually waited for all of the gel to cool down. That way we're not burning our hands, trying to remove the gel right off the stove. And once you're all finished, this is exactly how your flaxseed gel will look. Now this point, it's good to get some type of container. I got this one for 99 cents at Target. It was a little bit small. So as you can see, I was kind of struggling to get it all in there. So try to find a bottle with a larger opening if you can. But then we're just going to seal it and voila, our very own DIY hair gel. Alrighty, I now have my homemade flaxseed gel that has been sitting in my fridge. Luckily no one has used it as a sauce. And now I'm going to apply the gel to my hair. So my hair is currently damp, fresh out the shower. And I am going to apply this in at least two sections. Let's see how this gel turned out. It's very cold. There it is. A jiggly jelly texture. And I feel like that's the look we actually want. This kind of like gross snot looking stuff. So we're going to put it in our hair. Talk about natural ingredients. No sulfates, parabens, or silicone in this stuff. Get some more for the other side. A little bit on top, in the back, and underneath. Then you just rake and scratch, just like I do with any gel or hair product. I'm excited. All right, I think that's good. And I do like how it doesn't leave my hands feeling sticky at all. Like it just feels all natural. So now I'm going to let this air dry for a couple hours and we'll see how well it dries. Now, completely dry. Look at my curls. Julie, it works really well. I gotta zoom in. Let me get closer. Look how shiny and defined they are. It has just the right amount of hold to where it's not like hard, crunchy, but still enough hold to where I feel like it's going to look good even on like day two and day three. Look at this. Insane. DIY gel? Better? Now that you see how perfectly defined the curls dry, I'm now going to style it with my pick. Whatever. At least it's not flat. Okay, can we just talk about this for a second? My hair is so soft, so defined. It's shiny. It didn't give it too much shrinkage. It also didn't weigh it down. It's still very lightweight. I'm giving the volume that I want on day one. Dang. DIY is about to put people out of business. I'm going to continue to leave my flaxseed gel in the fridge just so it will last longer. I believe it's supposed to last at least a couple weeks before you have to make another one. I'm not exactly sure how you know when it's really gone bad because this is my first time using it. But if you have made flaxseed gel, please leave us a comment below and let us know how long you can keep your bottle of DIY gel before you have to make a new batch. I know I'm definitely going to be using this gel again, probably all week, just because I'm curious to see how I can refresh with it. So if you want to see that, make sure you follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat at MsBeyondGrenet so you could see how well this gel works throughout the week. If you enjoyed this video, make sure you give me a thumbs up and subscribe. And if you're planning on making your own, leave me a comment and let me know how your results were and how well it worked for your hair. I post two new videos every week. I post foundation reviews on Friday and curly hair videos on Sunday, so make sure you hit that bell so you don't miss any more of my videos. I will see you guys next time. Thanks for watching Beyond Grenet today.


The T2tile project is building an indefinitely scalable computational stack. Follow our progress here on T Tuesday Updates. Hey folks! The T Tuesday Update yesterday didn't happen. The reason it didn't is because I ended up making another video for the Dave Ackley channel instead. What's going to happen here is I'm going to take next Tuesday off again because I really kind of screwed up, right? The big computer programmer, I made the novice fence post error.  But that meant that I had only three weeks off and I needed an extra one because the A-Life paper deadline got moved two weeks so that the paper is due April 18th. I'm sorry, yeah March 18th, March 18th next week. So I'm going to take this week off otherwise I will be back not next week but the week after and then we'll pick up regular episodes again because things are going to start moving really fast. But in the meantime, take a look over on the Dave Ackley channel for flatten the curve. See you next week.


Well, come in. Good morning, sir. Good morning, sir. Mr. Nally. Mr. Nally, six years with the government, sir. We don't know this band, sir. Welcome back. She knows not now. Mr. Nally. Good morning, sir. Good morning, sir. Mr. Nally, six years with the government, sir. We don't know this band, sir. Welcome back. You see the press will come in and trade names. The names of the church are always just small. The names of the press are always just small. The names of the church are always just small. The names of the press are always just small. You know, the devistation here, right next door, nothing touched. They haven't even had a bounce. They're telling them, one family.  You got a cheer there. Oh, wait. Oh, and we've got to wake them up. This woman was in an emergency van. Her husband's gone. And it just literally sucked her right out of the car. I must have carried her clear out of the house. Oh, God. And he planned where she was. Her forces. The children the same way. And when he had to be just in shorts, he ran down to other people for help. They often would be clothing. He couldn't put it out on them because they called me. Have we got it? Don't worry on horseback. Do you know any Irish jokes with the President? Yes, but I'm not going to tell him. The Prime Minister? Any good jokes with the President? No, I don't know. I think they practically say very seriously. It's a very religious day. We might tell a joke or do they know. With the President's permission. Morning, T-shirt. Morning, sir. No, no, no. What is the meaning of St. Patrick's Day? It's the National Feast Day. St. Patrick is our national saint. On the 70th of March every year we celebrate his Feast Day. It's a religious occasion. St. Patrick came to Ireland in the year 432 and converted all the pagan Irish to Christianity. He's been very good Christians ever since. Most snakes, too. I also vanished the snakes from quite a considerable achievement. You're Irish, brother? You're Irish. On my father's side. Thanks, please. Thank you. The State Legislature is behind him. He asked me to come in front of the Legislative Council for a sizable program and turning back to the States programs and Apache Social Security that have been taken over recent decades by the federal government. Under our Constitution we feel those programs are always intended to be operated as a local state. And they're very enthused about what they're doing in the country. They want to do it. They're glad to get these powers back in the United States. Under follow-ups, too. Under follow-ups. Under follow-ups, too. That's very important. It's an amusement Irish dog sound that I love seeing in this one. And it's called Mara Anker. I live greatly in the heart of Vienna and in another part, in the major part of their lives, they are Mr. Frank Patrick. And they have a renown throughout Europe and our own country. They have recorded. If you're interested in hearing that again, I'm now grateful to them for being here and giving of their wonderful talent to us. I'm grateful that you sang this other song after Danny Boy because if you stopped on Danny Boy, I wouldn't have been able to talk to the audience here. But we're grateful to you and we're honored by you, President. Thank you so very much.


Now, I'm so excited for today's toolbox episode. I know we haven't done one in a while, and this is a topic that is so important, especially in light of today, many of us struggling to connect with one another. And I know, Michael, this is an experience that some of our students, even an X factor, recently had in going through the storytelling implementation session, and this problem presents itself over and over again when we try to relate with people. And that's people focus on facts and not the emotions. Yeah, that's what we what what the guys so discovered in the implementation session, like you said, you could see like eyes pop open after they realized this where just for our listeners, what we did in the workshop for X factor accelerator was that we did a small group with breakout rooms and we we had like 90 minutes to work on people's ability to give answers that are engaging. And what they did in the first round, I gave them the prompt, what did you do in the weekend? And they would say, well, I did, I got up at this time, and then I did this, and then I did this, and then I did this. And then I was like, OK, and now let's change this around. And at the end of the workshop, you could see like people watching the presentation with such an interest. They really wanted to hear how the story like what's coming out of the weekend story. And I'm really excited to cover some of those techniques here with with this toolbox up. I wanted to add to this, that speaking through emotions isn't something that we normally tend to do. In fact, there is not only are we running our own classes and implementation sessions and workshops at this, but I mean, there are college classes in communication and marketing where you have to learn to speak this way, because that is how we sell. And let's be honest, we're always selling.  And so to get better at your communication and be able to speak through emotion allows you to be not only a better salesman, a better leader, better strategist, somebody who who is able to bring others peak their interest and get them on board. So this is influence and persuasion as well. And that's just it. It's not about the data exchange. When it comes to connecting with someone, we have to connect beyond the data level and connect on that emotional level. Now, what I love about our clients is many of them come from highly analytical backgrounds, like myself as a scientist. I was trained to follow the data, not speak emotionally and not think about the emotions at work. So many of our clients come to us with this exact same frame of reference where most of their lives, they go into work and they analyze facts and information and they have to make critical decisions. But we don't do that when we're connecting with people, when we're trying to relate to one another. We can't be analyzing and hanging on every word. We have to look a layer deeper and find that emotional connection with that other person. And that's the best part about it. We all share a range of emotions. So when we can use emotions to illustrate a time in our life through story, we can engage those emotions and others and feel more connected. I also I don't want to take from anyone who does analytical work where they're putting together data that's incredibly important. But the story that you package the data into becomes what people gravitate towards. And the data only backs up the emotions that they feel from the story that's put together. So this is why both of these are incredibly important. And then if you're going to do anything, you want to make sure that the data and the logic is there. But the the emotional ties are there because I and this is something that I've said in all of our classes. Everybody is well aware of the logic and the data that is presented with a lot of ideas. For instance, everybody knows that smoking is bad for you. And if you ask everyone on the street that you see light up a cigarette and ask them, is that good for you? What do you think they're going to tell you? Well, no, no, not at all. Now, but if they know that it's bad for them, why is it so incredibly difficult for them to quit? Because they're not emotionally tied to the to the benefits of quitting. They have to get emotionally tied to the journey and everything else that comes with working through that addiction.  This is another thing. If you wanted to go to the gym or you wanted to start eating right, you better wrap it up in a great story so you can emotionally get engaged. I have such a vivid example of this playing out in my own life when I just started out as a public speaker. I was complete, a complete novice still. And there was this event I got invited to that was you both are going to love this. This was a rock concert with in between bands. They would bring up a speaker to talk. And this is what happened. So a band plays, everyone's dancing, everyone's drinking. And then a speaker like goes on stage and delivers like blah, blah, blah. And everyone turns their phone on and then it was my turn and the music stopped as like, OK, now it's my turn to go on stage. And I go on stage and I look in the audience and I get introduced as this is Michael is a speaker. He's been doing this, he's been doing that and all the phones come up. Like you could see people's faces being lit up by their smartphones and they turn around and the whispers start. And then I start my story. And after all the boring intro points, I go like, this is, you know, this is what happened to me. This is what this is what happened when I was a child. This is what what I learned. And this is how I felt. And this and the phones vanished, beer vanished. It got really quiet. Like people were dabbing at their eyes. They were like hugging each other and two minutes later, like the entire room was quiet. And that was because I switched from the data over to the emotion that I wanted to get across. It reminds me of back in my early scientific career, the importance of the story that goes along with those slides and the presentation that you're doing to present the data, the facts, the figures, the graphs. That is all important. But at the end of the day, we have to put it together in a story to convey those principles and that information to people for them to hold on to it. And that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about becoming memorable enough that someone feels connected to you. And I talked to so many guys and gals for this matter who are feeling disconnected right now, feeling like they have a lot of surface level relationships, feeling like they lack a depth of connection, people they could trust. And I know, Michael, we've talked about these facts and figures countless times with countless guests about how many of us right now are going through life not feeling connected, not feeling like we have those deep ties. And I trace a lot of it back to these initial conversations where we're not listening intently. We're only hanging on the data. Why? Because we're so concerned with how we're going to appear and what people are going to think about us. So we listen at the data level and then we try to relate at the data level and then we walk away from that conversation and being like, well, I don't know. Should I reach out to that person?  I can't wait to see this person again. And that's a fault of our own because we are being lazy when it comes to listening. We're so worried about ourselves. We're turning internally and focusing on what am I going to say next that we're not paying attention to that emotional part of the story. That's so key. And when you start listening to it in conversation with others, you start picking up on it in TV and in media and all these other places where emotion carries a story. Then all of a sudden, you can start adding it yourself into the interaction and change much like you saw in that implementation session exactly how you explain just your morning or how your day went. Yeah, exactly. I always like to explain it like this. Like if you need facts and data, you usually turn to Google or any other search engine. Now, how much of a personal connection do you have with your search engine? None, it's a tool. So if you rely on facts and data to make a personal connection with a person you're looking at, how is that going to work through data and facts? Well, there are three levels of rapport that we should understand because for a lot of people, they tend to think that if they're going to connect with somebody emotionally, that it needs to be heavy.  But in actuality, that sense, that is like where there's a saying of boiling the frog slowly turning it up. That's throwing hot water on the frog. He's out of there. So we also want to make sure that the conversation is opening up for both people. And so how we set this up is I like to think of it as for two people who are going to connect, they're going to go on an emotional journey together. So let's use this as an example. What I like to use is the cave metaphor.  I think we should connect emotionally. I think we should build some vulnerability here together, some rapport.  Now, this cave is dark. It's scary. And in order for us to build rapport, we have to walk into this together and we have to trust each other. Now, if I don't know you, one of us has to lead.  I can't expect to lead you to this dark cave and then ask you to step right in. You're not going to feel very good about that. So I have to walk in and then I have to shine the flashlight around to show you that being vulnerable in order for us to connect and create a rapport together is okay. So I'm going to do that first. Now, there are three levels to vulnerability and you can look at it as deep as we're going to go into this cave. So the first level of vulnerability is what we call light disclosure. This is light, amusing, fun anecdotes about myself and the world around me that don't carry much risk with it. The risk is that the information, the emotions that I'm giving you can be used to manipulate me. So for instance, I always use this example, which is it's third grade, I'm at the cafeteria, I'm hanging out with my friends and we're all laughing and we're all carrying on and I go to shake my chocolate milk and in that moment that I started shaking it, I realized that I had already opened it. So milk goes everywhere. I'm completely embarrassed.  So there are emotional bids in this story of embarrassment, humiliation, and these are the emotions that I'm sharing about this scenario. But yet, that has happened so long ago that I'm detached from any of those emotions. So the risk involved is rather low, but yet each one of you has a story that you can relate to about this very moment. And so after I finish that story, after I walk into the cave and I shine the flashlight around, you might say, hey, I got a story too, or you think that's embarrassing, check out what happened to me in fifth grade. So I've walked in, I've shined the light around and I've shown that it's quite all right and I'm not risking much here. There's very little risk involved in light disclosure. And so the next level is what they call medium disclosure. So I will further walk it down the cave.  And if there are light rapport stories, if it's light disclosure, that risk isn't much, but it's enough for me to feel comfortable that you are engaged in this conversation, you're contributing to it as much as I am. So if I want to deepen this and I see that you're matching me, then I feel good to reasonable to believe that it's safe enough for me to move into the next level of this rapport. So this is what we call medium disclosure. And medium disclosure is beliefs, ideas, feelings and opinions about myself and the world around me. Do you guys see how that criteria is different than the criteria of light disclosure? Especially in today's environment. Absolutely. And you can also see in today's climate how speaking about my beliefs, my opinions and my feelings about my place in the world around me, what a risk that is. So that vulnerability, especially today, starts to amp up. Now, here's the situation. If you've been sharing in light disclosure when we've been walking along, for me, I can feel good that you'll be following along. And even if we differ in these beliefs, in these ideas, that I feel safe enough that you'll then share yours and then we'll find some common ground. And in order to find that common ground, we both have to share this vulnerability, these ideas. But once we find that common ground, we've now tied tighter to the rapport of medium disclosure, something that has more risk involved and because it has more risk involved, we're now closer. And that's just it, about that risk, it involves emotion. Absolutely. And there is plenty of emotion to how the world works around you and your place in it. And this goes to what you were saying, AJ, about past, present, and future. If we start talking about dreams and aspirations or how I might view the world around me through incidents that might have happened in my past, I'm offering up a lot of vulnerability here, which is putting me at risk. But as I've said, you've been sharing along with me from the beginning of this journey, so I should feel safe. And then lastly, now that we've bonded there, then the next place for this, and this is where a lot of people jump to, and I wanna preface this, that with high levels of disclosure, you're speaking about the understandable human weakness, your fears and insecurities about yourself and the world around you. And that we definitely share all these, but you can imagine if you have what I fear in life or what my insecurities are, then you have a lot of power over me, and not only that. Think about everything that you have that you can use to manipulate me. This is vulnerability. This is the risk involved. I'm giving you this. Now, most relationships are not worked through deep disclosure, high disclosure. They're usually in low and medium. It's for the relationships that you are trying to deepen through, like you're gonna share these type of things with your best friends, people that you have very long important connected relationships with, your wives, your trusted confidants, these people have access to this. And the reason that there is a rapport built on that is that you've earned that deep, that high disclosure. You have earned it through familiarity. You have earned it through risking the vulnerability through time and other stories. And I wanna also set up here that a lot of people when they learn about these levels, of course, you're gonna wanna go out and play with this stuff. And one of the questions that always comes up is I have been enjoying using these techniques and these tactics and these ideas of rapport. And what I have found is a lot of people are afraid to walk into the deeper section with me. And what's important to understand is just because you know and understand this stuff and wanna play with it, doesn't mean that other people are willing to open up to that degree. And when you understand this and you learn about it, it's fresh, it's exciting, you wanna see it work, but you cannot force this stuff on to other people if they're not ready because that will cause, rather than connection, it'll cause resentment. So recapping and I think this is important to understand because I know many when they hear, oh, I just need to ask deeper questions right away. They'll go run and start peppering heavier and heavier questions into the interaction, but they're treating it like that dark cave. They're pointing at the hole and saying, hey, go crawl in there for me. They're not shining the flashlight. And that's why, yes, it is important for us to ask deeper questions, but we also have to be willing to go in that cave and shine the flashlight and let other people feel comfortable answering those questions that require a level of vulnerability. What are your aspirations? What are your goals, your dreams, right? Now we're resonating on positive emotions. And of course, we wanna be sharing those as well in these conversations. The best way to deepen a relationship is to share your own hopes and dreams and aspirations and not expect others to just jump in and lead the way. That is you walking in first and shining the light. So for example, Michael, let's say that you and I have met. We've walked up to the cave of rapport. You seem like a guy who's on the level. I'd like to form a relationship with you. So I'm gonna ask. You were into a cave? Yeah, I'm gonna ask you a question, right? And maybe you feel comfortable. We've been chatting so you walk in a little bit and then I ask you another one. And you're like, so you answer that question. And then I ask you another one. And now you have walked how many steps into the cave and I haven't, I'm not next to you. I'm not by your side.  I wanna use that example there. And I want to, how does that work in real life? Well, it works in real life because I've seen this so many times and this irritates me that people get stuck in their head in order to have better conversations, you need to ask better questions. And that's true to a degree, but it doesn't stop at the question asking. And we see this happen over and over and over again, where somebody read something and the only thing that clicked or that stuck with them is ask better questions. So now they're question machines. And I can tell you from doing this job as long as I have, and you can imagine for all the programs that we have done over 15 years when guys get to the house and they meet AJ and myself and if you've been with us with this, Michael, they start asking a lot of questions. Well, of course they're excited to be there. There's a lot of unknowns that are about to happen. And we let everyone, we still let everyone out chill out or we start asking them questions back because it can feel invasive and interrogative when you just start getting question after question after question and the other party isn't sharing. And even though we all understand this and what's going on, it still feels invasive. And I know Michael, you have an interesting study that was done around exactly this point. Oh yeah, like I love, I live all the studies. So what am I even saying? But I love this one. And it's titled the experimental generation of interpersonal closeness. And it was done by Arthur Aaron in 1997. And what they did in the study was they had a group of people and they split them into two groups. And in one group, there would always be two people and they would ask each other small talk questions like what's your favorite TV show? And in the other group, they would also have pairs of two but those questions would become more and more personal over time. So they would start off with, what's your favorite TV show? But then it would slowly go over into when was the last time you cried? What's something you'll regret if you don't do in your lifetime and things like that. And what they found in the end was that they asked the participants, how close do you feel with that person? You just had this short little 40 minute conversation. How close do you guys feel? And those that had the shallow questions, they're like, nah, it was nice. But those that were in the other group that had the more and more personal questions, they were really close. Like sometimes they became closer than with some of their best friends and they stayed in touch. And in that study, like one pair even got engaged afterwards.  This study was kind of the basis for air quotes, the 36 questions that will make you fall in love with everyone. That was kind of the study that sparked this. And I think it's so, so interesting to see that we all rely on those small talk questions. And we talk about the weather and the weekend and the TV show. And then we wonder that, why I'm not feeling connected to that person? Well, you know, here's your answer because you talk about TV shows and the weather. And those questions tend to focus on the present. What's going on with you right now? What's going on with you today? And if you think about the questions in that study and why they're so powerful, they focus on the emotions of the past. They focus on the emotions and the aspirations of the future. And when you can start to transition and talk about all three states of time, your past, your present and your future, that's how we can start generating deeper connections of people. Yeah, there's, I often find that with this crave metaphor that people want this list of the perfect questions to ask and then to add to that, they also want the list with the perfect answers to each of those questions. Now, how entertaining is that going to make that conversation? Because I'll give you an example that I like to use in core confidence is of a situation in a conversation where you, AJ, have the perfect answer and you're absolutely sure that it's the correct answer. This is what happens. We have a conversation and I go, what do you say? My perfect answer, obviously. Yeah, and how predictable would that be? Like, it's perfect, right? You know exactly what to say. Bless you, Gesundheit, whatever, Salute. And it would add nothing to the conversation because it's just perfectly scripted. Nothing, nothing added. And so this is where the confidence part comes in or the leaving your comfort zone in a conversation where sometimes you don't know if that question is going to be the right one. Maybe that question is going to make the other person stop in their track as they're walking into the cave. Maybe it elicits an answer that throws you a little bit off track. But that is the beauty of being on that conversational floor that this is not mechanistic where every step is predicted 100 steps into the future. It's like, I could ask Johnny something and get an answer that completely surprises me or the other way around. And you can't do that if you want to hold on to something that lets you exactly predict how the other person is going to react. I mean, if you think about relationships in your life currently, the ones that you feel deeply connected with, did they all start the same? Did every one of those relationships follow the same conversational thread?  No, not at all. They all beautifully unraveled in their own unique ways where you found connection through emotion and through sharing stories. And all of a sudden that deeper connection was formed, but it wasn't formulaic. I created a deep friendship with Johnny, but I can't use those exact same questions and answers and stories with you, Michael. It doesn't work that way. No, not really. So it's important that we realize the art in what we're talking about here and deepening the connections around us. If you come at this saying, hey, what are these perfect questions? AJ, just give me that list of 36 questions that I'm done. Bang, I'm out. I got what I need from this podcast. Well, what you're actually missing out on is the deepening of the connection. You'll end up stuck in that surface level formation of relationships that we hear time and time again from the clients that work with us. And that's frustrating because we're not coming in with the curiosity that we need to spark the deeper connection. If it's boring small talk, if it's who, what, where, when type questions and you're just hanging on to that information, well, the other person isn't gonna feel inspired to share anything else. They're not gonna feel inspired to move to medium disclosure.  And when we ask deeper questions, what we're in turn doing is we're actually working on the second point, the second most important thing. And that's finding the why. We need to really start to understand the why people are behaving the way they are, why they're sharing what they're sharing with us and our own why. So we can bring that into the conversation. And when we're able to share our why and get a greater understanding of the other person's why behind their behaviors, their actions, their beliefs, their experiences, well, that enriches the relationship. But of course, we're not used to that level of disclosure. It's a scary cave to enter, to share our why, to talk about what's important to us. And in turn, we're not in tune with it so we're not curiously looking forward in others. And to add to that, we started this conversation by discussing storytelling and storytelling in implementation class. And this is the thing. If you have a program then to your mind that all I need to do is be a better question asker and I'm going to make better connections. Well, then you haven't done any work for to get comfortable with your own levels of risk and vulnerability. And this is the hidden gem and think about it. I think this is why a lot of people get this idea of ask better questions for a better connection in their head because they don't have to really do any work. The work that they're doing is low risk. Ask better questions. Put all the efforts on the other person. And there's this other line that I think that lends itself to this that sticks in everybody's heads that everyone's favorite subjects is themselves. And if you can get them talking about themselves then they'll end up doing all the work. That is true. But you have to, you have to create a safe place for them to want to begin to talk about themselves because if that has not been set up, they will remain closed. You're not going to get information out of them. And every time that you push to get more information they're going to close that much more. Yeah, and here's the thing. Like most people, as we've discussed in the main reason why people don't make a connection, most people aren't even used to sharing about them. They're not used to being in that cave and you can't really push them in either. So here's a carrot that you can use to kind of treat them to stepping into the cave. And I just love this technique. And so what I would do with this technique that it's one of the things that we teach at the X Factor Accelerator and Core Confidence as well is that you look at the emotional, you actually ask about the emotional content of what's happening in that story. So for example, AJ might have traveled before, the entire zombie apocalypse that's happening right now. He might have happened to travel to Paris and then he comes back from Paris and I could ask him, well, what did you eat there? What was your schedule like? What was the street like? What was this? And then he would give me those facts, right? We landed at 8.30 PM. I had intercontinental breakfast. The hotel was this large. This was the price of lunch and so on. Or I could say, what was it like to be in Paris? Now I get AJ's view on this. Or he could tell me all the facts about being in the Louvre and seeing the Mona Lisa up on the wall. And I could say, wait, how long did you have to wait? How many people were there in the room? Or I could say, what was it like to see the Mona Lisa? What did you like most about Paris? And that questions like that and can be as simple as what did you like most? That it can be as simple as that. And what that now allows me to do is I can see the world through AJ's eyes. Because if the three of us, if we ever travel to Paris and we have exactly the same itinerary and we go exactly to the same restaurants, museums, hotels, and then people ask us in the usual way, what did you do? We would tell them exactly the same story. But if that person asks each one of us, what was it like to be in Paris, you get a different story. Because for me, it would be, I don't know, the art. For AJ, it's the street vendors and the paintings that they have there. And for Johnny, it's the music. And suddenly you get three people that did exactly the same thing. But you get three different stories. And so once you train yourself to ask the other person that question that helps them look for the why they do certain things and why they like certain things and why they stayed in that hotel, that's when you get that light push towards disclosure. And the other person gets used to sharing a little bit more of what's going on inside instead of just the outside. And this is also a beautiful thing just for everyday question. So I could ask, and we can actually do this here. I'm curious for your answers. I could ask you, what's your favorite movie? And then what would I get, AJ? Just the favorite movie. Fly Club. And Johnny. Over the Edge. All right. For me, it's Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back. So now we don't really know. Now we can just ask the next question, right? What's your favorite food? How many siblings do you have? Or we could change that question around a little bit. And I ask you, Johnny or AJ, why is Fly Club your favorite movie? What do you like most about it? It's one of those movies that I feel like every time I watch it, I catch something else. And there's so many hidden layers to the movie that it's enjoyable again and again. Whereas I feel like most movies you watch it once and you really don't even have to watch it again. But that one really stands out. And I feel like every time I'm on an Easter egg hunt watching it, seeing different moments that I didn't catch the first time. And that's my point. Because for everyone listening right now, you're not gonna talk about Fly Club anymore because you just learned 10 things about AJ that you didn't know before. And that's where the conversation now goes. And the fact that it's this movie with Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, that's 11. Now it's like, oh, look at that. This is what excites AJ. This is what he finds stimulating and boom. And I just learned something about AJ that I didn't know before. How awesome is that? And we can repeat that with your favorite food, with your favorite spot to hang out, with your favorite bar. Why? What do you like most about it? Here's another one for you, Michael. When you ask somebody what their favorite anything is, right? A great follow-up is what is the criteria that you used to get that answer? When you look at the criteria, so for instance, you were asking AJ, well, why was it that Fly Club was his favorite movie? We got a lot of information about AJ. Asking what is the criteria? For myself, to answer that question was, it was what is the impact that the movie had?  Now, it's an underground movie. It's Matt Dillon, first movie. He was 14 years old. And it was a movie that gained a cult following through the 90s, but it came out in 1980. But its impact on me as a child was a shift in how I viewed myself and the world around me. Is that starting to sound familiar? Yes, Star Wars. Yes, that would have been exactly my answer as well. Well, I was referring to the deep, the medium disclosure. Ideas about myself. Yeah, that is what I mean.  Medium to a high, these goals and ambitions. It's actually like high disclosure. Yeah, I want to be a Jedi. That's it, it's out there in the world now. Yeah, I mean, it frames the answer into a medium disclosure question and you'll get me in a way that only allows you elaborate on the answer that you've already provided. So now you get to give it context. It's not as if I'm asking you to dig a new hole. The hole's already been dug. So now I'm getting the information of why you've chosen why it was important to you. So you're getting context to information that was willingly already shared. And this works both ways. In conversation, we can answer the why question when someone's giving us their boring small talk questions. We can answer that why. If someone asks you, what's your favorite food? Answer the why question. Don't just say, oh, it's Italian. Well, it's Italian because the last time I was on the Amalfi Coast, I had the most beautiful sweet shrimp pasta and the chef came to the table and explained all of the local ingredients that went into making that dish. And it was so few ingredients, but so packed with flavor that I fell in love with Italian food. Many of us, when we go into conversations with networking or even in Zooms, we're just, let's get it, get our point across, let's move on, let's move to the next thing. But we can add color and we can add dimension to our own answers by answering that why question as if it was posed to us. And that was you, AJ, taking the flashlight and rolling down the cave farther. And now, of course, the other person are going to want to add their experiences. Oh, Italy, I've been in Italy or talking about the pasta. So asking deeper questions, finding the why and the third solution that we want to end with today. And this one, I've struggled with myself. And that's leaning into the emotional content in your conversation. Many of us feel uncomfortable when we show emotions. We try to diffuse them. We want to be stoic, poker face. We've all heard those responses, especially in the professional realm. Many of us feel those pressures. But by leaning into the emotion, we're actually validating the other person's experience as well as our own because we're giving them something to connect to. Michael didn't go to the same school as me. Johnny didn't grow up in Detroit. There are a lot of things in terms of experience that we don't have that share. But the emotions that are tied to those experiences we've all felt. We've all felt shame like Johnny in grade school shaking his milk. We've all felt triumphant like Michael ending his talk at the concert on stage, realizing that the audience is engrossed. And adding that emotional context and leaning into it in your conversation creates opportunity for connection with others that we oftentimes, myself included, have struggled with. And the emotional piece doesn't seem as relevant or as important when you're trying to get a story across or trying to answer someone's question. Yeah, and I think most of us do that, like the moment in a conversation where you see there is like especially strong emotions coming up in the other person. What you kind of wanna do instinctually is like excuse yourself and walk away. And I've actually, I've seen this happen in my dad not too long ago, who's not too much socially calibrated. I can say that because he doesn't listen to the show. And something happened where I think a person broke out a little bit in tears at a funeral and my dad literally said, oh boy, and he turned around and he walked away. Which is like, that's not very supportive. Like that's not how it works. But that's kind of what it is because most people are not used to being confronted by emotions. And as scary as it is, we've kind of forgotten how to deal with them. And the last thing you want to do is tell the other person, ah, don't worry about it, or you shouldn't be sad. It's like, no, you actually lean in. You know, the other person is sad. Let them know that that's all right. Like this is, you know, this is what it's supposed to feel like. You're angry, oh, that's kind of, I get that. And then take it from there but first meet them where they're at. And validating those emotions. I would feel frustrated if that happened to me. I'd be terrified if I was driving and that car swirled in front of me. Validating that emotions by saying, I would feel the same way that that person is feeling right now creates that connection. It allows the other person to feel heard. And that's really what we're talking about here.  And you heard that. Those are the people in our life we feel most connected to. And that's what gives you that rock solid connection.  That's where the both of us meet. And from here on out, let's be connected. I had this mind-blowing experience just three days ago at a workshop that I was attending as a participant. And this was about the, it's called the therapeutic relationship with Kelly Wilson. So the CBT people out there, the contextual behavioral science people the name will ring a bell. And he did this exercise with us that still gives me goosebumps where we moved into breakout rooms with three people. And he gave us just one assignment. He said, you have 15 minutes, five minutes for each person. Pick who starts and then ask that person this question. Who loved you into being? Who loved you into being? And then listen with curiosity. And in my room, we were only two people. And I started asking my breakout room partner that question. And she started talking about her mom that raised her by herself and had a really hard time and said, I, you know, I owe this woman everything. And at that point, like emotions came up for both of us. And then she asked me the same question. I talked about my great-grandmother who kind of raised me. And again, a lot of emotions came up. And then we were start, like 10 minutes later, we said, you know what, we need to exchange phone numbers. I need to visit you in Brazil because this was freaking amazing. We're friends now. And we came out of that session and we said, yeah, I think we're friends. Like, I'm really sad that this talk, this time together is now over. And again, that didn't happen because we had a perfect question. Well, in this case, it kind of was, but don't go out there and think that you can ask everyone that question and end up with a best friend, right? But it was the fact that both of us went into that cave that Johnny mentioned and we weren't scared to leave and we knew the other person was following. And if you have that setup and that requires confidence and vulnerability and you have that setup, you can really dash into that cave because you know the other person is right next to you with a flashlight or without. And I think that's the main thing that people need to get, that this is not easy and it's not scripted, but once you allow yourself to be open enough to experience it and share it with someone else, it's worth the risk that sometimes comes with it. Well, it's also why we tell everyone that you're going to learn these things by implementing them in your everyday life. You don't become a master at rapport and conversation by reading about it or listening to it in this podcast. You learn what works best for you and by gaining experience in other people and their emotional responses through having these conversations by connecting with people. This is why we named the company The Art of Charm because it wasn't the method, it wasn't the one you do this and then you do that and then you do this. It was art, it's never the same. It's always going to be different. Everyone's going to express themselves in different manner and it is up to us to become experienced in using these tools so that we become better with them so that we can make those better connections. I also think there's a level of self-compassion that goes along with the leaning into emotions piece because many of us label our emotions in positive and negatives and unfortunately a lot of the emotions we label negative we tend not to share. We have shame attached to them, we bury them, we hide them and what the other person experiences from us is half the story, half of us, not the full picture. And if we only focus on positive emotions, well it's not going to really make for a very meaningful experience. The reason that we enjoy the positive emotions so much is because we've experienced a counterbalance to the negative emotions. If you were to wake up every single day of your life only feeling positive by day three or day four or day five, it's going to feel much like summer in LA.  It does not have the same gravitas in your life without the negative experiences, the negative emotions. For myself, those negative emotions, I wasn't allowed really as a kid to express them. My dad didn't want to see me emotional. He felt if he saw me emotional he wasn't doing a good job as a dad, right? To protect me being a single father. And growing up in that experience, well of course it became difficult for me to share the negative emotions that I had some shame around. The sadness I would feel from time to time, the fear of failure that I would feel. And of course, if you probably surveyed my friends in high school and my friends early in college, they probably would have said, well, I know AJ, but not at a real level of depth. So we also have to cultivate some self-compassion and realize that these heavier emotions that we're feeling, everyone feels them. And not only is it important for us to share them with others, but it's important for us to allow ourselves to experience them so that in conversation, we can build that depth of relationship that we're looking for. And whether it's our bootcamp participants or X-Factor members or core confidence students, the fact remains the same. Every experience we have together we're unified in those same fears and those same dreams. And no matter where they are in the world or where the backgrounds of students have come to us from over the years, the tens of thousands we've worked with, they're all going through these universally same experiences, these fears of failure, these pursuits of perfection, these not wanting to let their parents down and not wanting to showcase that maybe things aren't going as well as they appear on the outside. And unfortunately, through that habit, we've created this distance between us and others. And it's our job to start chipping away at that wall that we've built up and some of our older students, well, they've plastered a few extra layers on that wall. So it takes a little longer to break through that wall. But ultimately, when we remove that barrier of sharing those negative emotions, we create the space and that vulnerability that allows those relationships to blossom. You know, that's why I was so excited to do this toolbox. Not only have we not done one for a little while, but also because this is a problem that I've directly worked on in myself and continue to work on and I've experienced it in my relationship with Amy. And it's something that should, one, raise awareness that just sharing data and information with someone and expecting a relationship to blossom out of that is asking a lot. It's going about it the wrong way. We need to get a level beyond just the data to get to that emotional context in the conversation. And if you feel that you're disconnected or struggling to make relationships, we want you to try one of these three things we discussed. Number one, asking deeper questions, right? Getting to understand core motivators and emotions behind that data is so important in conversation and being comfortable sharing your why when maybe it hasn't been asked to create that space and that opportunity for deeper connection and lastly, leaning into the emotions, both the positive when we're meeting someone for the first time, but as that relationship is blooming, also expressing those negative emotions that you're feeling and allowing the other person to see you as a whole person with flaws and all creates the depth in conversation and depth in relationships that we're all looking for. And I'll add practice. Practicing those things. Practice, perfect practice. So what we say in X Factor, it's the one skill that you could practice no matter where you are in the world every day and that is your social skill. I don't need a basketball court. I don't need a tennis court. I don't need a golf course to practice my social skills. You can join us in X Factory or any of our coaching programs and get the opportunities even if it's at a distance, even if it's over zoom right now. Now I know we have a challenge for this week, Michael. Let's do it. Let's do the challenge. Okay, we want you guys to practice this. And here's your challenge for the week if you choose to accept it. Every day, add some light disclosure to one of the answers that you would usually give to the typically boring small talk question. So if someone asks you, what's your plan for the weekend? Don't just say, oh, I'm going to see my brother and his wife. Maybe add the why because I haven't seen them for a while and we all couldn't travel and they got a new baby and I'm so excited to meet my nephew. Or what are you going to watch in the evening? Don't just say, oh, I'm going to watch the office but maybe say, well, I'm going to watch the office because it's so full of embarrassment and humor and it really reminds me of the first job that I have. Just do that and then see how that changes the response that you get from the person that asked you that question. I love adding that because statement, right? Sharing your answer and adding the why because it's such a key way to fill in the blank and create that space and conversation for connection. Let us know how it goes. We love hearing from you. You can hit us up on social media at The Art of Charm on all of your favorite platforms or you can also email us questionsattheartofcharm.com and we would love a review in iTunes. Support the show and let us know what you thought in today's toolbox.


You think the people you bring there will not find it? Really? Guys, can you do me one, just one favor? Just one favor. Please. It will really mean a lot to me. Sound. When do we close it? Take it. Sound.


First, these initiatives like what we have here today, this gathering with young people from all over the world, is so important because we should build a community and together working on a sustainable, inclusive society of the future. As scientists, I will mention that during my talk, scientists have no borders. We work together. And nowadays, politicians, a lot of people talk about fences and borders, etc. Scientists go beyond borders. They go beyond frontiers to the future. And I think to take all the talents from the world and bring them together, and that's why such an event is so important, bring them together to discuss, to think about the future, to follow their dreams into the future. I think stimulate each other. This is really crucial. It is so important that we encourage young people to team up with their boys and girls from all over the world, because these young people are shaping our future.


Always remember, folks, whatever you think about, you bring about whatever. You focus on growth. Hope everyone's having a great day, safe day. It's a TGIF, folks. Let's make it a great one. Except others the way they are. You cannot change other people. So trying to change them to fit what you want them to be is like trying to change a dog into a cat, or a cat into a horse. They are what they are, and you are what you are. Knock it off! Let's take a look at it out here. We have the Dow Industries up 210. NASDAQ up 12, S&Ps up 16. Gold contract up $25, trading $18.17 an ounce. You've got Silver up 27 cents. $24.19 an ounce. LightSuite crewed up $254, trading out at $81.34. A barrel, notes and bonds. The 10-year note, up 17 ticks, trading $131.27. The 30-year up won the full point plus 25 ticks at $162.29, and $Kingdala. $75 ticks, trading $94.272. Euro is 115, Yens 113.40, and the British pound is at $134 to one U.S. dollar. iPhone number's<PHONE_NUMBER>, give us a call folks. One note's going on in your world. In the world of the S&Ps, let's take a look at them, what do you have? We've got all the indices at all time highs, folks. So, the spy, up today, you're at a buck 50. You're at 468.44. We get into the NDX 100 intraday. You had a little sell-down on this NDX, bottom line. They bought every dip out here, folks. The Q's right now, the Q's are trading up 24 cents. You're at 398.49, you made it to 400.04. If you had a man, Mr. Basil Chapman, man, I wish that would just hit 400. Those even numbers, just a mind blow. Bottom line, though, higher price. Gold, gold contract for Friday, folks. Bottom line, you got an ABC structure in the way up. The equities are already in an ABC structure. Well, they're in a potential ABC. Royal Gold is in an ABC. That took out the B point, took it out with volume. That gold contract also took out the B point, took it out with volume. Now, let me show you something on the gold contract because intraday, you could have picked this up pretty easy. Actually, hold it. No, we don't have an ABC up because 8.15 has too many, yeah, we don't have, okay, so when we went up there at 8.15, 18.15 on the 27th of October, yeah, you did 300,000 contracts. So we're gonna do, we did 268 today. Bottom line, you'd have higher price, but you don't have an ABC structure in the way up because you don't have enough volume. We'll see how this baby shakes out. 18.36, that's my take, that's where we're going. If we go take a look at the silver contract out here, we take a look at silver. What we have with silver, silver's up 28 cents. That is trading out here, also a nice setup. 66,000 contracts, that's gonna be going after the B point. The B point on silver is 24.92, and if silver does get that, that's gonna be a monster A to B equals C to D. It's a 350, which would get you up to about the $27 area inside of the silver market. So it's one big number. There's no two ways about that. We go into the note and bond market. So note and bond market folks, higher price, lower yield. That's the bottom line and in a huge way too. So we take a look at the 10 year first. You're gonna see the 10 year, we've done 1.7 million contracts, 1.8 now. Bottom line is a clear line right up to ice. So ice inside of the 10 year is laying out at 132.25. That's another full point on the 10 year. We go take a look at the 30 year, cause the 30 year leads out here. There's no two ways about that. That's how it normally works anyway, fundamentally. So the 30, oh look at this man. Oh, okay, so check this out folks. This is a heads up for us. So the number I just gave you on the 10 year, let me do this one first. Well the number I gave you on the 10 year, if I was giving you a number in the 30 year, that would have been saying that the 30 year would be 16109. And guess what, you're at 163. It blew by ice. This is saying, guess what? You are going to 165.12 and we'll find out from there. Let me pull this up. This is gonna be cool, one second. So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do now a continuous contract on a longer basis and see where we stand here. Okay, so let's see. Oh, I see, we did get a lot longer to go. Okay, it's no big deal. Yeah, we're at 163. I don't know if that spike high was a 200 or not, but last high and was that February of 2020. That was 182. So right now, I suspect we're going to 167. Well, we'll see how that shakes out. The, oh, I know what you wanted to show you. The gold contract interday. So what you had out here this morning, folks, okay, is that the gold contract took out a B point of an ABC structure on the way up, intraday this morning. And it was a beauty too. So where are we here? Here it was right here, I believe, right there. I had 1815. I'm trying to figure out where I did, where I got that from. Almost looks different than I'm looking at. Oh, there it is. Okay, that's what I did. So what happened, it's a two day A to B. That's what's going on. The B point out here was 1800. You blew it away with volume and that gave you an 1815 A to B equals C to D. You got it and you got it in spades. So it's pretty cool. Some of the higher volume equities out here today, we have Ford Motor Company's down five cents. You got Pfizer up 425. Peloton, big number there. That's down $29 getting smoked. Looks like to me it's gonna actually go further down. Madeira is down 52. You get Bed Bath and Beyond up 195. Carnival Cruises up 190. You have Apple, Flat, Uber Technologies up two bucks. Mercs down eight. Norwegian Cruise Lines is up two. If we go over to, let's see, Airbnb, Airbnb, Airbnb. That had a nice bit out here today. That came in with some numbers. That's trading $199.97 and that's a big move. And I'll show you something with, the cool thing about the Airbnb one, and keep this in mind in the future, folks, okay, is that Marriott had come out with numbers before Airbnb. Marriott had come out with numbers on Wednesday. There were great numbers. It went higher with volume, bottom line. That's important to understand why because when you're talking about the same sector, Airbnb is the de facto hotel operation. And it worked out here, meaning that if you saw what Marriott was doing, you might've got into Airbnb on a short-term basis. Dow Industries right now up 219 and Aziz up 18. S&P's up 17 and a half. So they're right there, folks. Come right back.


All right, let's get the interesting part. We're gonna actually take you through a ton of games It's probably never heard of and probably aren't available in your country Internet exists people The shipping is gonna be the same as the markup at the game store. So So we're gonna start with a game called inspectors now I'm hoping many of you have seen an old movie might have heard of it's called Ghostbusters. It's a big New York movie So some people are from there. This is a role-playing system that makes Ghostbusters happen Right, you can't use it. You know people like to brag about D&D and they try to like hit every hammer with it You know we can use this for any kind of story and you see remember in the d20 days It was big d20 modern d20 Star Wars we can use the same set of rules for every kind of story They can't right inspectors will only tell that story of a company of people running a business Right where they work together to solve supernatural disturbances If you do not want to tell a story about that you this game will not do that It does only then one thing and one thing only the really interesting mechanic about this game that I want to highlight There's a character sheet and there's actually not that much on it It's mostly flavor. They actually put the rules of the game in the character sheet It's so much leftover space So here's the deal if I'm a player and I want to do something I roll some dice, you know athletics Whatever yeah, it's always gonna fall into one of those four skills academics athletics technology or contact, right? So if you wanted to say beat up someone on the street who wasn't giving you information, right? Because they definitely saw it, but they're walking away and they deserve a beating You're gonna use athletics for that, right? So I roll my dice if I roll really well I hear what happens and that's 10 That's the story now by rolling well by succeeding I get control of the story for a little while and if you fail at the role The GM gets control of the story for a little while and he is against you and yeah and everything in between right? So if you're a moderately well, it's like okay You get to tell the story but the GM gets to slip in a negative aspect or if you roll poorly It's like the GM tells the story, but the player gets to slip in one positive aspect So if I'm researching the microfiche in the library to find out if the picture of the guy who we think did the murder looks the same 20 years ago and 50 years ago if I roll the six I narrate exactly what I found what did you find so it turns out that We keep finding this guy's picture going all the way back to 300 years ago. What does the guy look like? Tell me about he's got a really long nose. No wait, so he's actually bald. Okay. He's got kind of some stuff going on He's holding a microphone. You better watch out for that guy. He's a dangerous guy.  Oh, you rolled a one? I rolled a one. You did a microfiche, huh? Yeah, I rolled a one. Oh, while you were looking through the microfiche, right, you heard some noises around the corner in the back of the library And then you went to investigate them. Look, I don't need his permission to make him go investigate I'm telling the story. He failed, right? You went around this corner to investigate the door closed behind you And now something is grabbing your neck Now we can continue and get, you know, going to the next roll, right? Because there's a new conflict now. The conflict is no longer the conflict of finding the thing in the microfiche library It's not the conflict of him versus the monster in the back of the library So instead of the mechanical mechanic, mechanical mechanic, going back and forth, the currency of the game being Hit points, damage per round, all that stuff in D&D like games The currency is who has control over the narrative and the mechanics of the game just let you pass that currency around It's sort of like you have a candle and the rest of the candle can talk and roll the dice to see who gets the candle The other cool thing this game does is it has a shared space. There's a character sheet for your home base How many of you played a game where you have a home base? You've got like some cool magic items You've got your butler or whatever. You roll play stuff out in your tree house The tree house is a character here. There's rules for, hey, do we have a Sam of Flage in the tree house? I don't know. Do we have a Sam of Flage? Let's roll a check and find out. We do need to have one So suddenly you don't have to worry about this minutiae of do you have 108 gold pieces and 15 electron pieces in your stash? You abstract that and roll dice. Do we have the thing we need for the plot right now or not? In fact, we do. We always do. Well, no, we don't always. I'm going to tell the story of my character here. I'm not going to talk about my strength stat. That's not interesting And it turns out that that's the only part of my character that is character, that is story Who he knows, what he's done, where he's going, why he fights for what he fights for That's it and that whole character sheet, that's it So try to tell me this is a role-playing game, but what percentage of it has anything to do with role-playing? That percent and most of that is a picture


Well, let's bring in VMware, we're going to come in, good? Parag Patel, who has been on theCUBE before, welcome. Good to see you again. Welcome back. So, VMware is growing and changing. Everyone who has been on theCUBE has either been promoted or has this chief title. What's your current title today? My current title, there's no chief in it itself. Vice President of Alliance. So you're involved with the ecosystem. You were on theCUBE when we did our first VMworld 2010, we talked about the ecosystem. You've been on a Hitachi event, you're out there, you're at VMworld again, we were in Las Vegas. Give us an update, the ecosystem is really important for VMware. What's going on in the ecosystem and what's changing? And I'll see Oracle is the show here and let's get right into Oracle. Okay, so the ecosystem is more vibrant than ever. So we have over 25,000 channel partners, we have over 2,000 technology partners, and that grows by 50, 60 a month. The interesting thing is that the virtualization ecosystem is doing a lot more. So we've opened up the platform, there's a lot more APIs for security, systems management, storage, networking. So the integration to create the software mainframe is getting tighter and more efficient. So there are things happening under the covers that many customers don't even realize that makes the overall data center a lot more efficient. The other thing that's happening, just the second dimension, is that we now have many more product lines. We almost have four distinct product lines and we're developing ecosystems for all of those products. So give us the overview on the economic opportunity for the ecosystem. White spaces that you're seeing develop, you mentioned the four product lines. I'll see you guys have laid out your map, I'll see infrastructure, middleware and user experience. Talk about the different layers and opportunities and will you see a lot of traction happening today? So at a macro level, we estimate that for every dollar that's spent on VMware, about 15 or 16 is spent on the rest of the ecosystem. And that's hardware, software, services, the whole thing. In fact, that's one reason why all the systems integrators are really ramping up their VMware expertise. That they're seeing tremendous opportunities to go and build out private public hybrid clouds. Will that ratio grow over time? Will it shrink? Why, how, why would observers expect it to grow? I'm presuming it will grow, but why? Yeah, so it has been growing for the last five years. So, widening. Widening, yeah, so if we were to go back four years ago, I think the ratio was one to 10, one to 11. And now we're over one to 15, one to 16. You know, we are probably in the early innings of the cloud build out. Middle innings of just core virtualization of the data center. So there's still a lot more to do. And customers have gotten to a point where they're 45, 50% virtualized and they rapidly want to get to 70, 80% virtualized, but they need a lot of help to do that. And they're buying the latest hardware. They're buying security now, that security software's available that's optimized for virtual environments. Same thing with networking systems management. So I think we're still in the early to middle innings. We're here at Parag Patel, Vice President of Alliances. I'm John Furrier, the founder of SiliconANGLE, Dave Vellante with wikibond.org, research analyst, open source research. We also have a new site that we launch called servicesangle.com. And there, in services angle, we profile the changes in the services business. So the question I want to ask you is, you mentioned consulting and ecosystem revenue. That really is a channel kind of environment where software developers, software system integrators, consultants are doing a lot of work. Where are you seeing the challenges and the biggest opportunities being solved by these new services players? Because you have the essentials and the deloids, doing their normal thing, doing the high end consulting. You have boutiques emerging. We saw some ones getting like cloud scaling, getting some funding recently with Randy Bias' company. What is the landscape like? I mean, in this new channel of cloud and now big data where virtualization is kind of in the center of all this. It's changing pretty quickly. You see the, historically what happened with the global systems integrators is that when a market forms and starts getting pretty large, that's when it makes sense for them to jump in. Because they have the law of big numbers they have to manage. But at the same time, we're getting into a cloud build out, a big data build out, where there's new skills, new technologies that people are feeling their way through. And that's creating a lot of opportunity for startups, new mid-sized boutique companies to come in and provide the expertise that you're not able to get elsewhere. So, managing in a cloud environment, security in a cloud environment, operational issues. And then big data analytics. I mean, if you saw Jo Chuchi's keynote on Monday morning, that's this tremendous example of using big data for insurance policy premiums. I mean, they're doing things you couldn't imagine a few years ago. People need help and special services to figure out how to do that for their own business. We're in the evolution cycle, are we on that? Obviously planning, the normal value chain of services, proof of concepts, getting the systems. Where are the clients that the ecosystem partners talking to? Could you put a PEG, a stage, embryonic, developing, production? For big data or cloud? Just cloud and big data, both. I mean, cloud in particular, because obviously private cloud, hybrid cloud is the big focus you guys did that at VMworld in Las Vegas. That's really the core of it. Big data kind of falls under. Let's talk about cloud in particular. Well, what we noticed is, we rolled out our cloud vision in 2008 at VMworld. By VMworld 2009, most customers were talking about cloud. And in 2010 and 11, most customers are implementing private cloud. So again, I think in the early to middle innings of the cloud build out, hence a lot of opportunities for new technologies, new service providers. For big data, I think we're in the very early stages. We're just now realizing there's all these great information feeds available, like Twitter feeds, like all the social analytics, the click streams. We're just now getting technologies that are ready for market to take advantage of that. And I think people haven't even realized the services and the design expertise they're going to need for that. I think that's to come in the next few years. So Pragy, of course, VMware didn't get a keynote speech, Oracle Open World, but you got the next best thing with Joe Tucci and Pat Gelsinger, as you mentioned. Talk a little bit about the whole VMware in Oracle discussion. We all know that Oracle has its own virtualization approach and VMware's not the favorite approach of Oracle. Nonetheless, customers using VMware and are moving in that direction, what's happening out there? What should customers expect and how should they approach it? So Oracle strategy is to sell the full stack top to bottom. And what we're talking about is abstracting out the hardware from the applications layer. So those are two very distinct strategies. It presents customers with a fairly stark choice, which is why I think Oracle wants to keep VMware at arm's length, won't really do much with us. But customers are voting overwhelmingly in terms of the flexibility and the choice and the abstraction that the cloud architecture gives them. So we see a lot of customers wanting to virtualize with VMware, want to virtualize their Oracle estate. We have very healthy and growing numbers of customers who are virtualizing Oracle products on VMware. But Oracle's doing its best to thwart that. So you have a strange situation in that you're owned by a hardware company. And normally a software company would want to commoditize hardware to lower the cost of its platform, yet you're owned by a hardware company. That's not good for the hardware company that owns 80% of you. So how do you reconcile that? And then I have a follow up. Well, we don't explicitly try to reconcile that. VMware is an independent subsidiary. EMC has always allowed us to pursue whatever strategy, partnerships, product lines that we want. We just launched a virtual storage appliance as part of the vSphere suite. And that's available to customers. So we don't really try to reconcile that. We do the best we can to grow our business. And then the EMC product lines do the best they can to grow their businesses. And we cooperate wherever we can. So do you feel as though it's to VMware is the best advantage to have the lowest cost hardware that attaches to that? In other words, is it in your best interest to commoditize the software? And do you have the latitude to do that? I think it's- Oh sorry, you commoditized the hardware. Commoditized the hardware. But we certainly have whatever latitude we need. Hardware commoditization is something that's been going on for a long time before VMware came on the scene. And I think it's something that's going to continue. And if you even look back at trend lines over 30 years. Secondly, our strategy is to provide customers twice. If they want to use EMC hardware or NetApp or IBM or Hitachi or a startup, we have over several thousand different hardware devices on our compatibility list. And I think what EMC is doing just to answer that question is providing customers with hardware up and down the value chain. So sometimes VMware is criticized for focusing too much on the big guys and not enough on the little guys. And I want to give you an opportunity to respond to that. Is that a fair criticism? And talk about that a little bit. It's a good question. We go with customer demand. That's usually the number one determinant of where we make our bets. And the big guys are big because they have a lot of market share and a lot of customers. So even within the customer base, they're spoken for very heavily. And so we have no choice but to work with the big guys. And it's a pleasure to work with them.  When we come out with enablements, whether it's an API or a hardware testing program, you really need to work with a handful of partners to get that right. Make sure it's working so that when we go to customers, it can work well in heat because our stuff is used for mission critical, 100% uptime environment. So we have to make sure everything works well before it goes GA. And then what we try to do is as quickly as we possibly can, take that same enablement and make it available to the entire ecosystem. And so if you look at our history, it's easy for companies to say, we're not getting enough attention from where we want this or that that we're not getting. But every single enablement program we've had in a very short amount of time, we've been able to expand it to just about everybody who's interested. So if you look at our testing and compatibility list, just about every storage vendor is on there, big, small, medium. Our API program is now available to more and more vendors. As VP of Global Alliance, as you have all people understand the importance of the ecosystem, what do you draw any learnings from the way Microsoft built out its ecosystem and back in the day? Are those comparisons fair and what's different? So I think Microsoft in the 80s and 90s did a tremendous job of building out an ecosystem. In fact, they were one of the first ones to realize that if you got developers to build a lot of applications for your operating system, it's going to pull your operating system. So certainly there are lessons there for the entire industry. And I think we've seen a lot of companies take pages from the Microsoft Playbook and implement that in the last 10, 15 years. And I think to some extent you saw mainframe companies do that earlier as well. So it's something that has become prevalent in the industry. So for us, we realized early on from the Microsoft example, from other examples, and certainly from customer feedback that we need to get more and more hardware and software working with our platforms. So you guys look at your business, or at least I look at your business, kind of infrastructure, platform, and applications, and you may look at it in a similar model. End user computing, okay. Can you talk about how you spend your time in the Alliance world amongst those various areas? It's a dynamic tension because you've got three, four product lines of support, completely different sets of ecosystems, very different companies. But at the same time, you know, you've got to respond to what customers are prioritizing. So we go by what customers are telling us, but I would say, you know, we, our ecosystem for the core virtualization is fairly mature. So the programs are well-defined. They've gone through several generations. So they're running really well. We're spending more and more time with ISVs to get and to support virtualization, to support our cloud applications platform, which is a V fabric product line, and to integrate to our end user computing products, which is the view and horizon product lines. So we're spending more and more time on emerging products, but at the same time, we can't take the eye off the core products because that's a very large, complex ecosystem with a lot of programs and dependencies that we have to keep running. And you may have just answered this next question, but we were talking earlier about, you know, VMware's market value. I know you can't comment on that. John and I have said we see VMware eventually becoming a $100 billion market value company larger than EMC in our opinion. That's where the, and that's why Tom Georgins we think is right. EMC's not going to sub-optimize its investment in VMware to sell more storage. It just won't do that because VMware is potentially a much, much larger asset. My question is, you're in a great place. VMware's a very hot company. The ecosystem is tremendous. The customers are so passionately loyal to you. So you must wake up and pinch yourself every now and then. But what worries you? What is keeping you up at night when you look over your shoulder? What are you concerned about? So we do pinch ourselves. I mean, VMworld a month ago was one of those places where you pinch yourself because it was 20,000 people and the passion and the seriousness was just mind-boggling. I've been to every VMworld we've ever had and that one, I was still pinching myself. So you're right about that. And it's a lucky and a good place to be. What keeps us up at night? I think competition certainly does. You see Microsoft, Oracle, Citrix, a lot of companies providing alternatives. I think customers now have choice with public clouds, right? So that's, and we're trying to enable more and more public clouds, but there are public clouds that don't use VMware. And so that's a choice for customers. I think we worry about keeping up the growth rate and scaling the organization, maintaining our culture to drive that growth rate. That's an ongoing effort. You can't take culture for granted. You can't take scaling up for granted and scaling up, it's one thing to go from 50 people to 500, 500 to 5,000 and then now we're over 10,000. And at each stage, you're constantly reinvigorating, reimagining the organization. So that's an important thing. And then it's just new technology.  We're always looking out and coming up with new things, and innovating, and making sure we're in tune with customers. Could you share with us Paul Moritz's, he's not very public, he does his keynotes. He hasn't been on the cube yet. So Paul Moritz, you have to come on the cube. When you're ready, you can come on. I'll take care of you. Give some insight into Paul Moritz. He's a charismatic leader internally. He has a technical chops. He's come from Microsoft, and we always talk about Paul Moritz at Microsoft, Pat Gelsinger at EMC, kind of the wind tail thing going on with cloud. But share with the folks out there about Paul Moritz. What's he like? How's he a leader? Does he really have that full command technically? And how does he motivate the troops internally? Well, Paul is a visionary, certainly. But he's also a well-rounded leader. I mean, he understands the business inside and out. Technically, he's very, very deep. I mean, and not just at one layer. I mean, he understands the entire stack, which is why you could argue he's really reinvigorated VMware, and we're now have product lines up and down the entire stack. But he's also very personable. You can sit down with him. He's very humble. He's very, very thoughtful. So he is what I would call a deep, deep thinker. He really thinks through issues from a lot of different angles. And I think a good piece of evidence to his strength of leadership is that really very few people have left VMware since he's come on board. We've grown, it's a lot of great opportunity, but a lot of people say internally that they're still here because of Paul. The question is, are you going to buy the next iPhone 4S? We've been covering the news today. Absolutely. The no iPhone 5. I switched over about a year ago and it's just an amazing device. So you're going to buy the 4S, even those no, did you hear no iPhone 5 today? No iPhone 5, I've been busy with meetings here, so I haven't paid attention to that, but I will go and check out what the latest and greatest is. You like to get the latest and greatest toy? I do, you got to keep up on stuff. I'm in, because I never bought the iPhone 4. I have to admit now, and it's all cracked, and I've just been waiting for iPhone 5. Yeah, I've got the three, so I'm ready to move to the next one. So you and I, but we're kind of in that zone when the iPhone 5 comes out six months from now, we're going to be kicking ourselves. So maybe we'll wait it out, let's see. So we got some news here from Mark Risen Hopkins. The iCloud is free with iOS, Sprint and ClearWire get the iPhone, and then you get a flat rate 4G data as low as $40 a month with the iPhone. Other things is, Sprint's all in. The iPhone 4 has a retooled, complete retooled iPhone, dual core processor, dual core graphics, two times faster processor, seven times faster graphics, 1080p video with noise stabilization, image stabilization and noise reduction, and you get this two antennas. So as I was speculating on the cube and earlier today, that the complete retool on the antennas, GSM and CDMA is actually in this iPhone and iOS 5. So the iCloud replaces mobile me and that's available on October 12th. So I'll see the Apple news going on today. So we're covering that. Well, thanks so much for coming on the cube. We appreciate the update on VMware. It's been great covering you guys. We had an amazing time for the folks out there watching here, Silicon Angle, Wikibon were at VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas and it truly was an amazing event. We had extensive coverage every day. You were on the cube. You guys were great to us. A wonderful location. Really appreciate that. Appreciate the help. We'll be here next year in Moscone. All right. VMworld, you're coming up in two weeks in Copenhagen. Yeah, that's right. We had Rick Jackson on. He told us you guys bought out San Francisco for the next 10 years. So we're very happy to be back in San Francisco. No offense to Vegas, but seven, eight times in Vegas a year is plenty. That's right. All right, great. Well, thanks very much. Appreciate it, bro.


Attention five points residents. This is a community notification of a new sexually violent predator in your area. Please stay tuned to the following short program for more information. Hi I'm technician Ron Hackett with the Denver Police Department.  Our state laws trickle down from federal government mandates. In 1994 we had the Jacob Wetterling Act which mandated that states would establish a sex offender list. Megan's law of 1996 said that the public would have access to those sex offender registration lists. The Pam Litchner Act of 1996 stated that some offenders might have to have lifetime registrations. And the Adam Walsh Act of 2006 unified sex offender laws across the country. In Colorado the legislature has determined that sexually violent predators by definition pose a higher risk to the community at large and therefore mandated that upon their release from the Department of Corrections the community must be notified. Sex offender notification in Colorado happens in two ways. The first is passive and ongoing through the sex offender registration process which is a list maintained by local police departments. The second way is active via community notification for those offenders determined to be sexually violent predators by the courts or by the parole board. Most sex offenders in Colorado are supervised by the criminal justice system in our communities. Most sex offenders engage in crossover behavior which means they may have been arrested for one type of crime but be apt to commit another.  There is no typical sex offender but all tend to be deceptive, manipulative, and secretive. 80 to 93 percent of sex offenses are committed by someone known to the victim. Sexual deviancy begins in mid to late adolescence. Sex offenses are not impulsive.  The community has a vested interest in helping offenders to be successfully managed in the community. Sex offenders have the same need for housing and employment as any other citizen. Any citizen who uses sex offender information to harass, threaten, or intimidate an offender will be subject to criminal prosecution. There are approximately 16,500 registered sex offenders in the state of Colorado. About 65 percent of convicted sex offenders are placed in the community on probation. The remainder are in the Department of Corrections or Community Corrections. Offenders may be caught for one type of offense but be at a high risk to commit another type. Crime of conviction is only one indicator of risk.  The offender's residents must be verified quarterly by the Denver Police Department. The full sex offender registration list is available by calling the Denver Police Department Identification Bureau at<PHONE_NUMBER>. Convicted felons and those with multiple convictions are posted online at denvergov.org slash police.   Now here's a look at the newest sexually violent predator living in Denver. Here's an overview of the registered sex offenders currently living in Denver. There are 2,534 total living within city limits. In Denver Police District 6, there are 485. Precinct 611 has 165 registered sex offenders. Of those, 115 have felony convictions and 50 have misdemeanor convictions. Stephen John Norton is a sexually violent predator currently living in Denver. He's 59 years old and was born on August 11, 1960.  He's currently a transient living in the 1100 block of Park Avenue West in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver. Schools located within one mile of this offender include University Prep School at 2409 Arapaho Street, Polaris at Ebert Elementary at 410 Park Avenue West, Gilliam School at 2844 Downing Street, Emily Griffith High School and Downtown Denver Expeditionary School both at 1860 Lincoln Street, Whittier Elementary at 2480 Downing Street, Rise Up Community School at 2342 Broadway, Denver Language School Gilpin at 2949 California Street. Parks located within one mile of this offender include Commons Park, Spear Boulevard Park, Sculpture Park, Benedict Fountain Park, City of Cuernavaca Park, Eddie Maestes Park, Creek Front Park, Williams Park, Quick Park, Downtown Playground, Stout Street Children's Park, Denver Skate Park, Skyline Park, Mistezo Curtis Park, Sonny Lawson Park, Park Avenue Parks, Realyard Dog Park, Civic Center Park. Recreation centers located within one mile of this offender include 20th Street Rec Center at 1011 20th Street, Glenarm Rec Center at 2810 Glenarm Place. Bus routes located within one mile of this offender include routes 48 and 44 Broadway and Lawrence Street, routes 48 and 44 Broadway and Arapaho Street, routes 8 and 38 Park Avenue West and Lawrence Street. A brief history of charges against this offender, sodomy person under 14. He's not currently on parole and registered with the Denver Police Department on March 5th 2020 as a transient living in the 1100 block of Park Avenue West in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver. Passed charges against this offender include kidnapping, child molestation, indecent exposure, forgery, parole violation. Stephen John Norton has been determined as sexually violent predator after meeting the following criteria. Criteria one, age 18 or older on the date of the offense or under 18 and tried as an adult. The offender was age 21 at the time of the offense. Criteria two, the crime must have been committed honor after July 1st 1997 and convicted honor after July 1st 1999.  The offender was convicted on October 22nd 1981 for sodomy person under 14, State of California. Criteria three, the relationship to the victim was one of the following. Victim was a stranger to the offender or the offender established or promoted a relationship with the victim primarily for the purpose of sexual victimization. The victim was a 14 year old female. The offender was not known to the victim. Criteria four, positive results or the passing of a risk assessment instrument administered by probation parole staff and a qualified treatment evaluator. Positive results include an assessment for the presence of a mental abnormality, a level of denial regarding the offense, treatment appropriateness and motivation, presence of sexual deviant interests. The offender was evaluated by the Superior Court of California County of Ventura with positive results verified by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation determining him to be a sexually violent predator.


The Kremlin said on April 27 it welcomed anything that could bring the end of the Ukraine conflict closer when asked what it thought of a phone call a day earlier between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But the Kremlin said it still needed to achieve the aims of what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine. The Chinese and Ukrainian leaders on April 26 spoke for the first time since Russia sent its troops into Ukraine in February last year, fulfilling a long-standing goal of Kiev which had publicly sought such talks for months. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was familiar with the details of what the two leaders had discussed and said their stances on the conflict were well known. We are ready to welcome anything that could hasten the end of the conflict in Ukraine and Russia achieving all the goals it has set itself, Peskov said of their phone call. As for the fact that they communicated that is a sovereign matter for each of these countries and a question of their bilateral dialogue. Just if Russia and China had discussed restoring Ukraine to its 1991 borders during a recent visit to Moscow by the Chinese leader, Peskov said, there was no discussion of that.